Juan Carlos Oganes' film-making and work blog.

Thursday, January 31, 2013

Timotea Vernal dream sequence.

This very next day was shot on location at the San Juan Grande hacienda. This place dates back from the war times and the church even further back (1752 and built by the Jesuitas).

Today's scenes are Timotea Vernal's dream sequence.

Love this place. Very magica. Again, wishng I had lots of money to purchase such a place. Remains of past times, of much history.

Strange doubling effect taken by the behind-the-scenes photographer.



Whats a dream without fog? :P

The roof scenes.


Reapplying mustaches and prosthetic.


Chilean soldiers ready to roll.

The church's inside.

Ugarte's actions.
Checking the scenes with crew and extras.

Wednesday, January 30, 2013

Timotea Vernal's departure.

Timotea Vernal's departure to Europe scenes. Downtown filming went very well and even though the heat nowadays is unbearable (gets close to 30 C) and even worse with the lights and heavy wardrobe, the takes went pretty well. The scenes captured happened as envisioned and that a thing sometimes directors can't say for there's always things that happen that forces you to adapt to your environments. We just had to start late for there was another event-seminar next door and the PA sound was loud. Had to rush things during filming and have all the lights ready for when that other thing got done.

But it all went well. Very well :)

Putting lots of lights outside to reinforce sunlight.

Dreaming.

Lucrecia welcoming Ugarte.

Timotea's dream.

Explaining moves and intentions.

Screen capture: Timotea's frustration.
Screen capture: Ugarte's words.
Screen capture: Timotea and Alfonso - Lovers forever.


Tuesday, January 29, 2013

New locations for Timotea Vernal dream sequence

These weeks of negotiations with a local exclusive club didn't go well in the end. After being gladly given the green light back in 2010 when I was in the pre-production stage, the president of the club liked very much the idea of giving me the club for two days. This club (won't mention the name now), is a historical one, for two of the national heroes I'm portraying in the film were the actual founding members of it back in the 1860's before the war.

For me it was important and such an honor to be able to film in such a place where I'm sure many of the events that later happened during the war were discussed and talked about by our heroes. So, a few weeks ago I knocked on their door to finally film there as agreed beforehand, was such a let down to learn the president is very ill at the ICU and the vice-president took over, totally ignoring all the president's promises and offerings and denying such a valuable help. looking for an alternate location with similar arquitecture for the Alfonso Ugarte and his mother Rosa Vernal scenes.

Today, went to check again a location I considered back in 2010 also: the amazing San Juan Grande hacienda. I remember checking it as I drove by it on my way to Chorrillos. Run by the Canevaro foundation, I managed to get permission by visiting them on one of their main offices downtown and also found a possible alternate location to shoot the Rosa Vernal scenes. The staircase in their offices are great and somewhat similar to the former one at the club.

The "hacienda" is the same as when I visited time ago. Now, we will film there the Timotea Vernal dream sequence.

Canevaro Foundation downtown.
The beautiful glass tiles.
The floor tiles dating back to those old days.
The amazing ceilings. I love those shapes.
The staircase.
The hallways at the San Juan Grande hacienda.


That tree is the trademark of the San Juan Grande hacienda. It dates back from the war times and history tells that a small boy used to climb to the top to see and tell if the chilean troops were approaching. He was shot down by them. The tree has fallen like 8 years ago.


The chapel. Typical of any great hacienda of those times.



Inside the chapel.

Statues inside.

The hacienda inner patio.

The chapel altar.

Cross in the hacienda. They used to mark the ground limits.

Big halls.

Surrounding houses that belonged to the servants.

Wednesday, January 16, 2013

Barranco location: Reynaldo Arenas' scenes

A new year 2013.
As always, leaving bad things behind and welcoming a present and a full year of bright possibilities.

These first weeks have been mostly of waiting for actors to come back from their own holidays (will have my own when this job's done I hope) and preparing the next locations for filming. Close to completion but still many scenes happen in different locations.

The war survivor scenes happen in Tacna in 1929 in the script, so Barranco was chosen because of those old middle-class houses that still exist today from the era.

I always thought of a script mostly as a guide in many things and even when one writes it with calmness and all the time available to imagine what can be done and not, in the real world sometimes things work or don't and you have to improvise or better yet, improve what's written because you realize you can do more than what's written on paper. That's exactly what has happened with the film. What I originally imagined 7 years ago when writing it was this or that and when actually filming it, saw many things that I discarded in the prior process, could be done with just some effort and imagination. And so we did. The huge cannons are an example and also the miniatures ships. Planned to do it all computer animated (CGI) but finally decided to do those the old school way. Real things tend to look somewhat different and have a way into people's perception that sets it apart from nowadays technology. Look at Blade Runner or Star Wars and many people will say they prefer them compared to the latter films with much more action and scope thanks to multilayer computer animated ships and landscapes. I have never tried it before in such a scale I'm doing it now but....Im going in the right direction :)

While walking in Barranco, was suggested the house of one of the extras of the film who happen to live there and told me he had a century old house. It was Raul's house and "my God!": the house is beautifully perfect!: big patios and gardens, high ceilings like in the old times, narrow doors with windows in them, a backyard with old branchy trees and full of fallen leaves like if it was seldom taken care of (the survivor is a somewhat working-class person), also, much of the furniture is old and could be used to look like in the 20's. Just need some painting and remodeling here and there to make it A-ok.

Reynaldo and Pold will portray a father-and-son relationship in the film with the Reynaldo being the survivor in his old years. Had more copies of the script printed and got together for some dialogue pass-thru.

I so love Barranco. So much history in one neighborhood :)

Script reading with world-class actor Reynaldo Arenas.
Barranco. Beautiful.
The Puente de los Suspiros. Magical place. Wish to have a house nearby one day.
The stais down to the bridge. That red house at the left which is now a cafe, used to be a bar called Nosferatu and was a witness to my band Alter Ego 's debut gig back in 1992.

The high ceilings with wind doors.
Old houses like ranches in Barranco.
Behind the Ermita. Barranco is so full of history!

Abraham Valdelomar's house behind the Ermita. Haven't been here before and its like frozen in time!
Entrance to Raul's backyard.

Inside Raul's house.

The creepy garden in Raul's backyard.

Dormitory rooms. Just as envisioned :)

Old XX century furniture.