Juan Carlos Oganes' film-making and work blog.

Thursday, December 1, 2011

The Morro de Arica attack scenes....soon

Me at the top of the Morro Solar back in Oct 2009 when location scouting.
The Morro de Arica siege scene is scheduled to be filmed in about ten 12 days finally: the weather is fine and the sun shines more compared to months ago. The biggest scenes of the film (together with the Alto del Alianza battle) and the most massive.
I feel quite anxious and with lots of adrenaline thinking on the littel time left to prepare for it as trenches and sandbags need to be built on top of the Morro Solar and also take the huge Vavasseur canons I built to the very top. The zone is somehwat near a shawnty town at the other side of the hill so if left overnight uncared for it might get stolen.

How the scenes will look like.
Checklist: 300 extras to play soldiers, 7 mountain krupp cannons, 1 big 250 lb Vavasseur built for the ocasion, 1 100 lb Parrot cannon, 2000 blank bullet rounds, 4 horses for officers, sabers and swords, 310 uniforms, fake blood, prosthetics, a big tent for the cast and crew, food and water for 3 days for everybody, energy, 300 rifle, a camera crane / jib-arm, batteries and accessories, first-aid kits.



Have to check if I'm missing something.

The fog or "camanchaca"
This will be "the" scene. The death of such a hero as Francisco Bolognesi, Guillermo More and Alfonso Ugarte will be filmed for posterity.

My beloved "red special" taking me everywhere.
Can't even write down how excited and anxious I am now. No matter how many years in this field -to be able to do this film and things of this scope- is overwhelming. Touches me to tears for it's a dream come true. A dream that started way back in the early 80's when young.