Colombian walking speed

Once again I am just amazed by the Colombian walking speed.
I have discovered Colombians have two walking gears: slow and fast. The fast one is FAST, the person walks so fast you can hardly catch up with a woman if you're a man. The slow (and normal) one is s- l- o- w.
This is the gear the attendants in shopping centers use. I am so amazed!
You ask for something and the attendant says "Ok, I'll take a look" and starts walking away in 0.3 km/hour. Beware when following them, because you risk walking into their back.
When they eventually come back, they are always courteus and friendly, expressing their joy of helping you.

I am so amazed how Colombians are so freed from stress. I think I envy them...

One major obstacle for Latin America

If Colombians only knew... that the entire world is speaking English. Wherever you go in the world, English is the language that opens doors for you.
Now that we live in virtually connected world, so even more. We connect through English, we learn through English, we publish in English.
English is the language of international business. It is the language of trade, investments and cooperation. It is the language that the whole world understands.
Except Latin America.

I am sorry to state this, but as long as Latin America doesn't prioritize English in their school system, this continent will never experience true economic growth.

Editing "By your Side"

We have now begun editing the short film "By your side"! Editing means to cut together the videos that were shot, first in a simple way, then refining more and more, then adding on-location sound, sound design and color corrections.

The plan is to have the film ready around at the beginning of June this year, and then begin the distribution. We want to distribute both to film festivals and television channels.

"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.