Chaska Ñawi Film Festival in Lima

I was called early today invited to be a Jury at the 3rd Chaska Ñawi Film Festival here in Lima. It's sponsored by the Film Comission of Cinematographers of Perú - CONACINE, Radio A, Radio Z Rock n Pop and the Institute of Communications Diseño.
It is such an honor to be invited. The films include work from universities like Universidad de Lima, Universidad Tecnológica del Perú, Universidad Antenor Orrego, Charles Chaplin, Toulouse-Lautrec, Instituto Superior Tecnológico Publico Diseño and others.

It is gonna be on the 5th, 6th and 7th of November. They are emailing what they require me to do and who the nominees are.
I'll post after the event.

Cruz del Sur TV Spots

After a long time of hurdles, finally the two TV commercials were done.
This client has been one of the hardest to work with as it seemed like a battle of opinions and power issues inside the company and nobody seemed to approve each other's views....and we got to be in between that back-n-forth stabbings. We have been involved with them since late January and apporved my idea on February.
Principal shooting only took place in July and then in August.

Im happy with the results though and it was a fun experience.
One of the hardest anecdotes was the Marketing Manager wanting to change the main actor at the last minute and I having to face it was something very unconfortable. Very... you name it.
There was a second choice which they picked and thank God he was available at the moment. But, anyway, those things should not be done to an actor, and above all...to a human being.
Nothing personal here....just a mere thought of decency and professional respect for the talent in front of the camera, and they or no one of us should be responsible for any company's cravings or inside-battles.

This two were shot in SD for budgeting purposes and the lenses used were a Canon EF 35mm f/3.5 Prime, Canon 16x II 39-624mm f/1.6 and Canon 3x II 24-72mm f/1.8 with a 35mm adapter.

The TV LCD screens, surveillance/monitors and the sattelite were done CG and motion tracked for live footage coupling. The night shots were done with a day-for-night technique and the lights and lens flares were done CG also.

The whole spots were then color graded and timed with our Proceso Cinematico Digital.

We all were quite happy to endure and wrap up the project to the standards needed.
Below are the two spots.


TV SPOT "CRUZ DEL SUR" from Juan Carlos Oganes on Vimeo.


TV SPOT II "CRUZ DEL SUR" from Juan Carlos Oganes on Vimeo.

Police TV spot

We were in pre-production for a film to be shot in the highlands that involved the cooperation of the the police and navy forces (there's navy presence in the lake Titicaca as it's so huge it is like an ocean when deep off-shore), so we approached the Ministry of Interior who runs the police here in Peru and after briefing them and explaining our motives for the film, they agreed happily.

While giving them examples of our work, they asked us to join their selection of audiovisual production company as they were about to make a TV spot for the Police Forces's 15th anniversary (in 1988 they were spread inot three ramifications). We won their selection and were asked for an idea to promote their values and heroism.

The police forces here -as in many countries- isn't well appreciated as there is lots of bribes, corruption, authority abuse and so forth. Their image has been heavily bruised but countless news of cops not acting on the best behalf of their institution, so I came with the idea of promoting their values as human beings and showing their daily sacrifice as a common citizen of this country instead of the formal one about recruiting new men with images of cop operations and guns and street combat scenes (very typical of army recruiting TV spots here). I explained the idea of making a normal police officer on the beat doing its duty like the rest of us with the only difference that his is dangerous as we know and also more risky.
To show more of its human side so to speak.

So the idea and the budget needed was approved.
This is the spot and we were happy to over exceed their expectations.
My good old friends Havier Arboleda and Analí Cabrera were so kind to have roles here as the cop and his wife.
Regardless of how we all see a policeman and the preconceived concept we have, the brief study of their duty and all made me see them in a different light this time.
Too bad many of them go down in the public's eye for just a few who doesn't put in high respect the institution's values for our country.

This one is shot Standard Definition with the Canon XL-1S, 24fps, timed in After Effects and color graded with the Proceso Cinematico Digital. Lenses used were the Canon 16x IS II 39-624mm f/1.6, Canon EF 22-55mm f/3.5 and 13x 24-72mm f/1.8.

PNP TV commercial Peru from Juan Carlos Oganes on Vimeo.