Easter film sessions

Easter: time for introspection and deep thought for us Catholics. I personally have to thank Jesus for helping me up pull thru much of the hurdles I'm going thru these months of my life. I know for some this statement may sound cheesy but to those who actually believe -like me- they know what I'm talking about. Many have packed their bags and gone driving or camping out of town and touring all over Peru as it's the custom here while others stayed at home, eat just fish, watch religious movies like "The Robe", "King of Kings", "Ben-Hur" among others and visit churches for the special mass. Since my first memories of life, I recall hearing the lines and music of these movies and how they stick in ones head forever. In fact, as I blog about this, I can still hear the TV in the other room and listen to those AM, mono dull sound typical of those old time features and their magnificent music form the golden era of Hollywood. Ben Hur with it's large scale and scope...simply amazing.

Anyway, days ago I told the extras that I was filming this weekend and asked who was up for it. Happy to know most of them were. Did some pick-up shots to be included in my film. Lat time didn't have the chance to do it on time as the sun was just hiding behind the nearby mountains.

I told each one that it would be very enduring and tiresome but I guess they didn't think it was gonna be that much. But it was....Surprise!

Guys, are you still aching from this past weekend's shots? Perhaps now you have a better idea on how our good soldiers endured face-to-face charge battle scenes.
It was a good day. :)

Working on the first teaser-trailer now. Will be released in a few days.
The official trailer will be done once I have the whole 100% filmed. So far we are at 70%.

New follow focus and snap gears

As the filming date approached last year back in November, I set up and got together all the items and things i needed for it cleaned and ready.
My Indisystem rig has followed along with me for all these years and proven to be a good sidekick. Never gave me any problems and I know with this war-period film, it was gonna be put to the test thru the harsh elements: dust, scratches, close-by rifle blows, dirt, debris, wind and the wear and tear it changing set ups often.

After so much of that stuff in the past six months I can say it really is made to last.

I even posted an entry about Tim Ovel and the rigs he makes for us filmmakers. That was like two years ago. Again....this is no infommercial nor am I being paid to say this here but I'm very please after all these years with the equipment I got. It is also and opportunity to answer all who have written me asking about him and if my rig lasts. It does and he is alive and kicking. In fact, I happened to reach him on the phone while he was at NAB to share with him some suggestions I had for the things I encountered that I'd like to customize. He was nice enough to even send me a brand new follow focus and the newly designed snap gears!! Tested them as soon as I got them and they did their job fine on the field.

I would like this to be a statement about a product that is quite good and about a guy who is quite honest and enduring in his mission: Customer Satisfaction. And I'd like to say this with not only proof but also with the fair, moral and professional right to state this: I have read on some forums and blogs about how cheap and bad his products are. About how he has disappeared and how he doesn't follow up on you.
And I have also read and done my homework to at least briefly find out who was saying so. I don't want to dismiss any of the people who have the right to state their own opinion (heck, this is one too) but I do take professional opinions more seriously. And I mean professional when the person stating this or that has really done a lot and for years and with enduring or large scale stuff. In my case, I've been in this entertainment business for almost two decades already, done many nationwide TV commercials, corporate videos, short and feature lenght films and in fact this war-period movie is my 10th film. Apart from it all, about 95% of the people who have stated that Tim's rigs are crap are guys who -lets face it- are either newcomers or haven't done anything big-time as far as it seems.

Still...I respect their opinions and I also know the rigs limitations. Ive used film equipment for several gigs I had and yes, there are tougher and fancier stuff on the market out there. But companies who seem to market to middle or entry level people seem to charge like if they were like the big guys for something that can actually be priced lower like Indisystem does. I mean....if XX company is charging almost a grand or so per follow focus...how can Tim charge 3 times less and still be in business? many argue that it's because it's cheap or whatever, when actually it's not. The others could make stuff better perhaps in some areas, but if u customize ur rig with Tim I'm sure you can get a lot for your money.

