On Writing It:
This script was a little bit rushed, since I wrote it in about four hours, and we shot it the next day in around twelve to thirteen hours.
It all started when Landon (DP), Danny (Protagonist), and I sat down to spit some ideas about making a silent short film, but since we didn't have any money or any other people to ask to act in it, we had to also come up with an idea that didn't get boring while watching just one actor in a silent film (which is definitely possible, but it was a real challenge to us).
After around forty minutes of brainstorming, we were giving up, we just couldn't think of anything we found exciting. But just when we were losing hope... we heard the words that would start the life of the short.
"What if I act as two characters, that could be interesting" - Danny said. And man, oh man, didn't that get us excited? I mean, how didn't we think about that before! So, that's when I had the great, and super unique idea, (SPOILERS) on making Danny the same person, but one could represent one thing, and the other one the other.
At this point, we all knew we wanted to make a Psychological Thriller, or at least to attempt to create suspense. So, in that moment I remember of a concept I wanted to explore before, which were what Vices can do to yourself, and how we are unable to confront them, even if sometimes we always have the solution hidden in our drawer, we just decide not to, until it almost kills us.
After explaining what I wanted to explore, they both agreed they liked the message and concept, and I grabbed my computer and started writing. In around two hours I finished the first and only draft, where I showed it to Landon, and he absolutely loved it.
Although Counterpart is not the next Inception, this movie was inspired a lot by my own mentors (although they don't know it), Christopher Nolan and Denis Villeneuve.
That night me and him talked about the visuals, and we started to remember who owed us favors or was good enough friends to let us borrow equipment since we just didn't have any.
That night was full of phone calls and begging, but we managed to pull it off, and get a few lights from my friend Joselyn and all the camera gear from my friend Francisco (which we call Pancho)
And the next day we just went on, and filmed the whole thing, of course, changing some things while we went, but all giving ideas on what could make the story better and more interesting.
Here you have the script, which will probably have some spelling and grammatical mistakes, which I didn't change because I wanted the absolute first (and only) draft to be up in the website. So, check it out, and you can guess how many things we actually changed (like the quote on the screen that is from a scary video-game), and which things stayed the same.
Fun Fact: The original title was Counterfeit given by my good friend and roommate at the time Sonny, but the title was later changed to Counterpart, given by Danny (I suck with titles).