"Lion of War" film on its way

The film franchise "Lion of War" is going forward. You can now follow what's going on at lionofwar.com. "Lion of War" is the story about King David and the Mighty Men, yes, the ones in the Bible.

There will be three Lion of War films, and they will be based on the book series Lion of War by Cliff Graham.
The first film will be called "Day of War" and will be produced by Grant Curtis, who also produced "Spider Man 2" and "Spiderman 3". The film will be directed by David L. Cunningham, who also directed "To End All Wars" and "The Path to 9/11".

There will also be a motion comic produced along the films, an animated series that you can follow on You Tube and also download an iPad. Check out the trailer on You Tube here. Further, there will be documentaries produced, on location in Israel, about the real King David.

I encourage you to stay updated with this unique film franchise.

Shooting "By your Side"

Finally we shot the short film "By your Side", a film about a garbage collector who meets a rich girl.
We had a team of about 20 people and we shot the film on a Canon 7D DSLR camera. We rented lights locally, one smashing HMI and a couple of 1000W's. And a "genny" of course (a generator for the lights).

We had an EXTREMELY tight schedule due to the limited time we had the main actor (he was flown in from Bogota), so we had to work every minute. The second day of shooting we basically worked 23 hours in a row, starting in the morning and ending in the next morning. We were so thankful to the owners of an apartment in El Poblado in Medellin, who let us in with a whole film crew and letting us shoot almost all night through.

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.