Last production meeting before shoot

Yesterday we had our last production meeting before shooting our short film "At your side".

Double-checking everything, especially the art department (what to bring to the set, how to decorate it, what actors are wearing etc). In film production lingo, these things are called "props" (things on the set seen in camera), "costume" and "set decoration".

There are quite many things that need to function on a film set, and a short film production can be quite complex. The weather needs to be collaborative, actors and extras need to be on time and wear the right clothes, technical gear needs to be working and handled correctly, and everybody needs to know what they should do at the right moment, especially when the director shouts "Action!" Or as in Spanish, "Acción!" Filmmaking is like mounting a foldable factory in a couple of hours in a place you don't know and hoping that it will work, then putting it down and moving it to another place, then the same over again but totally different.

Colombian pace

Something interesting about Colombian shop assistants, is that they can walk in slow motion. You ask for a thing over the counter. The sales person takes a walk to get it for you. This walk is s-l-o-w.

In Europe, we are programmed to interpret this as an offense. It means "What do I care if you buy something from me."

I need to reprogram. It's just a healthy sign of a stress-free environment.

Lighting workshops

Film lighting is a whole science that people dedicate life spans to learn. To grow a bit more in this area, we set up a couple lighting workshops. We rented two professional Arri 1000W at night time (extra cheap), added our own "construction lights" and experimented. One thing is for sure, you learn lighting by doing. I lead the workshop and had the participants recreating specific lighting seen in films, one from "Inception" and one from "Traffic".

The word for "now" in Colombia

The word "now" in Colombia is most interesting.
The original word in Spanish is "ahora".
But that doesn't mean you should use this word if you want to say "now".
The word you should use is "already". In Spanish, it is "ya".
Here, "ahora" means "a little later". (can be anything between 15 min and 2 hours)
If you want to say "in fifteen minutes", use "ahorita".

Summing up:

"Now" = "Ya"
"In 15 min" = "Ahorita"
"In an hour" = "Ahora"

Then, of course, if you want to say, "Immediately", that would be "ya ya".

How to close a car door in Colombia

If you are thinking about going to Colombia, here's a tip. Don't slam car doors.
My experience from home is that people get irritated if you close a car door too softly. In Colombia, it's the opposite. People get offended if the car door makes any noise when closing.
Why the car doors in Colombia have much softer springs than in Europe, I don't know.
Just remember, when closing the door, follow with the hand all the way until you feel that click. And be happy.

Things that need to change in Medellin

If I could change things in Medellin, one of them would be the high rate of crimes. I've lost count on all the stories of robberies, murders and gang wars I have heard about here.
Sure, Medellin has changed A LOT to the better during the last years. This used to be the city where people hardly went out night-time, unless you wanted to expose yourself to cartel shootings. Now it is much safer. But that doesn't mean it is safe. Basically, you need to think through where you go and what you bring. If you want to bring a laptop in your bag, you should take a taxi, and avoid any longer walking distance, even daytime. Same with camera and everything valuable.

For a person whose office is the laptop, hrm, quite annoying.

Raising funds for the short film

They say the most difficult part about filmmaking is raising the funds. Probably true. We are right now in that phase and we are trying to raise $3.200 - a drop in the ocean in the film industry, but quite a challenge for a group of independents. The basic idea with the film is to do an artistic work, but we also want to distribute it, hopefully recouping some of the money invested.

Our plan is very simple - to invite 30 persons to invest $100. If we are able to sell the film later (tv stations buy short films), we will return this investment, with a return of 15%. If you are interested in investing, let me know.

Building the dolly

Today we continued with building our dolly. And yes, I have to confess that we do it after one of those tutorials on YouTube. Anyway, it was great to feel the smoothness of those wheels.

On the search to build a dolly

Something good about Medellin (among many) is that many stores are clustered together if they sell the same thing. For example, if you want to buy tires, you will find like fifteen tire shops next to each other.

Today we went looking for parts to build a dolly. A dolly is a moving "cart" or "waggon" for a film camera. So we went to the "woodshop" area of Medellin. Lots of stores selling wood. Perfect. It wasn't hard to find what we were looking for.

Dollies are great for enhancing a film. The camera moves slowly to the side or forwards. It creates that "film" feel. Wanna see what our dolly looks like? Hang on.

Preproduction for our short film

"Preproduction" is a term used a lot in movie production. It means to prepare the production, to schedule, to plan what will be needed. Things and people, locations, clothes etc. Because on those days of rolling cameras everything needs to be in place.

Yesterday we went to scout one of our main locations for our short film "At your side", a luxurious apartment. Later we will visit a location that is totally the opposite.

We also sat down to schedule the shoot, with our producer, production designer and assistant art director...

Avid

Today we went to an AVID seminar. Avid is the world-leading software for editing film and television. It was held in a television studio at one of the universities here in Medellin.

One helpful feature that they showed us was how you can search for a word or a phrase - spoken - in your footage. Pretty cool. Imagine you have a long interview and need to find a specific phrase. You do a search and you instantly know where it is. Not bad.

I used to edit in Final Cut Pro but I have recently switched to Adobe Premiere Pro. Premiere offers better real-time capabilities. Apple, you guys need to realize your'e not the only ones out there.