Scoping out Puerto de Santa Maria (el Puerto)

Last Thursday, I spent four hours walking around Puerto de Santa Maria, Cadiz (more commonly known around here as "el Puerto"), scoping out one of the scenes we'll film in order to make Domino long enough for PBS.  It was a lovely day, I enjoy boats and water, and I had a great time.

Plus I came away with many ideas...enough ideas so that the following day, I wrote a rough draft of the scene to add to my movie script.

These two trees are one of the locations where I want us to shoot.

The scene will have two actors.  One will be Juan, the son of our hero, Luis.  The other will be Ana, Juan's girlfriend and fiancée.  Ana lives in el Puerto, which is why we will be filming there.  The fact that el Puerto is very lovely is another reason we´ll be filming there.

The scene will consist of a conversation the two have as they are walking along near the river.  The river opens up into the Bay of Cádiz just a short ways beyond el Puerto, and el Puerto is a port for fishing boats.

In the conversation, we´ll learn a lot about Ana´s character, and the situation the two find themselves in, especially with respect to Juan´s family and the effect their wedding is likely to have on the family´s financial situation.

As I was wandering around, I happened to wander into the local yacht club.  No one noticed that a non-member had walked in, and I didn´t realize until I was well inside that maybe this was a private club.  That has given me another idea, which I´ll think about over the weekend, and if I still like it on Monday, I´ll call the club´s manager and ask for permission to shoot there as well as in the other, public locations.

Yacht club with private sailboats in the background.

Our biggest problem now with  this scene is finding the right Ana.  We have a Juan, although there is some consideration of using someone else.  Antonio de la Malena, my right-hand man in this production, is in Italy but he´ll be back in a couple of weeks.

Small fishing boat for sale--the economy affects fishermen, too.

That leaves one other actual problem to solve:  the wind.  I´m hoping my alternate sound person (who has lots of experience and good microphones) is up to it.

We shall see.

OUR NEXT POST will be more about the new scenes.

Antonio de la Malena's upcoming CD

You might well be interested in learning that our star, Antonio de la Malena, is about to come out with a CD of flamenco cante (singing).  It's title will be Para ti mi cante, que es mi libertad (My song is for you, my song is my freedom.)  Palomino Productions is producing it jointly with a Spanish company, Jerez Puro, a flamenco performance company that tours all over the world and that also has dance academies all over the world.

Antonio de la Malena, a singer known the world over.  He has toured throughout Europe, Asia, and North America.  He has sung in Egypt.  He has been to almost every place where flamenco is loved.  This will be his first, purely flamenco CD.  He has two other CDs to his name, but they are not flamenco cante.

Antonio de la Malena.  (photo:  Martin Guerrero and Casa Patas)

We recorded this back in October, before I left for California, and planned to have it out in February.

Ah, the best laid plans of mice and men.

Turns out Antonio sang a bit too much.  First of all, he recorded another 5 cantes while I was in California.  Next, when he starts singing, he sings, and sings, and sings...and some of the cantes are over 10 minutes long.

Since it's important (says everyone who "knows") that a CD have 10 tracks on it, well, multiply 10 by 10 and you get a lot more minutes than any standard CD is going to hold.

el Bob (palmero), Antonio de la Malena, Manuel Parilla (guitarist), etc.

So we trimmed and trimmed, and cut and cut, and even with only 9 tracks it was STILL too long.  Plus some of what we cut was very dear to Antonio's heart, leaving him feeling like the prospective CD would not be what he wanted.

Solution?  Well, at the present time, we've just about decided to put two CDs into one package.  This has led Antonio to decide that he needs to record some more.  I have told him he MUST NOT go over the now 2-CD limit this time.

Bottom line, since he leaves town tomorrow for France and then Italy, is that we THINK we'll get this finished by the end of spring.  One way or another, I promise it's going to be good.  So hold onto your hats.

Bulerias fin de fiesta.  Right, standing=Antonio de la Malena

The final number on the set of two CDs will be the traditional "fin de fiesta" (ending party) bulerias.  For this, Antonio invited not only his older brother, the cantaor Manuel de Malena, and another six or seven people to join in.  They each take turns singing, with Antonio singing first and also ending the session.  There is no guitar accompaniment.  It's performed as if they were, indeed, all at a party together and simply enjoying themselves.

And again, you'll find it at www.AntonioMalenaCD-ENG.com, or if you're in Europe, at www.AntonioMalenaCD.com.

OUR NEXT POST will be about scoping out "el Puerto" (Puerto de Santa Maria).

