Found the location to shoot the famous Bolognesi response

Found a location to shoot the famous response Francisco Bolognesi gave to the Chilean enemy in 1880, two days prior to losing his life...and it's right here in Lima!! As any Peruvian and knowledgeable person about the war should know, he said to the enemy officer: "Sir, tell your commanding officer that Arica will not surrender. I have sacred duties to fulfill and I will do so 'till we shoot our last cartridge".
An example to every Peruvian or others who loves his country and has a healthy sense of patriotism.

The first time I went there (Arica) was back in 1982 and visited it again in 2005.
Now, I know that a real life replica is here and I'm able to use it!!

The real one is in Arica (picture below) and used to be later the Peruvian consulate in that city until 2000. Now it's a museum.

Inside, there is a reproduction of a picture taken the same day that the famous answer was given by Bolognesi.



UPDATE: It's has now been questioned to not be a picture of the actual "response" moment but a theater play just a few years later depicting the battle. It was in the posession of an old man living in Tacna and was bought by Genaro Parker (owner of Panamericana Television) in the early 90's while making a documentary about this topic. The theater play is assumed to be from the early 20th century, just about twenty years after the war. This is the digitally retouched version as the orginal was in poor condition and if you can see closely, some beards and faces look altered. Also there are give-aways of its fake authenticity as the light in the room doesn't resemble the actual lighting of the Bolognesi headquarter. It was only lit by candlelight and from windows but here it is well illuminated. Another fact is the Commander's uniform which doesn't match the original one (deep blue and red like the rest of the officers). In here it looks if it was of a clearer shade.

Here are the top officers uniforms that I'd be able to use so far. Just a matter of being given the green light by the peruvian army.

And this is the replica here in Lima. I'm so excited about it. The only problem is that the surroundings are scattered with modern buildings and stuff. Seems that computer effects and digital replacement will have to be used to erase them out for the shot.

Retaking an old project

I wrote in a prior post (don't recall which one) how into history I'm in.
Peru is rich in it and so it's the world but, being a Peruvian myself, I cannot stop being in awe about how many things shaped the place I live in and how many things a lot of people don't know about it. Maybe simply because of not being of their interest or because of being focused on something else.

Well, I may think of myself as a "romantic" about heroic stuff. Maybe because it inspires or becuase it serves me as a purpose to love life and appreciate it more.

One of the topics I'm very fond of is the Pacific War years (Guerra ddel Pacifico 1879-1883) and some particular events in it like the Battle of Alto del Alianza (Tacna) and the Battle of Arica.

Many years ago, 5 years I think, I wrote a script for a feature lenght film about it. I did a long research since the late 90's for I wanted to take it to the screen but shelved it for funding reasons.

Back in 2007, after coming back from the US in sept. for personal reasons I wanted to bring the project back to the front as to uplift my spirit a bit and do what I worked for for so long. This time I wanted to do make it just a short film among friends. I wrote another script to just focus on the emotional and personal side of our heroes and people around the matter. I visited a couple of possible locations also but things looked a bit difficult and after a strong event a month later, I shelved it again to focus on my healing.

Now, 2 years later, for same personal reasons I decided to recapture the project again and bring it to life. This time Im gonna try harder and put my best efforts in it. I already secured the wardrobe for civilians of the period (1880), I talked with fellow actor-friends of mine here and so far they are jumping in my "dream", I talked with some tech people and they are willing to help and the hardest part is to get the battle scenes a reality.

30 years ago there was a mini-series about the war and although the production was impressive (wardrobe, locations, props, uniforms, etc.), the acting and the directing/editing left a lot to be desired...but I wondered where those uniforms were now. The series was made by the Ministry of Education and I pulled some strings here and there for I have worked closely with them years ago and asked them about those TV series of three decades ago. They got rid of them already as it was old and getting eaten by moth and humidity. No wonder....so many years ago and knwoing how the government works doesn't come as a surprise to me. So I just have one options left: the Army.

I already had a meeting with one high rank colonel and he is in charge of a battalion that is able to perform the "soldiers extras" that I need, but getting as many uniforms of the period is gonna be a hard task. Having them made is out of the question now for it would cost a lot of money and I need hundreds.

I have seen on TV years back some performances done by the army when it's the anniversary of a battle and there were hundreds of them so Im sure the uniforms are somewhere. Just a matter to finding where. I have a meeeting next week with a general that is charge of the corresponding office and I'm sure he will be of great help.

So far, I'm here polishing the script, I have read countless books from army history, about Bolognesi (our national hero), about the weapons used in those times and the uniforms and colors they used (taking on what I researched years back to write the feature lenght film). So now, it's just a matter of finding the uniforms.

