The Hunt - Danish masterpiece

Today I went to see The Hunt (Cacería/Jagten), a Danish film by Thomas Vinterberg starring Mads Mikkelsen. I think every film I've seen with Mikkelsen has been excellent. I haven't seen all of them, but I think of films such as Flickering Lights, Open hearts, Adam's apples and After the wedding. Mikkelsen has a very wide range in his spectrum of possible acted characters, although he seems to lean more and more onto divorced, suffering, quiet fathers.

Anyway, The Hunt didn't dissappoint. It was another of those Danish masterpieces. This time showing how a little lie from one person can cause enormous damage in other people's lives. Mikkelsen's acting was superb. In my opinion, Mikkelsen is definitely one of the best actors in the world. If you like realistic drama, you'll love The Hunt.

Interviewing film crew

Today we visited the film set of Eso que llaman amor again, and video-interviewed some more of the crew. Among these the director of photography, the gaffer, the production designer and a costume assistant.

Good material for our film school.

ADR'ing

A couple months ago we shot a commercial, during the evening, in the centre of Medellin. The dialogue sound was ruined by noise from the adjacent bars. We had to convene the actors to do voice dubbing, also called ADR (additional dialogue recording). We don't have our own sound studio, so we have gone to three places: a university's radio studio, a tv studio's sound booth and today a radio station's studio.

Echo is the enemy at ADR'ing. Yo don't want any echo, and if you do, you could better add it as a digital effect. But I discovered not even the radio station had really isolated surfaces, their walls were textile, but their floor was hard tile. Not good, that produces echo. A sound studio should have a sound-isolating material in their floor like textile or a semi-soft material. But anyway, since the scene is an outdoor one, the slight echo is drowned by noise. Added noise. Only this time, it is controlled. Basically, mixing sound for a noisy outdoor scene is deconstructing everything and then building it up again.

I was pretty happy with how the voices sounded at the end, although I'd love for a professional post-production sound mixer to give his opinion on it.

Visiting a feature film set

Today we visited the film set of Eso que llaman amor, a feature film being shot here in Medellin at the moment, directed by Carlos César Arbeláez, who also directed The colors of the mountain, a famous film here in Colombia.

We did video interviews with several of the crew, where each explained what they do in their role on set. It went well except for lots of disturbing noise. Luckily we used a lavaliere mic that captured the sound well. The idea is to use these interviews in our film school, to explain what people do in a film crew. We were glad that we were allowed to do the interviews for our school, but I'm not aloud to publish anything online, not even photos.

It was fun to be on a feature film set, and for a film tech geek just to see a RED camera in action, surrounded by a substantial amount of c-stands and French flags.

An important meeting.

Today we met with a señor in the municipality of Medellin with an important position of film production. It was a rewarding meeting and we were able to tell him what we do in our film studio. Will be interesting to see what comes out of it.

In the evening I held a workshop about "writing for film and television" for out team. We analyzed a couple of tv commercials using classic screenplay structure. Then we all had to come up with film ideas which we looked at together.

An important phone call

Today I called Juan Pablo Tamayo, a film producer here in Colombia. He produced The Colors of the Mountain, a recent renown drama film. Just having talked to him on the phone is an achievement for me. He invited me to come visit the set of his current production, Eso lo que llaman amor. Well for a guy like me trying to enter Colombian film industry, this made my day.

Camping

This weekend we went camping with our office team. I wasn't sure I would go first, I guess I have grown more comfortable over the years.

But then I thought what the heck. We took a couple tents and made a camp at the side of a river close to San Felix, up in the mountain West of Medellin. Awesome place. Sometimes it seems God just designed places to be enjoyed by humans.

Almost no mosquitos and a steady 22 degrees Celcius at day. We even jumped into the beautiful little creek that made a curve around our place. We saw some beatiful yellow birds that could have been taken out of a wildlife magazine. The night was colder, most of us were freezing. That could easily be solved with better gear and clothes though. I got a taste for camping again and thought I'd buy a good sleeping bag and a mattress as soon as I can. I have camped many times in Sweden and in the US, but this was the first time in South America.

I realized how refreshing nature is and how good it is to get a break.

The river looked like it containted gold.

New films being shot in Medellin

Two feature films will be shot in Medellin in May-June. One is called The Dead Men and the other That thing they call love (Eso lo que llaman amor). Unfortunately, I didn't have a clue about this until recently, so I immediately made some calls to get in touch with the productions. I hope to at least be able to visit the sets and interview some people.

These films are actually produced from Medellin, not from Bogota, like so many other. Is this the start of the new film era in Medellin?

DIY sound booth

Cutting costs is good, as long as you get what you want... I am working on a client video with a discount, and have no budget for voice over. Actually they wanted my own voice, so I draped my bathroom shower cabin in sheets and some cushions and brought the Röde NTG-2 shotgun microphone and my Fostex audio recorder and started. It worked pretty well.

Sound easily echoes if there are hard walls, so the idea was to drape every possible area with textile, including the ceiling and floor. I still noted some echo in the base tones, but it was hardly distinguishable and I was lucky to have quiet neighbors at the moment. So I was pretty satisfied with my D.I.Y sound booth.

ViValores

Today I was working on a brochure for ViValores, our foundation that will broadcast "values commercials". A brochure that will be used for possible sponsors. Basically an NGO business plan. Lots of work behind the scenes...

Willow Creek

Today I held a seminar in my church about Willow Creek and their way of reaching people (Willow Creek is one of the biggest churches in the US and has been very successful in being relevant and attractive to people of today). I did a little poll about the present people's ideas of how to make our services more accessible to non-believers and in what type of spaces we can share our faith with others as church.

I also went looking for an auditorium for our film marathon premiere night, but no luck so far.

God or just luck?

Today was an interesting day. In the morning we went to hear some Christian Hollywood people talking about their experiences in the entertainment industry and sharing stories of faith. They were invited by the Biblical seminary of Colombia (!).

Then in the afternoon we had a scene to shoot for one of our values commercials. It was a scene in a school bus. Thing is, when we were scheduled to start, the bus didn't show up. What to do? We sat down and prayed. And believe it or not, within five (5) minutes, we got hold of an owner of a school bus who could come immediately. Was that God or just luck? I choose to believe it was God.

Thing is, two days ago I had thought about that first bus we had planned on using. It was a little too small, and as I worried about it, I was reminded of the verse, "Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God." (Phil. 4:6) And I said to God, "Please, if possible, give us a better bus".

The bus that showed up, was bigger and better than the other one.

Film marathon

In Sweden, I participated in 12-hour film marathons a couple of times. It was a lot of fun. Now, we are setting up our own 12-hour film marathon for the public in Medellin. It will be called CineDia, the Film Day. We have started promoting it. I'm excited.