Tacna and the Alto del Alianza battle scenes: pre-production.

After a long hiatus do to health problems I can finally post here. It's been a while already. So much to update and much to catch up with with my film.

First of all, it was nice to go back like a month and something ago to the Rimac location to shot some pick-up scenes for the Alto del Alianza battle. It introduced the character Mariano Santos and had to watch other shots of the same battle that I filmed in 2011 mid-year in order to have the same rhythm, pace and framing direction so things match in perspective and continuity.

We were supposed to have cavalry on the last day scenes. Visited the Police Potao regiment and they kindly agreed. Just the permission from the Ministry of Interior didn't come in time so I had to drop that possibility. It was simply too slow.

I have almost finished with all army character actor's scenes but a couple due to be filmed in Tacna.
Tacna scenes have been in hold and saved for last as it involves not only lots of logistical coordinations but also a lot of expenses. While in bed, thinking a lot about those factors, realized that it was gonna be a huge expense just for one scene that I was supposed to film there: the Chilean soldiers boarding of weapons and supplies at the train station that still existing nowadays.

I used to live near Tacna and in Locumba when little and it was in those places where the attraction and deep interest for this war topic began. It was 30 years ago when watching that TV series done by the Ministry of Education and the Government for the 100th anniversary of the war back in 1979. Never missed an episode. Besides, Tacna and Locumba hold a special place in my heart for I passed the best years of my childhood there.

The old train station still exists there and opened in 1857. It keeps the looks and feel of the era and much of the locomotives and wagons keep their 19th century decorations. When the Chileans won the Alto del Alianza battle, they sieged Tacna and boarded on this train to go down to Arica where the last Peruvian battalions were. That scene was the only one I wrote on the script to be filmed in Tacna. Back to those thoughts while in bed: The scenes is a very simple one where you see like a hundred or so chilean soldiers mounting weapons and stuff on the train while colonel Pedro Lagos directs them and talks to them. That was all. I thought to myself it was gonna be a huge expense just for that scene. I had to take advantage of much more in Tacna to make that expense worth.

I've always thought a script -no matter how well written- its also a guide that could be improvised on and could be changed a bit or have some add-ons implemented in order to make it better or embellish it. Theres so much one can imagine while sitting in a computer writing compared to the moment you are actually filming. You become aware that there might be more possible things that one thought impossible...so, I went ahead and re-wrote some scenes.

The Alto del Alianza battle is the one that will open the film and I want it to be huge (as it actually was), and we have already shot scenes at Rimac, Ancon and lately Cruz de Hueso in the San Bartolo deserts. Much of it is fine but I think filming additional ones in the real scenario where it happened would be such a plus and such a dream come true that it had to happen for me, so I had meetings and talks with government people explaining the reasons and mission of my film and after a few days I was finally granted the permission to film at the Alto del Alianza deserts. The real scenario for a battle im portraying that happened there 132 years ago. It's like getting permission to film in the sacred fields of Gettysburg and recreate that same battle with huge amounts of extras right there!! That's exactly what is going on :)    Also, apart from filming at the old train station, coordinated to shot some scenes at the former Hospicio station mid-way to Arica and a few kilometers away from the border to Chile. That old little station was already destroyed by the last earthquake a few years back and took away what was left of it. The train never stopped there anymore but did back in the 80's. Now it's just rumble. The interiors and exteriors of that station will be shot in Matucana and the mountains and trees digitally erased and composite over the desert landscape around Hospicio. Here, back in late May 1880, Baquedano ordered 50 Carabineros de Yungay to check on the rail tracks to see if peruvian forces had them destroyed in order to stop them. There was some shooting in this little station when they got near with a railroad handcar (or pump trolley). There has been some internal issues with the management of the station that has stopped its service for half a year now and the tracks are not being kept in maintenance so in order to do this, I have to hire a specialist to clean the tracks from sand, soil, garbage and other stuff that can cause de-railing. Not an easy task.

Alto del Alianza museum. Gorgeous construction and design.

Still.....very excited to be able to shoot where that historical fact actually happened!

Now, getting ready to film in Tacna in a couple weeks and will have to take all my equipment and wardrobe there. 415 extras and 20 horses. Amazing days to come! :)  Health....get better for me!

Pick up battle scenes for the Alto del Alianza. They are close range.

More pick-up scenes.

The Sama valley from Buena Vista town where chileans camped.

View of the Tacna train station from the clock tower.

The clock at the tower still works!

Checking the rails near Hospicio a few kms. from the chilean border.

Checking the rails near Hospicio.

Explaining the station guy how the scene will be.

Inside one of the wagons. Looks awesome.

One of the Locomotives to be used for my film.

Found my railroad handcar!!

The train station workshop.

Alto del Alianza gravesite.

The cross at the Alto del Alianza site museum.