On Saturday I went to visit a member of the Pacific War forum I belong to. He happens to have a huge collection of real props and weapons of the war. He has more stuff u can see for real in a museum. What a dream!! It was really a pleasure to visit him and spend hours sharing info about the war and telling him what I plan to do.

I'm sure this film, if coming to the light, will get a lot of attention. I just wish it happens this time.
Not only for my liking of history or that period of time, but also to show fellow peruvians how the war was and what emotions were involved in it.

This is very important for me. I guess it's after all, what gives me a bit of light in thess times of hurdles. I guess that whatever happens after, If I get to do this the way I envision it, I can say for sure I'd be able to die in peace.

I just hope the stars get alligned for me this time.
I really need it.

Closing my eyes...partially.

Coronary crap...
Never thought it would happen.

"Utopía" behind-the-scenes video

I began editing the behind the scenes of the "Utopía" videoclip backn in october last year but sidetracked after so much happenings.
Now here it is...the extended version though. The short one isn't worth posting.
Do like this one better.

Here, the behind the scenes for the Alter Ego song "Utopia".

"Gaming By Design" - new film

Now here's the result. Added some more special effects and sound elements here in Peru.
The final version:

"Gaming By Design"
Oh!...by the way, the pass to view it is "utopia".

"Gaming By Design" is the latest film I did and was written by my friend Peter Myhr who also plays the lead actor. Along with other scripts of his, this one was somehow waving at us so he proposed me to make it.



Something that began as just talking turned into a nice project and just a few weeks later these came out.

So...after a week n a half of non-sleep editing, here it is folks.



Shot in HD 720p at 24fps using the Letus adapter, Tamron 28-75mm f/2.8 lens, Nikon 80-200mm f/2.8 D zoom lens, Canon 16-35mm f/2.8 II lens and the Canon EF 35mm f/2.0 prime lens.

Timed with our Proceso Cinematico Digital-PCD™ for film-look.

Editing "Gaming By Design"

Now editing, this little process has grown into a meaning of its own.
And I say this because it's my last project on this last trip here.

My friend Peter was kind enough to put his trust in me on his script and even allowed me to do some changes in it to pump its drama a bit more without loosing its tounge-in-cheek sillines.

The special effects are taking a bit more time than expected. Being a "virtual video game", so to speak, I'm making a lot of "video" effects and "defects" to sell the idea/concept. Lots of chroma key, color correction and bezier masked layers in After Effects. And then...the sound and music score.
So far, I'm running like hell editing full time without much sleep hoping to finish before I go back to Peru in some days.

It's amazing how much you can do now when concentrated and focused...and nobody would tell it was edited in a simple hotel room. UPDATE: I had to finish polishing the special effects in my laptop while flaying back to Peru.
I'll just do the final touches here in Lima.

Weekend filming

4 am and we just finished filming for this weekend.

We ran overtime as some little problems aroused that were fixed after a while.

Been a long week of shooting.

We'll do the last takes during the week.

I have slept only 2 hours in two days and a half.

I'm pretty exhausted.

Gaming By Design - new film

Pre-production has began on my new film. A short flix written by my friend Peter Myhr.

What I like this time compared to when I shot the anti-drug commercial is that Im surrounded now by people that have worked in the field for some years so they have the experience to pull of this braoder production. Finally, I can rely on people I feel confident with.

Some ex Nebraska Film Group members and friends are jumping in and we are all excited about it.

Im just happy that it has all become like a camaraderie and that it just started as a personal mission to make my friends Pete project come to life. I know how it feels to see one's baby up on the screen and more than happy to be one of the team to make it happen.

Some sections of the script need some tweeking and Pete was cool enought to let me re-write some parts for punch.

Now...on to work.

Anti Drug Commercial

And now the result...after a few days of editing.

Making the dream

This first day of shooting has been quite good. Things went smooth most of the way and time was mostly on our side. The second day (sunday) was full of electrical problems and some lights wouldn't work, but a way around it was found and had to use car lights to mimic a solution I tried a couple of times in Peru that worked fine. The only setback was that the Letus eats out half a stop and needed more light of what was available....so more cars were called for to help. Yes, just for the lights!

I have to say that doing things here are much difficult that in Peru. It's a lot of hassle to get things going, lack of support and an excess of laws that puts obstacles in everything.

To secure a place or location you need so much paper stuff or so much coordination that if not backing it up with the right amount of money you wont get far anywhere. I was lucky to have some clearance thought, thanks to the help of close people to me that had contacts.

