Juan Carlos Oganes' film-making and work blog.

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.