Inside the museum at the Alto del Alianza.

Soldier items found onsite.

Alto del Alianza museum. Isn't it beautiful?

Walking the deserts of the battle site at Alto del Alianza.

Will be magic filming something that actually happened here 132 years ago.

The rumbles of the former Hospicio train station.

The trademark desert plants here. They are everywhere.

The rails at Hospicio.

Tacna-Arica train.

The train station entrance.

Simply beautiful. A work of art. I so love old trains!

The Alto del Alianza battle site. Far back: the museum.

Cortos de Vista V Film Festival

Posting this a bit after its date. Couldn't do it in time but it was good to be there again. The 5th installment of the Cortos de Vista Film Festival in Chiclayo. Head of Jury again and was nice to share the role of judging more work of up and coming new filmmakers and artists. It seems the visual techniques and emotional content are now better handled and better focused. Of course there's always a few that need either more sense of storytelling and/or a tighter sense of cinematography. But, it's a start. We all have made them. I've made mistakes when starting in this field. It's a learning process all the way to the top. The idea is to learn from mistakes and promote the production of more film material and develop these into an industry as other countries are.

The Jury.

Deliberating about the films we watched.

 

The winners.

Wrapping ap the festival.

Jury and the winners of the festival.

Interviews for local TV.

In and out

In and out of Lima for many days. Not that I enjoy long land trips for these long legs are bothersome to manage inside a medium-sized bus, but still fun to do when I get to change scenarios and atmospheres for a bit.

Huancavelica is one more reason the high Peruvian sierras are what they are: simply BEAUTIFUL.

Here for meetings with government managers and coordinating production stuff for my next film ("Ccarccaria") to be shot here in November if God permits. It's a bit uneasy for me personally to have to clean, together with the danzante Damian, all the crap the former director and producer did and damaged with their attitude and swindle with production money. No wonder locals and the managers are leery as this former guy truly fucked things up as I'm told by everyone. But now its a new page and a new atmosphere thanks to these visits and talks I'm having here.

So far all is developing well. Glad the crew boys are progressing back in Lima with all details so as soon as I get my feet there we resume filming sessions of "Gloria del Pacifico". One month and a half ahead to finish it. Amazing how time has passed and all is almost done after all hurdles and difficulties.

Weird sensation in my soul....

Alto del Alianza battle scenes

At last back from filming location at the desert.

Been four interesting and exciting days living with an army of people to do these scenes and shoot them as fast as I can for my time was limited to merely 8 and a half hours, so had to do it pretty quick (but well done of course).

Transporting the full equipment to location was a tiresome task for, I guess, there hasn't been so far any scene that has used all the battle wardrobe done for the film at the same time. Hundreds of extras and weapons simply made this a delicate job to pull off, but it went fine even with its ups and downs.

The desert has its magic. A magic that touches me in a special way for it reminds me of Locumba and my childhood in Tacna back in the very early 80's. Was less than 10 years old but it was beloved times: the sunny afternoon soccer matches where nobody wanted to pick up the ball when it went kicked afar from the field (the burning sun made u tired and lazy), the occasional scouting trips to find lizards and scorpions, the hide-n-seek games at night, the haunting stories told by the older kids, the huge firework towers built from dried canes, the night talks with the MP's and exchanging pieces of bread for a bullet (which I took the head off and emptied the shell forming my name on the pavement and setting it on fire), the dangerous war games between my village and the nearby one naming it the "Pacific War" (we threw rocks at each other and you could see a swarm of them flying toward us like arrows and you had to take cover. Got hit by one once and opened a huge wound in my head. Got my ass kicked at home for doing so. My night sky-watching sessions with a small telescope I had. The air and skies above were so crystal clear so pollution-free that I could see the milky way like if it was right here next to us. My early doing with my so beloved Astronomy (wanted to be an astronomer once. Hehe) Sometimes at night during these 4 days, I looked at the night sky and got lost as those memories of more than 30 years ago when I used to watch with excitement on TV those series about the Pacific War sponsored by the Ministry of Education for the 100th anniversary of it. Funny how things turned out to be: never thought back then I'd dedicate mt life to art and film and do something about it. When I found my ways of life then I knew I had to do it. Destiny moves in mysterious ways.

Back to the future: 2012.

Thursday 13 we all distributed uniforms, wardrobe and soldier accessories to the extras for them to try on and choose correct sizes. Also had a short talk with all of them explaining what this is all about, what they are supposed to do and what it means as a message (the film, I mean). It is important to let them know that this is for the nation, for us all, for our heroes who gave their lives in order to give us what w now have. This is what it really is about above all. Also explained safety measures regarding weapons and blank bullets. The muzzle flash is quite large and expands to about a meter and a half to two, capable of burning clothing or skin if close. Nothing happened and it all went well. I've had injuries myself in all these 22 months of filming. Also, this time I had only about 250 old rifles at my disposal so, after some tests, gave them to the sharper shooters to be in front and closer to the camera and the ones behind used modern ones. Just made sure they weren't seen onscreen during battle scenes. One thing I couldn't have complete was the beige sand-colored boots Chilean soldiers wore. Some had but others used their normal black ones. I'll just have to color paint them in post-production. Painstaking task but....it has to be done.