In Peru there's not so much lawsuits for anything like here, not so much fear of giving, not so much fear of risking like in the US. If a location or simple image of a building shows in the shot they freak out and say no just for fear of the image being mishandled...no matter how much u explain what the idea is. I think people in the US would have to go and make business in Peru to know what I'm talking about and they agreed when I shared my stories of how I get things done over there. Things are gotten easier there. People are more supporting, warmer. I's sure if indie filmmakers here had the freedom I have in Peru, there would be more productions and more movies finished. The fear of lawsuits here is so strong. And that simply isn't just annoying...it's fatal to filmmaking.

Found out that ambulances here are not aloud to turn on their siren but ONLY if in a real emergency. The EMT's and the station could get in serious trouble for doing that. When I've shot in Peru similar situations, sirens could go off at any time and cars would pull over or clear away of the ambulance's path and then it could be turned off later....no big deal. Who cares anyway?

I could only have sirens and lights on for 15 seconds (after which the police came in the act, but I already had the shot "in the can" so to speak). Placed siren sound effects in post later to fill in the takes.

But I was lucky, I've got to meet and make the most amazing friends that putted so much of their support on my dream and thanks to them (actors and crew), this was able to become a reality.

Lights

I got myself some fluorescent lights for car-interior shots. I got the electrician of the hotel to help me get them together. It seems the mixture of warm and cool 6100K tubes will do the work.

The somewhat blueish color mixed with the outside warm street lights makes an excellent balance of cool/warm tones.

I've got an idea

I'm planning to direct a new commercial in a few days. Some clients are interested in my work and would like to see something on the line of what I proposed them.

I have a good public awareness idea in my head....I think I'm gonna focus on drug addiction. It's general, it doesn't relate to my clients but at the same time it relates to everyone. Gotta get some stuff together for it.

Streets of Omaha

This was done basically as a spoof ala The Sopranos series intro with additional footage for "seasoning".

My friend, actor Jerry Murray, drove with me around some of the streets of downtown Omaha that resemble in a bit that New Jersey look, so to speak. Shot some city landmarks along the way.

Done in HD 720p at 24fps using the HVX200 with the Letus Extreme and Canon / Nikon 35mm f/2.8 zoom lenses and primes.
Timed in After Effects and film-looked with our Proceso Cinematico Digital-PCD.

Customizing my rig...Tim Ovel and Indisystem

Past sunday I went to meet at last with Tim Ovel, the owner and brain of Indisystem. Being the company in Waterloo, I had to drive for some hours to get there from Omaha but it was worth the effort.
The reason for my visit? Simple in-person tech support and his offer to customize my rig to make it more usable and less cumbersome because of my own personal items used over the whole Indi kit. My tools have grown since I bought the whole Indi package (IndiRailsPro, IndiFocusPro, IndiMattePro and all the accesories that comes with them including a nice set of allen wrenches, screws and china pencil for focus marks all courtesy of Tim). I arrived there and met him in his workshop/studio in the outskirts of the city. Once inside I could tell by the arrangements and the stacks of tools that this company is really busy and producing all the time.

And what I really do appreciate from this guy is his true noble ability to go out of his way to help his legion of customers around the world. This time, after many conversations over the phone about film and the business, we decided to meet in person to push my rig to higher standards.

And Tim delivered. I know this sounds like an infommercial or like if im promoting him for some type of comission or something. Well...NO. I do it only for the sole purpose of expressing a big acknowledgement for a company and a person who does what many (and write this down, folks), should do and follow.

Nothing in this world -specially in this product-selling business of indie filmmaking- replaces good and friendly tech support. You can tell when a company goes the extra mile to make ur purchase worth your money and I had many times the need (or should I say the disapointment) of having to rely on tech support for a product I purchased, only to meet foreign or hindu-accented guys who I seldom can understand (no racism here for the record in case you wondered. Companies have the right to apply "outsourcing" to save big bucks) or simply people less willing to "serve" (they are offering a SERVICE for God's sake!) and makes you feel like they are doing you a favor when in reality it's totally the opposite. Of course there are customers and there are customers, but in the normal ideal situation, Tim is superb and happy to serve you and back up his word of efficiency.

No bullshit here.

I bought a couple more lenses back in Peru the past months and my front end was getting heavier and didn't allow me much freedom to use one hand to focus as my other would have to support the whole weight of the rig (aprox. 7-8 pounds. The Letus Extreme itself weighs like a rock!). I had and idea of building support arms adjustable in height that spread like a V upside-down and would rest the front end allowing me to free my hands to focus and zoom when needed. The spring-loaded mechanism would absorb any shock coming from body movement or walking. The V-shape support would have two connections to my waist belt to avoid any left-right shifting or rocking by gravity. Tim suggested a simpler solution: To beat the front end with a metal counterweight in the back.

