Alfonso Cuarón

Director, producer and screenwriter of “ROMA 2018”

Macias Otoniel
Biography:
• Alfonso Cuarón Orozco was born in Mexico City in 1961, he is a
Mexican director, screenwriter, film producer, film editor and
photographer, Alfonso won the Oscar for best director for Gravity
(2013) and Roma (2018). He is famous for being one of the most
outstanding Mexican filmmakers of his generation.
• Cuarón began directing the film "Only with your partner" in his native
country, he added that he obtained world recognition with the films:
"The little princess", "And your mother too." After being able to
participate in emblematic productions such as "Harry Potter and the
Prisoner of Azkaban", "Children of Man" and "Gravity", a film where he
also won the Oscar for best director, being the first Latin American
director to obtain an Oscar for best director; he has also won the
Oscar for Best Editing. His 2018 film Rome received multiple
decorations.

• Talent and creativity shine in his family, his son, Jonás, and his
brother, Carlos Cuarón, are directors and writer. While his daughter,
Bo Cuarón, is a singer.
Filmography:
Les Pyramides Bleues - 1988
Romero - 1989
Only with your partner - 1991
The Little Princess - 1995
Great Expectations - 1998 Children of Men - 2006
And Your Mom Too - 2001 Nail year - 2007
Great Expectations - 1998 Rudo y Cursi - 2008
And Your Mom Too - 2001 Gravity - 2013
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban - 2004 Mowgli: Legend of the Jungle - 2016
Chronicles - 2004 Rome - 2018
The Assassination of Richard Nixon - 2004 Witches - 2020
Critics about Alfonso Cuarón:
• His films stand out for their constantly moving camera, this
technique created a trend that provides the viewer with a real
temporality and a space that is perceived as real. We can appreciate
this technique in the film "Children of Men", the critics applauded
him for providing a documentary approach using the camera.

• Critics were able to appreciate the symbiotic relationship between

the viewer and the action on screen that Cuarón recreates with his
technique of long moving shots.

• In the film "Gravity", the critics were satisfied with his masterful use
of light and the study of scientific principles that is reflected in the
film.
• Most of the critics applauded Cuarón with his film "Roma", the
exquisite details to recreate the 70s, it is also spectacular that he won
multiple decorations for the film Roma. Although there is a small
group of critics who describe "Rome" as a film that lacks a plot and
projects the conditions in which Cleo works as something healthy,
perhaps it is post-culture doing its thing with respect to the opinion
of some critics. that ignore all the conjugation of techniques to
create the film "Rome".
The script:
• Cuarón made the decision to create the script after the film “Gravity”
in 2013. The script is inspired by real events that Cuarón himself
experienced when he was a child. Cuarón declared that the script is
set in the 70s, because the events that occurred in that decade will
result in the Mexico we know today. For the creation of the script, a
meticulous investigation of the historical events of the time was
carried out and people with whom Alfonso Cuarón lived in his
childhood were interviewed through telephone calls. The script has
as its main character Cleo, a domestic helper, a character inspired by
the domestic helper who saw Cuarón grow up, the name of this
woman in real life is Liboria Rodríguez. The name of the script is
Roma by the name of the “Colonia Roma” that saw Alfonso Cuarón
grow up.
The casting:
• To select the actors, it was taken into account hiring actors very
similar to the family of Alfonso Cuarón of the 70s, for the domestic
helpers the young Yaritza Aparicio was taken, a woman of indigenous
descent who received the leading role in the film, you have to add
that Yaritza at first had no acting preparation, but has great
potential to play the role, she learned the Mixtec language for some
dialogues in the film.
The filming:
• It was made in 2016 by the production house "Esperanto Filmoj" with
a budget of fifteen million dollars, Mexican companies participated
in the filming. The shooting lasted 6 months and I did it
chronologically. An interesting detail is that those involved in the
filming had no knowledge of the outcome of the film, week by week
they would be informed of the next scenes and the script.
Camera and formats:
• Cuarón decided to take the position of cinematographer, since his first
option had no time availability and another option could be an English-
speaking cinematographer, but Cuarón wanted fluidity between the
cinematographer and the filming staff.

• The camera used has a 65 mm format Arri Rental Alexa65 and the
lenses used are Prime 65, these tools were used to present the final
product in digital cinema and 4K streaming
Visual effects:
• Chroma was used to recreate the background of many settings, this
helped to create an organic and believable period setting. It was a
challenge to polish the scene where Cleo saves the children on the
beach, this scene was polished using visual effects. It was proposed
that the film be black and white to appeal to the context of the story.
Art direction:
• Eugenio Caballero was the Art Director of this film, he also lived in
Colonia Roma in the 70s in his childhood, therefore he knew that it
would be needed to set the film in the 70s. It was necessary to hire
Anna Terrazas for the costumes and in In the film we can see how
there is a conjugation and harmony in clothes that were used in the
70s and 60s because in Mexico such clothes were still used.

• For the cars that are seen on the streets, you had to buy and rent
cars from the 50s, 60s and 70s. In this way, the realism of the Mexico
of the 70s was reached, because at that time they used circles from
the 50s, 60s and 70.

• It was investigated using old photos to set the film in the 70s, many
of the buildings had changed, to achieve an exact recreation the art
direction department was asked to create drawings and plans of
what the "Colonia Roma" was like in the 70. These drawings were sent
to the Visual Effects department to recreate them with the help of
chroma.
• To decorate the streets, it was investigated what type of
advertisements existed in the "Colonia Roma" in the 70s, permits
were requested to place advertisements from the 70s, with the
brands in each of the advertisements as neon signs.

• As it had been proposed that the film be in Black and White, it was
sought to use a specific gray scale that is characteristic for the film, it
sought a gray scale that is the hallmark of the film "Rome", therefore,
many of the Furniture and objects had to be of a specific tonality,
although the color of the furniture was out of tune with the real color
of the scenery.

• To recreate the protest scene, several local actors were used and an
empty lot was used to build some streets and emblematic places that
no longer exist.
Sound:
• The sound was in charge of Sergio Dias, who investigated what
sounds were characteristic in the 70s. One of the most popular
sounds was the characteristic street vendors of Colonia Roma.
Locations:
• They had in mind to film in the authentic apartment 21 where
Alfonso Cuarón and his family lived, but the place had been
remodeled twice and it did not have the appropriate conditions for
filming, therefore, the apartment across the street, department 22,
was taken. , which is very similar to department 21, but only the
exterior was used, while a set was recreated for the interior of the
house. Sections of streets that still preserve the architecture of the
70s were used. The "Hospital de Especialidades de México" was used
for the hospital scenes, because this hospital still preserves the
authentic facade of the 70s.