Mafe Maria: Personal stories by autism parent mentor, Maria Stultz

Shark Wave

Some afternoon last month, I showed Joaquin how my sister and I used to play “storm at sea” on our beds when we were little. He had been toying mentally with the idea of making a new film, and after getting shaken, thrown, and rescued in my pretend dramatic storm, he jumped out of the bed and declared himself completely ready to film right away. “Shark Wave” is the result of this spurt of energy and inspiration he took from “Deep Blue Sea”, a dramatic shark movie we saw a few weeks prior to the project.

Growing up from our last big filmmaking project, this time Joaquin took charge of the production. He directed this one very closely, edited all the video and added the sound effects, pursued his own vision developing the story, even writing the script of a few scenes before shooting. An overall direction to make this story as realistic as he could determined several of his decisions, like rejecting footage where I made the shark talk or had the characters refer to themselves as “the heroes of the film”; he also included green screen effects where he wanted more realistic backgrounds than our quick DIY stages.

Theatric Trailer

Watch

In an interesting development, Joaquin has requested that we provide a way for viewers to submit monetary donations to him if they choose to do so. When asked about his motivation he’s told me he wants to start earning money from his efforts now, so he won’t have to worry too much providing for himself in the future —I don’t know yet how I feel about this mirror of the messages I’m giving him. Unfortunately for the reach of his audience though, he decided to film in Spanish and got lazy at adding English subtitles. Still the drama speaks for itself, so although you may miss some funny dialogue, language may not be a barrier to enjoying this thrilling story.

If you enjoyed this film, please consider sending Joaquin a tip with your thoughts: [donation button removed]

Welcome to my parent mentoring service

Hello, you Super mom of an Awesome autistic child.

If my experience and words speak to you, I invite you to learn about my mentoring service for autism parents.

Intentional parenting, development, and education for our children is my passion. My purpose is to empower you with the emotional and practical support you need to thrive as you reach for every outcome you dream of for you and your child’s life.

Learn More

2 comments:

  1. On , Amparo Rodriguez wrote:

    Querido Joaquin! Divina la pelicula! Disfrute mucho y me,rei cantidades!
    Comprendo por q se tuvo q matar al tiburon!
    Era la vida la que estaba en juego.
    De ninguna manera se puede justificar matar. Solo enmesas circunstancias.
    Linda la musica y el romance.

    Nano te va a tener para cuando vengas una donacion!
    Besos!

  2. On , Kim wrote:

    Hi Joaquin! What a great film! You are so creative and imaginative. Your story had everything – adventure, suspense, friendship, romance, bravery, chivalry! Wow! I do not think I will be swimming in our beach this summer! hahaha (seriously).
    Love you!
    Kim and Fernando