Shooting Day 2

With the concept of this commercial a huge domino festival, everything is being stacked and toppled. From refrigerators to antique hutches, the whole town is taking part. It takes about two hours to set up one of these massive and long "domino" paths. Today's 300 meter down hill topple went past a butcher store, complete with 6 halfs of beef and a whole pig. By lunchtime, the beating sun on those carcasses created a smell that was getting fairly rancid. I did however get the opportunity to operate a few shots and Juliana (pictured above) was my obliging assistant camerawoman.
Here are some pics pf the crew around the set today.

Salt Flats

Some of us treked 250 km away from set today to see the amazing salt flats they have near Jujuy. Again, like everything in Argentina, it's about scale. These are about four times the size of Utah's famed flats. Ari the key grip, Carlos the local gaffer and Mathias the camera operator and I started our three hour journey around 8:30 yesterday. Mathias has all the toys. He normally would use the kite to pull his trike around but there was not enough wind. So we hooked up a rope and pulled everyone around. It was alot like waterskiing. I got up to 60 km/hr. Then Ari had to do better @ 80km/hr. But Carlitos won @ 100km/hr. It was great fun. And after lunch, the wind had picked up enough that Mathi could zip around the flats with his kite.

Lunch

We took alittle break after a few spins around the flats to get a bit to eat. The local restaurant @ the flats is made entirely of salt. Salt bricks for the structure and the tables and benches are also made of salt. Unfortunately, it was closed. So a few kilometers away is a small town with no paved roads and all the houses are made of mud and straw. There were alot of lamas hanging about as well. There is one "restaurant" in town, Veronica's. We inquired about lunch but she had just sold her last bit of meat......but she said she could whip us up something nice. We communed with the lamas abit while she was cooking and then sat down for a brief chat with her husband. Bowls of rice covered with pappas fritas, fried onions, fried eggs and some fresh tomatoes on top. I looked at it a figured the imagined bacteria of the place will either kill me or not..... so I dug in.
Delicious. Veronica came out afterwards and chatted. Her grandfather founded the town in 1981. They have a bull fighting ceremony every August 4th. Although they only tie red bandanas to the bulls horns and the brave try to retreive them. Much more humane than the spanish sort. Her daughter just accepted to medical school in Cuba.
They offered us beds to rest and did not want to cahrge us for lunch. But we paid and got back to the Salt Flats for a little more fun before the ride back to Iruya.

Iruya Cemetery

We missed the big Easter parade they have here in the village which supposedly includes carrying a lucky 14 year old boy strapped to the cross simulating Jesus' plight being carried behind the life sized Mary litter, also carried by many men. Our hotel sits next to the cemetery and we explored a little yesterday. All over the countryside at Easter time, relatives adorned the graves with brightly colored plastic flowers. Very pretty. The head stones ran the gamut from simple wooden crosses to more eleaborate shadow boxes.

Scale

The scale of the mountains here is amazing. We were scouting yesterday and every now and again you look up from the scene being discussed and see these very impressive mountains all around you. Here is a photo from our scout of a pig pen where the people are dwarfed by the massive surroundings.

Energetic Director

We started to scout today our small village. It basically has two streets the go up and down the hill and several crossing roads. Everything is cobblestoned and quite beautiful. Our director Nicolai Is an energetic guy who's energy is infectious. We all got wrapped up in his vivid descriptions and fantastic body language. Here are a few examples of his directing style.

Trip to Iruya

We woke up yesterday in Jujuy (pronounced "Who-Whoie") and made the trek to Iruya (pronounced "Elutia"). We stopped off in a small village to meet the director and producer who had "come down the hill" to do some casting. We soon got off the paved road and were confronted with some washed out sections, donkey blockades and spectacular scenery. We got out at 4000 meters and all felt woosey, the town is down at 3200 meters and we have been doing well with the altitude here. We scout today.

Heroes de la Independencia

On the way up to our tiny village, we stopped in a small tourist town of Humahuaca. We had a little lunch and I found what I called the town's Spanish Steps with a massive statue to mexican independance on the top. Very dramatic and cool.