This has been an honest and humble statement, people. I may have mentioned stuff about my chops but that was not out of ego, it was just to make a point that many need to look at the whole picture first. Entry level people as also pro people have a right to state their opinions, but when some are pro and have shot a lot with Tim's rig like I did and not been disappointed, why suddenly are newcomers leaving comments all over the net that badmouths this product? Entry level people and pro people have a right to pay the just for a product that does the job...not just pay for a brand.

It simply makes me suspect there's something fishy here. Dirty competition perhaps...? Mmm....

New uniforms almost done.

Finally, almost done with the new uniforms making process. 300 Peruvian and Chilean uniforms together with around 100 Bolivians are almost complete. Maybe a week and a half and it's all set. We are all taking the finished ones home to sew buttons. Its almost 3,500 buttons and it's a hell a lotta work.

Not much to say but only that's been long days of stressful work and thoughtful meditation on how to aboard the next scenes. Can't wait to finish the film and start post-production.

Last interview at Radio Miraflores

Last night was the last interview for the film. Time went by quickly last time and the host never got to finish asking me stuff.
Now we got to do it. I thank them all for their interest and support. :)

Let's choose wise this time

I don't talk or discuss politics (or even footbal..lol) with people for it's always a matter of deep argument that many times push people apart, though I just want to say -in these delicate and very important moments of my country- that I hope, I so do hope, that my fellow Peruvians choose wise.

We have been hit socially, economically, politically and in our psyche a lot for the past decades and we have made many mistakes for choosing the wrong person. Many did wrong and many did right but here now on TV on the candidate's promises as election day approaches is the ever eternal discourse of "I'm for the poor and in need" when all they really do when in office is fill their pockets with our hard earn money. It's so sad to know we don't have much to choose from as all have a history of corruption and what not and we get to have to choose for the "minor evil" one.

I just hope there's a change for the good, at least a change that makes us all -30 million Peruvians- wake up from that old saying that states that "Peru is a beggar sitting on a gold bench". Because we are. We have much of the most beautiful lands of the world and with so much richness in all aspects. Our culture milenary culture proves it. We need to defend it and start believing in ourselves.

Let's recapture our sense of "nation" by believing in ourselves. Be it thru politics, thru economical growth, thru exportation and thru acquiring social values that we wont stand for corruption nor social laziness anymore. I want to help a bit with my art...as small or humble as it might be but with a lot of content and a message. Message is always important in art. Art without a message is simply a fly on the wall with a picture frame around it. My humble opinion.

Let's we all stand up and believe in Peru more than we do already. Our soil needs us more than ever.
We were great. Let's be great again.

A bit of the soundtrack of my life

Today I woke up to this sunny day after a relaxing sleep and with a somewhat mild mood.
As always, images of how the soon-to-be filmed scenes of my movie are passed in front of me like a 3D video displayed in my room wall as I open my eyes and welcome the day...and also today, images of my last days at school came to my head. Those teen years are full with stuff that marks everyone's lives forever and I do have some pretty awesome moments of tears and laughs.
Such impressionable stage in the life of any person is definitely a thing to consider serious, and much of those experiences were embedded in y mind to stay for the rest of my life: songs, places and people.

Much of that is music. Music that has stayed with me for years and are simply the soundtrack of my life. I have spent almost half of my life dedicated to art and music and few bands have touched my heart to the core like Queen, Yes and a south american band from Chile called Los Prisioneros. I simply was an eternal fan of those guys and never missed a concert they gave in here (only the one at Acho in 87 as I was living in the US around that time).

So I woke up to this song in the back of my mind: "Es Demasiado Triste" by Los Prisioneros and I looked it up on the net. Such strong and truthfully painful lyrics. Jorge Gonzales is a genius for writing this. Long live Los Prisioneros.

Sharing this with you all. A song from the soundtrack of my life.

Another radio interview

I was invited to a radio show hosted by my friend and actor Fernando Petong and co-host. We talked about music and my band Alter Ego. It was good to recall those times and listen to it over the airwaves.
Also invited were new vocal R&B group that really sang good.