He supplied longer rods for that matter as my kit was full already. It worked.

Now my rig puts the weigh evenly over my shoulder with 50/50 on each front and back side. The freedom of movement is noticeable as I can free my hand to focus and still use the other to barely keep the support system in place without much efforts. The rig weights much more thought but, doesn't 35mm film cameras too? That's what gives film-cam movement in movies that "inertia" you see that tells there's "mass" in motion...not just a flimsy little handycam that shouts "amateur" all over.

Simple logic and simple friendly support. What more can a customer want?

If you guys -serious into getting a camera rig that looks like the big boys ready to tango- live in the midwest area, don't think twice and drop by Tim's workshop. You won't be disappointed.

New gonna-be born: the RED SCARLET

I remember when working on a film project pre-production meeting with the studio people a couple of years ago -being a digital freak with a crush on film-look- I insisted on shooting on digital but only in HD. The subject of the film was a script idea I began writing since 2005 based on the war we had with Chile back in 1879.

Being a period film, there was gonna be costly items and production stuff not only in the post-production stage but in the production itself (costumes, old era rifles and guns, canons, horses, wardrobe, locations, war scenes, explosions, etc). So, all the costs that involved shooting on 35mm film were simply out of the question as many FX work would have to be done digitally for the fight scenes where we had to do a lot of 3D duplicating for soldiers and artillery stuff. Wish we had a licence for the Massive software but with above $30,000 per machina licence.....no way!!

So digital must be....and of course in HD. Researching a year later, I came across an articel about this new little (but grandiose) HD camera capable of shooting in 4k called the RED ONE. I was astonished to read that it was gonna rival close to 35mm film and expand its latitude so much higher than HDCAM or the Varicam and other high-end cams out there....and of course, with the same variable frame rate shooting like my good HVX200.

RED ONE outputs 4,096 by 2,160 pixels is one of the most lusted after cameras of recent memory last year...and now they have announced the SCARLET, a hand-held Flash-memory based camcorder capable of a remarkable 3K resolution that can go all the way up to 120 frames per second!!!! And one thing I can't believe is that it's announced to be around $3,000. That means the relatively small Scarlet (in the pics here it's in its "naked" basic form and then with lots of accessories put on) will be capable of shooting digital video ready for display in digital cinemas, which mostly top out at around 4K these days (although typically only at 24FPS).

This RED guys also announced the EPIC, a new camera that will be capable of 5K resolution. Now that will be a cam that'll output humongous sized footage folks.....definetly, if you wann own one you'll have to take your ass to your closest serious computer store and build yourself the fastes most reliable workhorse around, otherwise your footage wont handle the amzing RAW video files it delivers. Jim Jannard definetly had a vision....the vision of putting in motion the simple question as to "if for some years now all pro still cameras manage to output RAW file picture that keep the pure signal out of its CMOS sensor (Adobe Lightroom anyone?), why not make a digital video camera that can output and handle such a chore and keep the best resolution the sensor captures intact?".....the RED Company was born....and their first baby was the RED camera.
Here is a chart I came across that explains the different resolution nowadays with different formats from pocket PC's all the way up to Ultra High-Defintion Video (passing thru HD, 3k, 4k and up).

Here's another one that should give a better idea of how different in aspect ratios and resolution each format compares with the other.

Now with the RED ONE at 4K resolution and around $17,500 just the body (accesories like lenses are like 6 to 8 grand each!! and the other peripherals arent less than $1000) this cam isnt for the normal indie filmmaker. Putting a good combo together would cost you no les than $30.000. Not cheap. I cant imagine how much then the EPIC with 5K must be. I read somewhere it was around $30.000 or so. So many will defintely run for the SCARLET at $3000. Myslef included for now.

Both EPIC and SCARLET cameras will be available in 2009, so people....start sending your downpayments to RED now! I'm sure there are lots of guys in line already.

Cultural TV pilot

So, my friend Jose Alexis asked me to direct for him a TV show pilot.

It will be about cultural anecdotes of many popular places in Lima and province but that few people know details about.

Gerardo Zamora was invited to host this first section and many known artists and actors will be invited to explain and interview historians, war heroes' decendants and people who can sum valuable info on this good idea.

This first chapter was shot inside the beautiful Real Felipe castle near the port of Lima.

Wanted to shoot it in HD but the producers wanted to keep it SD for compatibility issues with their editing system. The sights were beautiful so it was a pitty not to be able to show structures in all their detail glory. Nonethless, it's a little good project and I hope it works its way to the stations and to the public. So far, we wanted to keep it simple but aesthetic and fun.