Friday was the main filming day and started around 7am all the way to 3:30pm that was the deadline hour for me as the extras had to pack and go in order to not have the night fall upon them. 8 hours is quite short for scenes like these. 8 hours is nothing but had to make the best use out of them. Was actually filming as fast as we all could and under a lot of pressure. Was also very pissed because the horses and horsemen I paid for didn't arrived on time (were supposed to be on location at 8am but got there at almost 1pm), delaying my schedule quite heavily and had to reorder the scenes. The thing was that most of them used horses (to portray the Husares de Junin and Carabineros de Yungay) so....had to push them to the last. Got to cover 80% of all my scenes and the remaining ones will have to be shot elsewhere. More logistic moves and more expenses. Wasn't happy about it but at least got the main things covered. We filmed several scenes back in July 2011 that showed the Cazadores del Desierto Chilean battalion and here we also showed the Guardias de Arequipa (also known as the Mariano Santos battalion, a police national hero).

In-camera panoramic composition of one of the scenes.

The body fights.

The battle.

Distant firing.

Rehearsals.

Placing the hundreds of extras in place.

Directing them all.

Megaphone. Handy for these scenarios.

Walkthru.

Peruvian soldiers together with Bolivian Colorados and Alianza soldiers.

The brave extras.

The Zepita No.2 flag holder.

Peruvian officer.

Bullet distribution for all shooters.

Ready for overhead shots.

Freeze frame: massive confrontations.

Freeze frame: Peruvian and Bolivian soldiers are shot.

Freeze frame: Hurt.

Freeze frame: Aerial shot. Many extras.

Freeze frame: Husares de Junin.

Freeze frame: Guardias de Arequipa in action.

Freeze frame: Guardia de Arequipa about to shoot.

Freeze frame.

Freeze frame: Ready for battle.

Freeze frame: Violence of war.

Freeze frame: About to make contact.

Another thing (that now is one more anecdote) is that the truck that was supposed to pick us up late Friday never came and had to send much of my crew to a hotel in a nearby town kilometers away and I stayed with the gunsmith and an assistant to sleep on site to protect the equipment. Stranded in the middle of nowhere was quite a thing and the next day Saturday we all spent the whole day taking it all back to Lima little by little. Left the site around 10:30pm. After taking it all to my warehouse, finally got home very beat around 2am the next day. The desert is very hot during the day and the flies filled my car interior like bees and was very unpleasant, only to have them stop by the night coldness. No lights around and it was pitch dark all around only to see a lighter shade of yellowish grey far away north which was Lima's lights lighting up the sky. Again, while waiting for the small truck my sound man had to came back from one the back-n-forth trips to my warehouse, in all that silent scenario where only the wind makes its presence felt, sat by a rock to watch the sky above and recall again those childhood memories when all was fun and adventure. Now, more than 30 years into my life, adventures get a bit serious...but better in a way. The odyssey of making one's dreams come true.

All set for the Alto del Alianza battle scenes

After some days of full-time coordinations, all is set to go on location for some days: horses, horsemen, riding equipment, lighting equipment, light mixers, 180 meters of power cable, power generators, jib crane, dolly, cameras and filming equipment, 520 extras to portray Peruvian, Chilean and Bolivian ones, 520 uniforms, same amount of rifles, 4200 blank bullets, 10 ground explosives, make up and prosthetics, fake blown-up body parts, swords, 3 big tents, 2 trucks full of equipment and of course....lots of water!

Filming deep in the desert is no joke for when I had the chance to shoot a decumentary years ago, the sun and sand really makes you feel tired and weak, like if the sun itself sucks energy out of you. So, water is your best friend and plenty needs to be taken with us.

It will be the last big battle scene of the film and the one that opens it: the huge battle of the Alto del Alianza.

The desert.

The army and civilian extras.

Reconnaissance.

Similar landscape to the Intiorco plateau near Tacna.

Building tents and camping stuff to stay for days.

A TV commercial parody

On our prior location, while watching TV at dinner time, a new TV commercial about a local cable company offering HD content was shown. It was a mock of a director wanting more of the actor as he was set on fire. The crew laughed and pointed at me for they say I'm always asking for more risk and more intense realism for the film, so we decided to make a parody of it using archetype grumpy director attitude and using footage recently shot of the Cochrane's bunker.

Ended up well. Silly but funny :)