The strip-board for the breakdown is finished. I took the precaution of making it as well on a physical board. I don't want to find myself somewhere in the middle of nowhere and discover that the laptop decides to quit. I had a dream about that.
In the meantime, I will work on tension between two of the characters. We have to make a short with the new camera before we go to Paraguay. Let's make all of our mistakes here, not in the jungle. We have the right sound gear for the Cannon 5D.  After we have our production gear in place, we will work on our post-production landscape. 
This is the day I should have been on a plane to Paraguay, and solve every single issue in two weeks, including and especially actors and locations. Instead, we can breath a little while we strengthen ourselves. 

A good friend of my, and father of one of my dearest friends, renown artist Hermann Guggiari, died in Paraguay. He was a living legend there. Cheers Hermann. Sprinkle some of your talent this way.

We purchased our first Cannon 5D Mark II. We are now on the process of aligning our hardware to it. We have zillions of Nikon prime lenses. Hopefully we can use them with an adapter.  The auto focus worries me a bit, since I would like to do most of EL RIO ENTRE VIDAS on a moving camera. Let's see how much movement the Cannon can handle. One bridge at the time. In the meantime, with so much technology, I try not to feel like:

They are really smart

First Snow at Crystal Mesa.

Trooper and Duke (click on the picture)

And with it comes the silence. A good time for introspection.

White Christmas is in the air.  (click on the picture)

All this after a good week of meetings and setting goals for 2012 and 2013.

At Jinja with Carrie, Lauri and Mary, our lovely hostess and friend. 

What a week!! Paraguay is coming together slower than I expected. In the meantime, Marie and Alisa (Davis) found this restaurant for sale in downtown Santa Fe. It is hard to resist the lure of getting one's own restaurant and turn it around. However, ... easy,and easy with Paraguay as well. Location and casting logistics will take their own time. To start right away could mean throwing money down the drain.  


So, next in schedule is a preliminary trip to Paraguay for those two things: locations and casting. This will be around March or April. I am sure all sorts of logistics will pop out of their box once I am there, like wardrobe/costumes, catering, etc. So one must breathe and count to ten grasshopper. All in it's good time -restaurant included if fate should dictate so.


In the meantime, I had fun with Lucas before yesterday. He played a song in his guitar, which he received as a present from Mary (Kiedis) and decided to learn it two weeks ago. Lucas already plays the piano. 

click to watch

I just finished a short on Edgar Mitchell for our Documentary on INVISIBLE HEROES. Dr. Mitchell is one of the 12 human beings who was lucky enough to walk on the moon. What a special human being!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ANgKY8yGsQ

And last but not least, since I speak about the moon, I have been up since 4:30am watching the full moon eclipse as it slowly hid itself on it's back, partially covered by the earth's shadow, right behind the hill in "my backyard." How lucky can one be?

The partially covered moon went down right behind that hill, as the sun was rising.

Now, back to wardrobe detail:

One of the lifetimes

Had a quiet Thanksgiving.  Working on re-writes and getting a Cannon 5D setup. Anne Foster recommended that I watch ORLANDO, with Tilda Swinton, since she lives several lifetimes in the story. So we watched it over a delicious pizza, salad and ice cream for dinner. Big pageantry, an incredibly actress, interesting subject, and yet, a bit short of hitting the right spot. In 1992, it must have been quite a splash with it's premise. Tilda Swinton would be perfect to play Boudica in our script (with Marta Townsend) UPRISING.

The end of 2008 for Lucas and I.

This afternoon, we are making a small video to help Walt promote his on-the-road show.

Virginia's house in EL RIO ENTRE VIDAS

Locations are beginning to appear. This is a waterfall close to a similar location I want. This one would be my second choice. The one I want is from what I remember further in the forest. But that was 20 years ago. The forest could be no more... as when I finally drove under the big redwood in California with an opening for cars. On the other side was a Pepsi machine.

Those who know it far back call it Salto Boening. Here, Raúl holds Cristobal above the water and faces his actions years back on the bridge over the Paraná river.

Marie Bartels’ Chappel. She is Marie’s mom. Werener, Marie’s dad comes every morning here to fix it, clean it and make sure the flowers and greens are doing well. He cherishes the memory of his wife.

A peacful place at Crystal Mesa

Werner. He can be very elegant when he wants, but  here he looks like he escaped a novel by Victor Hugo.

Werner would have played a Jew in BETWEEN LIFETIMES. He was a soldier in WWII in the marshes near Stalingrad. 

I’d  better learn to cook more. This single man-eats-canned food and microwaved stuffed, has to  improve. 

Marie making sure I put the potatoes in my potato soup.

In the meantime, BETWEEN LIFETIMES has a name in Spanish: EL RIO ENTRE VIDAS. While I work on the schedule, casting and locations, I made a short video for Kickstarter - a simple talk-to-the-camera-type video. The link is on the top bar.

Iris Apfel

Before yesterday, I met with Orren. He asked me about the possibility of going to New York to interview his dear friend Iris Apfel who is a fashion Icon. It would mean changes in schedule for BETWEEN LIFETIMES/EL RIO ENTRE VIDAS, since this is sort of an emergency. Iris hurt herself, and everyone wants a piece of her from filmmakers to photographers to magazines etc. We want to be with the person. She is 92 and has had a wonderful life full of experiences in the fashion/decor world. Decorating the White House through nine administrations since Harry Truman is just one of the things she accomplished.

Iris

Budgeting

Scheduling was not a breeze. Budgeting is even harder, not so much in budgeting but in understanding Gorilla Software and using all the cross referencing possibilities at hand. There are so many wrong turns that I wonder weather this project  -since it's a small one- would be better left in Excell.

