Colombian food

A couple of time I have received the question "Do you like Colombian food?"

Uncomfortable, I have responded with a smile: "To be honest, no!"

Colombian "traditional" food might be "nutriciously" alright, but it completely lacks spices! There is only one exception: coriander.
When I ask Colombians about this, they say "We like the natural taste of things!"

I am trying hard to enjoy the natural taste of rice and beans, potatoe and plantain (and without any sauce!), but I am just too used to a variety of spices... And still, in terms of flavors, the European cuisine is probably completely tasteless to the average Asian...

Yes, I long for pepper, garlic and onion, basil, oregano, parsley and mint, vinegar, wine, mustard and lemon, curry, ginger and cinnamon, saffron and horseradish...not to mention additionals such as mushrooms, almonds and peanuts... or our Scandinavian favorite: lingonberry sauce!

Luckily, Colombia is so much "tastier" in something else: people!

Alpha day

Today: Alpha day. I was part of this "Holy Spirit" day.

Shooting commercial, with a cold

Today we shot three scenes for the ViValores commercial "Who educates...". I had a cold and my nose and eyes kept running all day. Not the wisest but we had planned with so many actors and everybody could do it, so I didn't want to spoil it.

We shot in a pretty tight apartment. One challenge was the crane-panning shot, we actually constructed a kind of mini-steadicam but at the end we used a telephoto pan shot instead. The drawback was that we didn't have a good telephoto lens, only a Canon kit lens which we had to push until 400 ISO. But, the shot movement didn't look to bad.

Again we were working with a child actor, she is only about ten years old but did pretty well. I was both director and DP, which is not the best, because one is distracted from direction into all the lighting questions and you forget about things.
Anyway, we kept the schedule pretty well (2 hours per scene) and got our main shots, so I shouldn't complain.

Location scouting

Today we had our team meeting and we also went looking at a location for tomorrow's shoot. I was an apartment, nicely decorated, everything already in a color palette, and enough of equipment space, so we decided to go for it. I will be director as well as director of photography.

I proposed that we would spend two hours in the morning to pre-light the set as to have a plan when the actors come. We have three scenes to do and of course each will have their own lighting scheme (as well as changes between framings). All the three scenes take place during late afternoon in the movie world whereas it will be going from day to night in the real one, so I decided that we would cover the windows to have control over the light amount.

One challenge will be to simulate tv flicker, which we will accomplish through intermittently covering a blue-gelled light. Another challenge will be a type of panning diagonal crane shot, but without a crane... instead we will use a Steadicam Merlin, which is a beautiful little tool to do floating shots. As a director I should have total knowledge of the script, but I will only take a look tomorrow morning... these have been intense days. I have a cold but I hope I won't be too bad tomorrow...

Film forum

Today we filmed some more statements with "name actors" in Bogota for ViValores.com. Later I participated in a film forum in my church in Medellin, where we showed short films and had an art and photography exhibition. In our film team we are now preparing for another "values commercial" shoot at the end of this week.

Bogota impressions

After a few days in Bogota, I have noted some things:

>Everything is square.
>The morning sun is pleasant.
>People are nice and generous.
>Women talk fast and show up on time.
>All men wear were suit.

Showbiz people promoting values

Sometimes you need a little help from celebrities.
Now we are working pretty much on promoting ViValores (a new foundation to advertise life values through tv-commercials), and we decided to ask some famous Colombian television people if they wanted to say, in front of a camera, that they want a better Colombia and that they are supporting ViValores.

So far we have encountered nothing but positive responses and today we filmed with the actor Pedro Pallares and the tv host Rodrigo Castro. Tomorrow we will shoot with Adriana Bottina (singer/actress) and Yuli Pedraza (actress).