By: Valerie Milano
Palm Springs, CA (The Hollywood Times) 6/27/2024 – By now, most of us have used a ride service such as Uber or Lyft, and certainly, we’ve all had things happen that were, on some level, unusual. It is widely accepted that these services are a valuable asset to the business community.
There are certain professions, however, that are less likely to find Uber an appropriate option. Diplomats come to mind. So do A-list celebrities and secret agents.
This was the starting point for writer/director Nicholas Acosta as he sat down to pen the script for his comedy/action short film, “The Pickup,” which had its world premiere at the Dances With Films independent film festival, which wrapped up its 27th run this week in Los Angeles.
“The Pickup” centers around a bumbling novice Uber driver who unwittingly picks up a government spy who needs to deliver a top-secret package. As the story unfolds, the driver finds himself in the driver’s seat of a high-stakes game of cat and mouse.
Acosta, who sat down earlier this week for an exclusive interview with The Hollywood Times, said he’s never had that kind of an experience with Uber, but like the rest of us, there have been moments.
Click below to see our exclusive interview:
“The craziest thing that I have had that involves an Uber technically didn’t involve an Uber at all,” he said. “I was in my car, just driving somewhere, and this lady just randomly went up to my car and opened the door, about to get inside, asking ‘Are you for Cynthia?’ or something like that.”
Acosta explained he told the woman he was not the Uber ride she had ordered, but since he drives a Honda Civic, she just assumed he was. She apologized and closed the door.
“She thought I was her Uber, because I was driving a Civic,” Acosta said, laughing. “Apparently (Honda Civics) are the Uber car.”
Using that stepping-off point, Acosta crafted a story packed with laughs and taut action. With deadly assailants hot on their trail, the unlikely duo of driver (Adam McArthur) and agent (Acosta’s wife Xenia Leblanc) must navigate the city streets in a wild car chase involving bullets, crashes, and explosions at every turn.
Acosta, who also wears a wide array of hats for “The Pickup,” including producer, cinematographer, art director, visual effects coordinator, special effects coordinator, editor, camera operator, and stunt performer, said the film was born from personal necessity brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic.
“My wife and I were unemployed,” he said. “I had been let go from my job after only six months of working there. We were boyfriend and girlfriend at the time, we weren’t even married, and I had only felt comfortable moving in with her because I had that job.”
Acosta said he and Leblanc were, “making some projects, entering some contests online, some stay-at-home challenge kind of stuff. We won some, we lost some. But it got to a point where we said, ‘let’s do something cool.’”
Because of the pandemic, the streets of Los Angeles were empty, and Acosta saw his opportunity.
“I had been wanting to do a car chase movie for a while,” he said. So, he began work on the story with the idea of a super spy and an Uber driver. But the original concept was for the spy to be the driver and the passenger the comic relief. Acosta said he imagined a Jason Statham-Transporter type, who was out of work due to the pandemic. But he couldn’t get the jokes to connect. Close but no cigar. So, he swapped roles, putting the Uber in the hands of the comic relief and the agent in the back seat, playing it straight. The result is filmmaking gold.
“The jokes came out more fluidly, it started getting funnier and that’s when I realized ‘OK, this is what I can do with it.’”Acosta said. Now the challenge was the film’s budget: $6,000.
“I had certain visuals that I had planned that I wanted to do, so I was trying to make those work as well,” he said. “I knew I had to work within our budget, so I wrote things that I knew I could roughly pull off.”
With a shooting schedule of 12 days spread over nine months, Acosta and his team put together a film that’s funny and action packed, and features the total destruction of three cars, a motorcycle, and a tow truck.
Or does it?
“No actual cars were damaged making this film,” Acosta said, a sly grin crossing his face. “What you are seeing in the movie are toy cars that are getting destroyed.”
Nicolas Acosta is not only a talented filmmaker, but he’s also a magician, and “The Pickup” is the finest kind of magic. Produced under the flag of Acosta’s company, Unrendered Media, the film has a running time of 7 minutes, 51 seconds.
Along with Leblanc (“Orange is the New Black”) and McArthur (“Star vs. the Forces of Evil,” “Jujutsu Kaisen”), the cast also includes Sam Puefua as “Delta,” who is Alpha’s boss and utters the completely unexpected line: “Who in the hell ordered an Uber?!”
