Colombian Movie-Making Adventure Begins!

We are here, just like that, moved from quiet suburbia, MN to quiet plains-near-the-mountains, Colombia. Here is a snippet of our recent adventure:

Day 1:
Arrived in Bogotá at night after a grueling day of flying~ My bag has been lost in the system and so I've been wearing the same blue capris and black shirt for the past 5 days...We were picked up by a friend here and delivered to his family's home in Chapinero Alto (a lovely part of Bogotá) for a good night's sleep.

Day 2:
We slept so well~ Bogota is in the mountains and very cool~in the 60's.  It was a nice relief after Minnesota's humid summer!  We took a walk, noticing the thinner air as we huffed and puffed a little walking up hill.  We exchanged $ and met a friend, Jon Captain, for breakfast at a place that specializes in "comida llanera" --Food of the plains. Elijah had tinto (a small cup of strong coffee), scrambled eggs, arepa con queso (a thick corn pastry with cheese inside) and an empanada.  I had strong hot chocolate (a common breakfast drink), scrambled eggs & arepa con queso.  We stopped at a little drogueria (drug store) on our way home so that I could pick out some essentials that were in my lost bag.  Shortly thereafter we left in a truck for Cubarral, a town in the plains, on the edge of the mountains, where we'll be based for filming.  We wound through the mountains for 5 1/2 hours and drove through some especially interesting tunnels that were dripping a disturbing amount of water onto our car! We arrived at the farm in the evening and went to bed.  It is much hotter in Cubarral than Bogotá and our room felt like a hot coffin. After a mini-melt-down (literally) we found a fan to use and slept very well.

Day 3:
Elijah and the lighting & sound guys worked on setting up all the camera equipment and lights and figuring it all out before filming day.  I had my first reading lesson with a 1st grader that I'm tutoring.  All the teaching materials that I had packed to use with her are still in my lost bag... so we had to improvise a bit.  I also took a dip in the farm's beautiful pool... such a nice addition to a hot place, especially since it's overlooking the gorgeous mountains.

Day 4:

Our first filming day!  We left bright and early and drove to a beautiful finca (farm) in the mountains to film our first 3 scenes.  After 12 hours of takes (with some breaks due to a sudden thunderstorm) we only got 2 of the 3 scenes done. But they are BEAUTIFUL. We watched the footage later and we were all in awe.  Elijah is working with a lighting guy and sound guy, and the three of them make an awesome filming team.  The makeup artist is fabulous, the directors/script writers inspired, and the actors were well practiced & incredibly patient with all the takes we took.  Two Colombian military "guarded" us all day and also brought weapons & clothing for us to use as props/costumes in the scenes. They were very careful to doubly check that the guns were not loaded!! I took aim at a couple trees with a 9 millimeter... it was really cool. haha. 

We will film 6 days a week for the next 8 weeks.  We hope to get all the 90+ scenes filmed in that time.  Here's to our Colombian adventure! :)