Some thanks are due here-part 3-the pawn/jewelry shop

This is to express out thanks to Joyeria Juncal, where we filmed the scene in which Luis pawns a ring. 

Joyeria Juncal, located in the Madre de Dios area of Jerez de la Frontera, Spain, is both a jewelry shop and a pawn shop.  That is to say, they sell fine jewelry and watches, but they also purchase gold.  The owner of the shop, Francisco Juncal, kindly allowed us to film there free of charge, and his father (the elder Francisco Juncal, who is the shop's founder) played the part of... the shop owner.

Being that he knew exactly what he was doing, he had all the correct materials for evaluating the gold in the ring, and giving a price for it.

Francisco (Paco) Juncal, father...with our hero.

 Before shooting this scene, I didn't know anything about how gold is evaluated.  I now know that to assess it for the base of 18 carats, you use a pretty bottle with some bluish-greenish colored liquid.  You also scrape the gold on something that I presume is especially hard sand paper.  At least, that's what it seemed to be.

After scraping it, you apply the liquid.  If the tiny pieces of metal that you scrapped off stay there and don't float away, you have what is a minimum of 18 carats of gold.  (Unless I got it backwards, and you WANT them to float away in order to be sure it's gold.  I think I'm not quite ready to work in a pawn shop.)

Yours truly and Antonio Moreno Jimenez, our sound tech.  Yes, WE WERE THERE.

 Francisco Juncal the elder, who played the pawn shop owner, also wore a nice, bright orange sweater which worked well with our hero, Luis', dark jacket.  Our hero, Luis, has a tendency to wear dark jackets.  That's because Antonio de la Malena, the actor, evidently has a wardrobe full of dark jackets.  Brightly colored neck scarves but dark, dark jackets.

And our hero, Luis (Antonio de la Malena).

 OUR NEXT POST will really, really be about hair (I think).

Shooting the scene in the pawn shop

If you were an unemployed middle-aged man with a family, trying to find a job and also scrape together enough money to fulfill your obligations, at a certain point you´d likely find yourself in a pawn shop.  Especially now, in the economic crisis.

Luis (Antonio de la Malena) counting the cash he got from the jewelry he sold.

You´d find yourself in a pawn shop looking for ready cash.  You´d do all you possibly could to avoid selling that piece of jewelry your beloved mother or father left you, and you´d certainly try to avoid selling your wedding ring, but if you had any other piece of jewelry of value that you had purchased in better times, you´d try to see what you could get for it.

Paco, the pawn shop owner, waits on Luis.

With that thought in mind, we shot a scene in which our hero, Luis (played by Antonio de la Malena), goes into a pawn shop and sells a gold ring he has.  I´m posting some of the photos here from that shoot.

It being a fairly simple scene, director Eve A. Ma did double duty as camera person.

Sound tech Antonio Moreno Jiménez (front and center) with best boy el Negro (Jesús Suarez).

Enjoy.

 OUR NEXT POST will be about...hair...changed my mind.  It will be a thank you.

The current economic situation in Spain

Seen from the perspective of one individual in the city of Jerez de la Frontera in southern Spain, the economic situation doesn´t look very good.  And from what I read on-line and in the newspapers, the situation in Jerez reflects pretty accurately the situation in all of Spain.

When I left here in mid-November, unemployment was high, the city was behind on paying city workers and paying the concessionaires who supply the water, street lights and garbage.  When I returned, in late January, unemployment was higher, the city workers hadn´t been paid for three months (!!--forget that Christmas bonus), and there have been almost daily demonstrations.

Encampment of city workers in front of city hall.

 When I left, the people of the Movimiento 15-M (los Indignados) were camped out in the city´s mail plaza, Plaza Arenal.  Now that I´ve returned, they are still there (in spite of some really cold weather...near freezing most nights and part of the mornings as well).  In addition, there is now a new, DIFFERENT encampment right in front of city hall.  It´s the encampment of those unpaid city workers.

Some more specifics:  in a city of 200,000, over 35,000 are now unemployed.  When you realize that about half of the population consists of children or the elderly, and that most women over the age of 40 don´t work, that number becomes pretty scary.

An aside:  it´s only fair to report that a significant number of people work--especially if it´s a question of odd-jobs--without benefit of reporting it to the government.  A self-employed person here is required to pay $350 minimum (278 Euros) per month to the government no matter how much or how little they earn, so low-income self-employed people, well, they just don´t TELL the government.

Movimiento 15-M (Indignados) encampment.  "Nothing will move if you don´t push."

 Another factoid:  there´s a series of publicly financed apartment buildings that have had roof problems for the past four years.  Various government organizations have reluctantly promised to attend to this but none has a yet, and the roofs are caving in.  Over 200 people live in this housing complex.