Next week I'm invited again to talk this time about the film and all details.

Advances and progress

Been days of much stress and activity here and there.
Apart from stopping filming for a couple weeks to put all efforts into more uniforms making, meetings to prepare the grounds for sponsors to come in advance as filming reaches almost 70% of completion.
Already had a meeting at the TV station to show the progress and screen captures of the film.
I have to say that I'm happy the station is happy to see the results so far.

Let's see what happens. I'm very expectant here. Stress is high.

Also been to another workshop to do some maintenance to my camera and accessories. Found a lot of dust in tight corners and tightened some bolts here and there as well as the french flags and support rails. I cut them off a bit shorter at the back as I found it hitting the jib-arm crane extension when doing low angles. Couldn't pan past a certain point.

Meanwhile, we were all been doing more Bolivian uniforms and delegated it to one of the extras to paint the forearms and necks. Cesar, as a pro painter, did an awesome job painting the arms and necks I had the main body of the uniforms sent to a laundry company to have them dyed to the color I specified and telling Cesar how to paint just the forearms and necks. Also, Cesar's cousin Christian, is a good craftsman in wood and metal so I commissioned him to make a decent looking telegraph out of a picture found on the net. The results are seen here. I like it much, just need to age it a bit to look make it look used. As stated before, it's not a museum replica....just a prop made to look good on camera.

Making more uniforms

So, after some days of personal heaviness, life goes on and gotta keep moving. Like if life hits come from many directions at once and you are forced to stand still and close your eyes for a while. Certain experiences always makes you feel odd but one's strength pushes you up in order to move on with one's dreams. No one will do it for you anyway so I just have to put on my social face around.

Now that I'm like 65% done with the filming of the movie, there are certain additional battle scenes to be done and completed like the battle of Alto del Alianza and the Morro siege where more soldiers than I have used so far are gonna be needed to make it look massive as I want it to be. So I decided to make more uniforms.

Called the textile workshop where I made mine like 7 months ago and it was good to see the same people there. Of course I don't have the budget to make plenty as before because this is an impromptu situation so I'm ordering 300 more. The people I'm gonna use are thicker so I'm making the size "large" for all. The locations to be used for those battle scenes are gonna be outside of Lima in the desert outskirts.

Today I went to Gamarra to get around 3,100 buttons and rolls of red fabric to make the chilean soldiers pants.
It is kinda weird to be doing all this walking around and uniform-making again.
Will keep me busy for a while.

At least I know that no matter how hard I try to fight for this movie, it comes out close to the way I need it to be...not like a human being where no matter how much effort you put there, it always has a mind of it's own and not necessarily it's one that you'd like.

Hacienda Buena Vista: planning the siege.

The past days I filmed the interior scenes to be the continuation of the Quinta Heeren ones.
This time in Chorrillos at an old republican house of the era that belongs to a good friend of mine from my theater years.

Mac Lennan, Calvo, Sarmiento, Villavicencio and Zarauz portraying Chilean officers Baquedano, Lagos and others and also Abrisqueta playing Peruvian engineer Elmore.

Script lines were a bit difficult to memorize as I used several tactical words of how the Morro de Arica was taken over.

Calvo invited a couple of young filmmakers who happen to have a web show interviewing poeple in this field so they were around while I finished the scenes for the day to interview me. Perhaps it will be online soon.

Another interview

The impromptu interview made by Alejandro Nieto for his gutenbergtv. site after wrapping up filming a few days ago.
Igor Calvo (who plays chilean Carlos Weguelin) asked them to drop by and this is what came out.

Arica siege

Another day of filming the Arica siege streets scenes.
This time again with Weguelin and all extras/actors doing their best.

I enjoyed it yesterday. Filming went smoothly good and without much worries compared to other days.
A big thank you to all the new extras who played the town people and women.

It's always fun to have rifle shot scenes....The extras were definitely fire-hungry, right people?
:)