Hiking with Mary, Molly and Sawyer for a change of pace.

Sheduling, budgeting etc

Yes!!. Finished scheduling… at least the first part. So we are on to budgeting, locations and actors. I found an actress who could play Maria. She is incredibly natural. Her first film as an amateur just won Camera d’Or in Cannes 2011, in an Argentinian Film called LAS ACACIAS. This is a trailer for a short/PSA she is working on these days. LA PARTIDA:   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2H-57SE4OM

This is a place where Maria would live. My father took me up that  peak once in a hunting expedition that took 3 days and 20 miles.

Predators

Last month, a bobcat jumped the fence and took two geese and one duck. We were hoping to catch it, like the one we caught last year. But alas, all we trapped was a little skunk. Peppi Lapiu. I let it go on peril of being sprayed.  He was probably too scared to do anything. But there he goes free.

The bobcat was taken to a faraway place and released; the skunk ran under the pig's house. They are probably buddies.

Ok, enough blogging for today. That'll teach me to keep up. Let's go back to... budget. Any bored oil heirs out there?

Beautiful animals here at the Crystal Mesa mini paradise.

Nothing like the smell of a farm. The quiet hum of nature.

While I spent hours in a room or at the dining room, life keeps happening. Well, translation finished. In the meantime, Halloween came. We had a lovely time in Cerrillos a small town with hardly any street lights, the perfect town for the headless horseman to hide.

Marie was a Pirate. Here with two other vampires in Cerrillos.

Buying cameras is never easy. Will it be the Cannon or the new Panasonic that can even bring you breakfast in bed? We are still looking, but given all the numbers and our numbers, it will be most probably the Cannon 5D Mark II. I have to keep in mind that in the end it's about story. And it's still expensive.

Quick  run to NY to learn more about Cams

I visited with Imogene Hughes and walked around her Bonanza Creek ranch. What a lovely lady. It's always a treat, with all those movie sets and that wide open space. This is were I came 20 years ago to work on a Terrence Hill (nice man) movie. I have good memories form those days. Since then, everyone from John Travolta, Harrison Ford, Daniel Craig, Billy Bob Thornton, Russel Crow, etc has been here.

Imogene's house on the other side is nothing short of a set, with a pond in her backyard as big as Universal's or bigger

I did two readings of BETWEEN LIFETIMES. I like what I am hearing. It's like breaking a pot to rebuild it again. It came out better of course. And it is quite different. The landscape and the culture in Paraguay demand hose differences. I have a list of characters to send down for casting and it is seriously time to decide about cameras.
Post-production will be a long road. But for now, lets enjoy location scouting, casting and production.
So, will it be a Cannon or a Sony?


Happy birthday Carli - Calanga

We will film around Yguazu falls

Just finished the Spanish version, and I must say, I like it better. And, it is a mere 17 pages shorter. That's what I call economizing. Tomorrow I have my first reading. And then let the chips fall where they may. Time for long distance casting and location scouting.

Taking a break early in the mountains in Santa Fe

The First Time

Started translating the script. It turned into a re-writing and a struggle with all the ghosts and fears, for this has to be ready soon. No more time for artistic inspiration to come at its own pace. I guess I am going to have to call the inner Stephen King, wherever he is. He's got to be in there.


And last week walking around Cerrillos in their annual all -town garage sale I found it. The first movie I went to with my mom and my brother Carli at the Cine Victoria in Asunción. It was 1971.

Fate

Just had the most incredible revelation. Somehow, things, right and left have been pushing me to do something different. And the answer came so clearly when it came. I had been avoiding it, after my siblings and friends mentioned it for months, but something about the moment Marie said it was just the right nudge to push me over the cliff I really wanted to fly over. And so, I am going to move production to Paraguay. And a little of Argentina and Brazil and the Gran Chaco. I can find there all the exotic locations I need. And suddenly everything comes together.

Now it's time to translate the script into Spanish. When all is set, we are off to making a Paraguayan film. 

Presidential Palace in Asunción

2011
     
Lucas and I returned to Santa Fe, but in December, I had to turn around and go back to Paraguay, to Asuncion. My mother had been diagnosed with brain cancer and had only two months to live. I had a wonderful time with her and my siblings once more. My mom and I read a whole book together. Then she flew away with 2010 to the nether realms. I am so grateful that Lucas met her and for all those days we spent together as a family. I felt even more charged to renew my efforts on BETWEEN LIFETIMES.

While I was in Asuncion,  I heard a story from the housekeeper, about truckloads of body parts that the military had dumped in the slum where she lives. This happened during the Coup-d'etat, when President Stroessner was run out of Paraguay after a streak of 34 years of iron rule. That incident and others, gave me an idea for a new script. It's amazing how one gets impressed as a tourist -that is what I am now to Paraguay- and then inch by inch one falls in love with it again. There is no way to completely decipher human nature. Thank God for small things.

After missing two flights back and making it to my mother's funeral in a serendipitous turn of events, I was back at Crystal Mesa Farm.

It is time to look for locations, refine the script, always be aware of the funding, break down the script, put together a crew, and pay for it all somehow, either with money, sweat, or shares.

In April, we visited with Alan, a line producer who we liked right away, because of his earnest, simple approach to life and filmmaking. If I can work with this man once, it will be worthwhile. And should once be good, why not do it always? I am a sucker for small crowds, which renders me mediocre in the shmoozing realm. But I am a firm believer that, at the right time, the right people and funding come together. One has to keep the senses open to seize these instances.

So, is life easy? Absolutely not. That is not why I came here to earth. But life is exciting, challenging, and full of surprises.