Plus the bus drivers go on strike and march down the streets every week or so.  (I don´t have a photo because every time I pass a demonstration, I´m without a camera.  Sorry....)  But the next day, they go back to work even though unpaid.  I´ve heard many city workers are afraid to leave their jobs because then things will be even worse for them.  They´ll be unemployed as well as unpaid.  So they go to work each day, although I understand there will now be periodic slow-downs to indicate that they are really, really unhappy.

The building which houses offices of the major unions refers to the now 4-months´ overdue pay for city workers.

 And the big, annual flamenco festival is coming up, an event which normally draws thousands of foreign tourists and would-be flamenco stars.  The core of the festival consists of performances and classes.  The people teaching the classes this year have been required to sign a form saying they won´t ask to be paid for 12 months.

But the street lights are still on, the garbage collectors are still collecting the garbage, and the water and electricity continue to function.  My fingers are crossed that people will start getting paid soon, BEFORE they lose their homes, etc..

What do those notices all over the city workers´ tents say?  One of these:  if you tremble at injustice, you are our friend.

 OUR NEXT POST will be about shooting the scene in the pawn shop.

Screening on Jan. 26 in California

It was a real pleasure to have been invited by MAW (Media Art Works) to screen Domino:  caught in the crisis in California last month.  The event took place on Jan. 26 in the Arlington Cafe, shortly before I left California for Spain.

The venue is cozy...relatively small, but inviting.  Since Domino is a work in progress, this was perfect for me.  There were just enough people to produce some lively discussion and interesting comments at the end of the film.  We even had a real, live film critic!!!

Part of the audience.

MAW screened Domino as part of their monthly series called EBMMSC (East Bay Media Makers´ Screening Club).  The EBMMSC screens work made by filmmakers in the East Bay, with the idea that more exposure encourages the production of film-video and the opportunity to screen to a reasonably small live audience provides opportunities for really getting to understand what you work is communicating to the public.

The venue, the Arlington Café, is also pleasant and welcoming, plus you can have food and drinks while watching.

Coming after the successful (and larger) screening of my documentary A  Zest for Life just a few days earlier, it made me feel as if my work is appreciated and my career is taking a new, and happy, turn.

Thank you to all involved:  the audience, MAW and the Arlington Café.

MAW administrator Bianca Beyrouti, and filmmaker Eve A. Ma.

 NOTE that if you are an East Bay filmmaker looking for a venue in which to screen, don´t hesitate to contact MAW.

OUR NEXT POST will be about the economic situation in Spain on my return to Jerez de la Frontera.

Private greed and the economic crisis, part 4-the little man (or woman)

We´ve said quite a bit over the past several months about the greed of banks, other large corporations, government, and the like.  But we have to admit that ordinary individuals have also contributed to the crisis by wanting more and more and more...by being greedy.

I´m referring here to people who took out huge loans backed by little or nothing in order to raise their lifestyle, when they already had plenty enough to eat, had a good roof over their heads, and had the possibility of taking an annual vacation.  I´m referring primarily to middle-class people who wanted three cars in the garage, or a nice boat, or a condo in some great vacation spot, or a major re-model of their house, etc., etc.--when in fact they didn´t have the income to afford it.

Instead of income, they relied on credit...LOTS and LOTS of credit.  Credit that they had expected to pay back when the housing market shot through the roof.  But...

Mostly unregulated credit, and unrealistic housing expectations, that helped drive up the price of houses to the point where very few people could any longer afford to buy.  Credit which was underwritten by, well, by...nothing, or close to it.

Credit which led to the bursting of the bubble.

I seriously do believe these people were a major cause in the bursting of the economic bubble.  I do NOT, however, think that they are the most responsible.  A too-optimistic individual almost never has as much control or responsibility as a corporation which makes it its business to be financially sophisticated and savvy, which is willing to cut corners and in some cases, engage in significant fraud, for reasons of personal or corporate benefit.

NOTE:  As a further illustration, I meant to shoot a photo of a home with a garage fitted out for 3 cars, but left California before doing so! Uh oh.

But it remains true that if the private, middle-class individual had not been willing to contract for so much debt, if the "me" factor hadn´t been so important, if people were more willing to be content with what they had or what they could in fact pay for out of their own pockets, then they wouldn´t have been such easy prey for the blandishments of those financial institutions and others who were not operating in a manner so as to benefit the public good.

Which makes it clear that I believe in the public good more than private acquisition, and in savings more than loans.  We all have our preferences.

OUR NEXT POST will be about our screening on Jan. 26 in California.