Juan Carlos Oganes' film-making and work blog.

Saturday, June 25, 2011

Shooting more footage for the Alto del Alianza battle





Shooting more footage and takes in Ancon outside of Lima for the film's opening scenes of the Alto del Alianza battle.
Moving such quantity of people, many cannons, rifles and horses has been quite hard on my wallet but it adds up to the film's strength.

Peruvian soldiers like the Husares and Chilean soldiers like the Cazadores del Desierto were finally shown together with Bolivian Colorados and Aroma.

Saturday, June 18, 2011

Vavasseur cannon almost done. Parrot still on the way.













As the Vavasseur and Parrot cannons' contruction continues I get so excited to see all coming to shape. The base of both cannons are done and just needs some touch-ups and finishing/painting. The 250 lb. Vavasseur is a bit smaller than the 500 lb one in Callao near and outside the Real Felipe fortress. The size of the one in Arica is what I'm going for. Transportation and being able to dismantle and construct it again is the key here and also shape accuracy.

Compared to pictures taken while there at the top of the morro in Arica, this thing is quite big.
So excited to see it almost done finally!!

Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Cannons building progress




The last days it's been quite of heavy working and preparing all for the next weeks' battle scenes in Ancon and in the Morro Solar.

The cannon's contruction is progressing and decided finally to make the tube in metal instead of wood as the base will be for I want to make it fire by preparing a channel pathway inside for the explosives and powder. Thought of doing it in post with computer-generated smoke and fire but I'll try to have it live and for real also. Let's see what happens. It's gonna end up being heavy still but compared to the 18 tons of pure iron in the real ones, it's worth the effort. Even if I wanted I don't think I'd be able to transport the real one up to the top of the Morro and back. Lol!! So this is the deal now.

Dropped by Callao yesterday to take more measurements of the one near the bay to have it as exact as possible. Even if it's a 500 lb Blakely, the Vavasseur one was a bit smaller at 250 lbs. but the shape and form holds similarities. I think at least one of the biggest Vavasseur cannon will be finished by the weekend. One has to be around, in person and putting a lot of pressure on the workers as they tend to stall as it's been noticed. Dislike that attitude but...that's how it works around here. Will take more pics soon.

Thursday, June 9, 2011

Horses, horses





Went to check again the location for the Elmore capture and imprisonment.
As stated in history, he tried to blow up 50 cavalry and soldiers sent by Baquedano to check on th railway conditions so he could send the whole chilean army down to Arica from Tacna via train and Elmore's mission was to blow up the railroad to delay the advance of the chileans.

While in Chacalluta valley up north of Arica, he stumbled upon the bunch of horses and soldiers and tried to blow them up and after it he was captured.

Now this is a perfect location and also am happy for I got myself 40 horses with riders and a bunch of soldiers to shoot these scenes. The remaining ten will be computer generated.

Tuesday, June 7, 2011

July 7, a glorious day.

A day like today, July 7, 131 years ago, 1900 Peruvians reached glory defending our nation's honor under the premise to fight until the end, with bravery, with pride, protecting our soil firing up to the last cartridge. New history is written now, gentlemen. Let's make of the sacrifice and legacy that our heroes left for us - normal human beings like you and I that did what few do nowadays- worth their effort. May whoever is upfront of our nation now lead us to a country of peace, growth, education, health and knowledge so we can value this land we are standing on and learn once and for all that we are bigger than our ordeals. Viva el PERU!!

Wednesday, June 1, 2011

Vavasseur and Parrot cannons construction






After some days of shuffling the idea and doing some budgeting, decided to build from scratch two cannons to take and place at the top of the Morro Solar to be the artillery pointing at the ocean under Guillermo More's command: a huge 250 lbs. Vavasseur and a big 100 lbs. Parrot cannons.

Went today to show the carpenters some designs I was drawing and pictures I gathered around of the existing ones today in museums. It will be up to real scale so they will end up being huge. The tricky part will be to make them be easily disassembled to transport it all the way to the top of the Morro Solar and assemble them there and back.

I'll be dropping by the workshop often to supervise construction as those cannons are antique now and avoid construction errors regarding design.