Juan Carlos Oganes' film-making and work blog.

Sunday, May 29, 2011

Second visit to the Morro Solar









As part of my second location scouting and preparing of the Morro de Arica battle scenes (the first one was back in 2009 as posted here: http://www.juancarlosoganes.net/2009/10/checking-locations-for-battle-scenes.html , some of the extras and me decided to go up to the top of the Morro Solar in Chorrillos. It is a steep, rocky and narrow road uphill that can be somewhat dangerous at times.
I wonder still how all equipment like hundreds of wardrobe, rifles, accesories, canons, sandbags and camera equipmetn are gonna be brought up there. It is a narrow road up.

The day was pretty cloudy and half way uphill it was heavily foggy not to mention the top where one could hardly see past 20 meters ahead. The wind was blowing hard and it even rained for a bit and we were all wet.

The extras wandered around to look for old bullet shells and stumbled into a few covered in green rust.

Humidity was so thick that all our shirts and hair became moist and wet. I could only show just a few parts of where I plan to shoot the scenes and Bolognesi's death.

I have to return to start preparing the scenario for the film shots.

Our navy hero Guillermo More was the commander of the Morro artillery and had at his disposal a 250 lbs. Vavasseur and two 100 lbs. Parrot cannons. As it would be extremely difficult to transport those very heavy large-scale artillery up there I'm planning to construct from scratch two of those cannons at natural scale replica together with their big bullets.

I'll shop around for possible materials to make it sturdy but light to carry around. Something easy to disassemble and assemble anywhere.

Sitting down to make some schematics.

Thursday, May 26, 2011

Meeting at ProMarina




Thanks to the good vibes and friendliness of Juan Jose Bardales, member our peruvian firefighter force here in Lima, I was introduced to Jorge Guillermo Guerrero, president of ProMarina, institution formed a bit more than 100 years ago to promote the labor and values of our glorious Peruvian Navy Force.

Mr. Guerrero was not only adamant to have a meeting as Bardales told me but also very excited to know the fact that a film about the Pacific War was being made. I wnet ahead to tell all the studies, research and years of work I've put inot this to make it a reality and even showed the trailer so he could "see" what I was talking about.

It is unnecessary to say that he was extremely excited and supportive of my cause.
It is so good to know there are still people around who value one's efforts to push people's national and patriotic conscience up.

In other words....I was in friendly waters. :)

Sunday, May 22, 2011

Arica siege fire














Again filming in Barrios Altos for the Arica siege scenes involving burning flames and fire shots. We enlisted the help of firemen who I had meetings with in the last couple days. Can't feel more happy that they are not only willing to participate and that they also simply love the topic at hand and realize the importance of the film.

With the participation of our faithful extras we finalized the scenes without much problems but with lots of adrenaline and safety. Daylight was shorter as its autumm here so I wrapped up the day just barely minutes before the necessary available light was too dark for filming.

Firemen are cool. Reminded me when little I wanted to be one. Oooh, childhood dreams...

Sunday, May 15, 2011

SITDEF 2011




SITDEF 2011. Amazed and proud of what we own and what we are pointing at.

Many things that people ignore we have was found here. Interesting stuff!

Saturday, May 14, 2011

Tight schedules











These last days have been quite of a rush actually trying to catch up with time lost after some incident that happened two months ago that delayed production somewhat. Now, with the matter almost resolved, filming days are packed and filled with as much work as possible. Not only health problems are still here but also the stress level has increased, blocking and boggling my brain several times during the day. It has been already three times in the past two weeks that I've felt like fainting during filming and I've only told production staff not to make it too obvious on the actors and extras. Wish I had time for rest and prolonged sleep.

We filmed desert attack scenes and also more takes on the Arica siege. Actor and old time friend Manuel Guerrero who portrays soldier Porras was brought from Brazil for a few days in order to finish up his scenes. Five days packed to the full to take advantage of his presence here and the costs of bringing him back from his Masters Degree he is doing in the neighbor country next to us. Had a body double played by one of the extras do his dieing scenes while re-filming pick up shots as the last day sunlight was fading away as it began to turn dark.

The curious anecdote was waiting for almost two hours for a bunch of vultures to stop at a precise area in the cornice of an old building so we could make them flee as we made some round rifle shots to scare them away to include in the film. The darn birds weren't cooperating only until the last minute when available light was starting to go down. Lucky for us, the long awaited event happened and I got my shot. Felt like Discovery Channel cameraman waiting for a snake or tiger to mate or something.

Whenever I have time I'll drop by the doctors office. I truly don't have a head for nothing else....Too much on my plate already.

Thursday, May 5, 2011

Peru-Nebraska (translated!)

Just stumbled into this lovely video.
Saw on TV an interview about this and I was moved inside as I used to live in a nearby city close to a town called Peru in Nebraska.

Wish there was a subtitled version so english speaking people would understand what the voice-over is saying while showing to another different culture how Peru's is with our typical social demeanor, our double-meaning jokes, our food, folk dances, our national drinks, slang humor, party mood, idiosyncrasies, etc.
The street smart jokes said are funny because we use more of a double-meaning street slang here and specially the ones done to the cop in the car is hilarious (the cop trying to play tough when he is confused, lol)!!
I'm sure latino's living there would get the joke perhaps as we share some of that culture. All done with friendly intentions of course.

Love this culture-merging video. We here in latin america are invaded by the northern culture so much it's of no surprise we know them for decades (their news, movies, economics, etc.), but are they of us? I know they aren't. There should be more videos like this so cultural differences narrow and we get closer together. Love it!! Marca Peru.