Robert Perry
HUM 110
Film Sequel- Final Project
11 June 13
Chalupa Martin Analysis
The intro song starts from black screen like Nacho Libre. The intro song gives a similar
feeling to “I am” intro song in Nacho Libre. Fade in from black to opening shot over a 2-3 second
interval. I wanted to give some foundational intro images to get audience to be thinking about
whom this movie is about. I obviously don’t have trailers or advertisements like original film did
to give light as to who Chalupa is, so I used these few intro shots to reflect Chalupa’s character.
These intro shots are 5-10 seconds long, somewhat long, probably long enough for audience to get
ancy in anticipation for the following shot (done by design).
In first shot of Chalupa, he immediately reads letter as Nacho does. This letter is shown
from perspective of Chalupa with fingers holding paper (sort of) like Nacho Libre did. These
scenes crop out body of Chalupa with only showing his hands or arm, like beginning of Nacho
Libre. These shots are intended to show Chalupa getting dressed like Nacho did, he “arranges”
clothes like Nacho does in opener. The audience doesn’t see Chalupa’s face until his identity is
exposed (when audience learns that he is a butler). Woman who snaps fingers is supposed to
show parallels to bossy mean elders at orphanage who complain about Nacho’s cooking. Off
screen glass breaking when Chalupa drops tray, this was done because this was the only way I
could think of doing this scene. I didn’t want to literally break dishes on the floor, and I liked how
the diver was captured in this scene as the center of attention while the audience is obviously
imagining Chalupa dropping his coffee tray. When the woman gets up from chair with a mean look
on her face she looks just past camera, and so does Chalupa when it cuts to him. I tried my best to
resemble Nacho Libre shots of characters interacting face to face but it was difficult to get their
eyes to match up, to make it look like they are looking directly at each other. They are supposed to
be nearly looking directly into the camera, but not quite. I did this by holding my hand up next to
the camera and telling them to look where I place my hand. The movie title “Chalupa Martin” was
intended to be similar font and timing/location of title “Nacho Libre” in the original film.
Next we see a side view of Chalupa on bicycle, this was shot very similar to Nacho Libre.
When Jack Black is shown sitting on his motorcycle it is a direct side view about shoulder height
with him pointed to the right. The sounds in this film (like the letter falling to the ground in this
scene, the letter being unfolded and the book being set down in the opening scene, and the
snatching of towel and clothes from out of frame scene) are all exaggerated, fake sounds. I tried to
resemble the exaggeration of sounds in Nacho Libre. For instance in the beginning of Nacho Libre
young Nacho is shown in the cemetery doing wrestling moves and the audience can hear his arms
moving through the air because they are moving so fast (wanted to show connections between
Chalupa and Nacho, that they have natural inclinations that are similar to one another). I tried to
replicate this in a few scenes in this film. The letter is picked up, and shown from point of view of
Chalupa again when he notices some writing on the back. The zoom in this shot was done because
I feel that Jared Hess (Nacho Libre director) would shoot it this way if he were to film it. This shot
gives the audience a certain feeling that many of his shots communicate. When the computer
generated Spanish accented voice reads the letter, the dialogue “Big X, Big O, Big O, little X, etc.” is
taken directly from the film Nacho Libre. When Nacho writes a letter to Sister he writes this at the
bottom of the letter. This is a well-known (I think) scene from the movie so I chose to incorporate
it to give some cohesiveness to my film and Nacho Libre.
Next, when Chalupa rides off to the right of the screen the transition follows him as it
swipes to the right across the screen. This exact same transition occurs in Nacho Libre when
Nacho rides his motorcycle to the right and off the screen, the transition follows him. Again, the
song “Dune Buggy” matches the feeling of the first film Nacho Libre (at least to me) so I decided to
use it here. Oliver Onions is the artist of all the music I used in this film. In this portion of the film,
various riding shots were done similar to Nacho Libre especially the riding shot in front of the
yellow building. Nacho was shot riding his motorcycle from long shots to show some environment
and context around him when he was riding. I tried to do this in these scenes.
When Nacho arrives to beach to hear what his father Nacho has to say, I put subtitles
simply so that the audience could follow along with what the voice was saying. This is a computer
generated Spanish accented voice and it’s supposed to be ridiculous as it sounds. Instantly the
audience knows that this isn’t Jack Black’s voice, and it’s an extremely weak attempt at replicating
his voice, but it’s funnier (in my opinion) than if I did a voiceover in my own voice and tried to
replicate Jack’s voice. But the subtitles have no use in the look or feel of the film; no subtitles were
used in Nacho Libre.
The ending of this film is supposed to show Chalupa as a hero (similarly as Nacho was
shown as a hero at the end of Nacho Libre). Camera is shot tilted up at Chalupa in this end scene as
well as the beach scene to show him in a position of authority and bravery. The explosion/kids
escaping shot is extremely cheesy and I did what I could with this scene. I wanted to do animation
over live action film using Adobe Flash (similar to the movie Who Framed Roger Rabbit), but this
program proved to be way over my head and I couldn’t begin to create animation that I could lay
over this footage. The kids are “cropped” out of these shots because I couldn’t show them using
animation. It was the easiest way for me to show Chalupa talking to these kids and I didn’t know
how to do it otherwise. I did what I could with the end of this movie and I did my best to be
creative with what I could do. The end is very terribly done but I’m no moviemaker, I could have
made it much better if I knew how to use Flash but I unfortunately couldn’t figure it out.
Lastly, the entire video (look) of the film was overexposed to give a light-hearted, sunny
feeling to the audience like Nacho Libre did. I wanted more of a yellow light tint, but I didn’t know
how to do this in iMovie. The end credits are intended to reflect the true character of Chalupa and
show the difference in his demeanor from the beginning to the end; being emotionless and quiet to
being emotion-full and having several lines of dialogue at the end. The credits were supposed to be
a visual version of his personality and up-beatness.
I had a lot of fun in the making of this film, and I owe a lot of credit to my main actor. He
was a trooper and I couldn’t have done this film without him. I learned a lot about how to shoot a
film to portray a certain feeling/attitude while creating this project. If I were to do it again I would
probably spend a lot more time and try to master Flash because I’m overall pretty happy with the
beginning and middle of the film, but the end I don’t really like at all. I had visions that it would
turn out better than it did, but I think it turned out ok. That is the analysis of Chalupa Martin and
may the legend of Nacho live on forever.
Word Count: 1380