Juan Carlos Oganes' film-making and work blog.

Saturday, March 31, 2012

Parrot - Voruz cannons and battleship in the works / New trench location

Early today we all started work: one team went up to the morro again to undo all the sandbags and bring them to the new location while I visited Alejandro's workshop and checked on the battleship miniature building process (well...not so miniature after all for this first one is 1.70 meters long. The next longest one -the Manco Capac- will be 1.90 meters long). So far, so good. The one half-way there as of now is the Cochrane. The chimney, poles and cannons were there and some parts still missing but I can see it coming together fine. The Parrot cannon parts are almost ready to be put together and commissioned for another Voruz 70 lbs one. Will be ready by Easter weekend and ready to be taken to Ancon for assembly. It is a relieve in a way to have another do this new cannons. Back in June/July last year when I was making the Vavasseur, the thrill of seeing it all coming together was such a great feeling, like watching your baby being born, but it takes a lot of precious time that needs to be devoted to other production and administrative tasks. This time I had to delegate the job but I'm glad it's in good hands.

Then we all met at Puente Piedra's desert mountains to check the chosen location. Explaining how the trenches and cannon positions are gonna be. The abandoned trench found was used for some kind of firing practice area and now it's all full with debris, garbage and waste. Some walls need repair in order for them to be almost 90 degress straight. The only problem is that it's kinda deep (a little more than 2 meters while 1 meter is all we need) so some filling and shoveling needs to be done all along the 20 meter long trench. The soil is rocky and full of hard surfaces showing that a few days of hard work are ahead. Seems like Easter isn't gonna be so relaxed after all.

Sandbags and rock filling will be used to make a natural "bed" for the Parrot and Voruz cannons to raise it a meter above ground level, otherwise it won't work.

At the mountain behind it there's a huge logo made with white painted rocks so I need to be careful with camera framing. I'm sure so digital replacement will have to be done to erase it.

Cochrane in the works.

Checking the cannon pillboxes from the other side.
The back of the 150 lb Parrot cannon.

The cannon trench.

Explaining the artillery moves.





The trench walls are fragile so some work needs to be done on them.

I'm glad to have a great team of people.