July 7, a glorious day.

A day like today, July 7, 131 years ago, 1900 Peruvians reached glory defending our nation's honor under the premise to fight until the end, with bravery, with pride, protecting our soil firing up to the last cartridge. New history is written now, gentlemen. Let's make of the sacrifice and legacy that our heroes left for us - normal human beings like you and I that did what few do nowadays- worth their effort. May whoever is upfront of our nation now lead us to a country of peace, growth, education, health and knowledge so we can value this land we are standing on and learn once and for all that we are bigger than our ordeals. Viva el PERU!!

Vavasseur and Parrot cannons construction

After some days of shuffling the idea and doing some budgeting, decided to build from scratch two cannons to take and place at the top of the Morro Solar to be the artillery pointing at the ocean under Guillermo More's command: a huge 250 lbs. Vavasseur and a big 100 lbs. Parrot cannons.

Went today to show the carpenters some designs I was drawing and pictures I gathered around of the existing ones today in museums. It will be up to real scale so they will end up being huge. The tricky part will be to make them be easily disassembled to transport it all the way to the top of the Morro Solar and assemble them there and back.

I'll be dropping by the workshop often to supervise construction as those cannons are antique now and avoid construction errors regarding design.

Second visit to the Morro Solar

As part of my second location scouting and preparing of the Morro de Arica battle scenes (the first one was back in 2009 as posted here: http://www.juancarlosoganes.net/2009/10/checking-locations-for-battle-scenes.html , some of the extras and me decided to go up to the top of the Morro Solar in Chorrillos. It is a steep, rocky and narrow road uphill that can be somewhat dangerous at times.
I wonder still how all equipment like hundreds of wardrobe, rifles, accesories, canons, sandbags and camera equipmetn are gonna be brought up there. It is a narrow road up.

The day was pretty cloudy and half way uphill it was heavily foggy not to mention the top where one could hardly see past 20 meters ahead. The wind was blowing hard and it even rained for a bit and we were all wet.

The extras wandered around to look for old bullet shells and stumbled into a few covered in green rust.

Humidity was so thick that all our shirts and hair became moist and wet. I could only show just a few parts of where I plan to shoot the scenes and Bolognesi's death.

I have to return to start preparing the scenario for the film shots.

Our navy hero Guillermo More was the commander of the Morro artillery and had at his disposal a 250 lbs. Vavasseur and two 100 lbs. Parrot cannons. As it would be extremely difficult to transport those very heavy large-scale artillery up there I'm planning to construct from scratch two of those cannons at natural scale replica together with their big bullets.

I'll shop around for possible materials to make it sturdy but light to carry around. Something easy to disassemble and assemble anywhere.

Sitting down to make some schematics.

Meeting at ProMarina

Thanks to the good vibes and friendliness of Juan Jose Bardales, member our peruvian firefighter force here in Lima, I was introduced to Jorge Guillermo Guerrero, president of ProMarina, institution formed a bit more than 100 years ago to promote the labor and values of our glorious Peruvian Navy Force.

Mr. Guerrero was not only adamant to have a meeting as Bardales told me but also very excited to know the fact that a film about the Pacific War was being made. I wnet ahead to tell all the studies, research and years of work I've put inot this to make it a reality and even showed the trailer so he could "see" what I was talking about.

It is unnecessary to say that he was extremely excited and supportive of my cause.
It is so good to know there are still people around who value one's efforts to push people's national and patriotic conscience up.

In other words....I was in friendly waters. :)

Arica siege fire

Again filming in Barrios Altos for the Arica siege scenes involving burning flames and fire shots. We enlisted the help of firemen who I had meetings with in the last couple days. Can't feel more happy that they are not only willing to participate and that they also simply love the topic at hand and realize the importance of the film.

With the participation of our faithful extras we finalized the scenes without much problems but with lots of adrenaline and safety. Daylight was shorter as its autumm here so I wrapped up the day just barely minutes before the necessary available light was too dark for filming.

Firemen are cool. Reminded me when little I wanted to be one. Oooh, childhood dreams...

SITDEF 2011

SITDEF 2011. Amazed and proud of what we own and what we are pointing at.

Many things that people ignore we have was found here. Interesting stuff!

Tight schedules

These last days have been quite of a rush actually trying to catch up with time lost after some incident that happened two months ago that delayed production somewhat. Now, with the matter almost resolved, filming days are packed and filled with as much work as possible. Not only health problems are still here but also the stress level has increased, blocking and boggling my brain several times during the day. It has been already three times in the past two weeks that I've felt like fainting during filming and I've only told production staff not to make it too obvious on the actors and extras. Wish I had time for rest and prolonged sleep.

We filmed desert attack scenes and also more takes on the Arica siege. Actor and old time friend Manuel Guerrero who portrays soldier Porras was brought from Brazil for a few days in order to finish up his scenes. Five days packed to the full to take advantage of his presence here and the costs of bringing him back from his Masters Degree he is doing in the neighbor country next to us. Had a body double played by one of the extras do his dieing scenes while re-filming pick up shots as the last day sunlight was fading away as it began to turn dark.

The curious anecdote was waiting for almost two hours for a bunch of vultures to stop at a precise area in the cornice of an old building so we could make them flee as we made some round rifle shots to scare them away to include in the film. The darn birds weren't cooperating only until the last minute when available light was starting to go down. Lucky for us, the long awaited event happened and I got my shot. Felt like Discovery Channel cameraman waiting for a snake or tiger to mate or something.

Whenever I have time I'll drop by the doctors office. I truly don't have a head for nothing else....Too much on my plate already.

Peru-Nebraska (translated!)

Just stumbled into this lovely video.
Saw on TV an interview about this and I was moved inside as I used to live in a nearby city close to a town called Peru in Nebraska.

Wish there was a subtitled version so english speaking people would understand what the voice-over is saying while showing to another different culture how Peru's is with our typical social demeanor, our double-meaning jokes, our food, folk dances, our national drinks, slang humor, party mood, idiosyncrasies, etc.
The street smart jokes said are funny because we use more of a double-meaning street slang here and specially the ones done to the cop in the car is hilarious (the cop trying to play tough when he is confused, lol)!!
I'm sure latino's living there would get the joke perhaps as we share some of that culture. All done with friendly intentions of course.

Love this culture-merging video. We here in latin america are invaded by the northern culture so much it's of no surprise we know them for decades (their news, movies, economics, etc.), but are they of us? I know they aren't. There should be more videos like this so cultural differences narrow and we get closer together. Love it!! Marca Peru.

Soon...my film's first teaser-trailer! (+ update)

This darn headache is totally making me lose precious time.
I'm almost done making the first teaser-trailer for my film and putting together all the footage available up until now. Right now I'm in the process of color-correction, timing, sound mixing sweetening and of course title design.

We are 70% done already and the scenes to be shot soon are the siege of the Morro de Arica top, Bolognesi's death and the full Batalla del Alto del Alianza (only shot some scenes of that last year already) and then off to Tacna and province for additional scenes.

Too many hours per day in front of this darn screen is really spoiling my eyes (even with screen protectors) so I hope to finish this thing soon.

Recorded a voice-over myself for it. I've done some for certain documentaries and I hear it fine but I guess I'll consider using one of the actor's who's also a voice-over talent.

So...soon the first teaser-trailer, people!!

UPDATE: After thorough thought I've decided to post pone the release of the first teaser trailer and await the right time. This is a totally independent film and I'd like to avoid any use of it outside of the real historical and patriotic purpose that it holds and which I have maintained for the entire time. It's just a matter of some weeks' waiting only. Art and historical facts together with respect should always be considered. I know I do.

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%.