wait /what/ day is it?!

so this wednesday we have another rough cut of the project due – good thing I used last week to catch up on my sleep.  I wish we had three day weekends in America instead of only two.

hrmph

after the first rough cut…

almost a week ago we had our first rough cut due to show at a little pow-wow on campus.  This really helped us just throw everything we initially liked and were open to including in our final documentary and to get feedback from Dr. Seguin, Erica, and our peers on the project.

Each interview that we had translated and the subtitles matched up was still around 5minutes each – still waaayyyyy too long, and after having a chance to heard everything together Adrienne and I now have better direction on what we need and what can be left on the cutting room floor.

Next week is another benchmark with a more polished project due.

post production

well next week our rough draft of our documentary is due – yikes I know.

Adrienne and I have been meeting with Dr. Seguin and Erica just about every week since we returned and have done a rough pass of the translations and have digitized all of the footage.  It helped a lot that we started to take timecode notes when in Chile because the footage was still fresh in our minds and that process is saving us a lot of time during the edit.

We are still waiting on one more translation but the rest we have highlight the good parts and tried to cut the fat.  In this case fat= crazy chilean babble and unnecessary information.

The rough cut deadline is fast approaching but I think well be okay.

not done yet…

The actual trip might be over but the project is far from complete.  Adrienne and I have until the middle of April to now take our nine tapes of footage and make something out of it.  This isnt going to be as compelling as the actual trip to Chile but feel free to follow along as we have “creative differences” during the post production part of the project.

day fifteen – saying goodbyes

Our last day in Chile. I woke up around noon with nothing packed. Luckily I remembered the night before that I had put clothes in the washer and before I went to bed I hung them out to dry once the sun came up. After some prelim packing I went and ate with Ashley and a Chilean friend of hers at a very nice place owned by the same people thy operate the late night food stand neighbor to it. For 3600 peasos (roughly $6) I got chicken soup, mellon juice, pasta with salmon, and cake. It was really good food and for an awesome price – too bad it was our last meal there.

Once I came back I finished packing and was relieved to get everything back into my one somewhat small suitcase minus a towel and some socks and plus some souvineers. Others were not so lucky and had to buy an extra bag.

Around 4:30 the bus came but it was too small to fit everyone and all of our luggage so Barbara helped us our by driving four people to the airport. As I’m writing this I’m actually on the flight from Canada back to Pittsburgh so unless I loose my luggage we can successfully say that everyone got there and back in one piece more or less and it was a successful trip – now to just wait for the cellphone bill and all of the roaming charges and quarter texts… eek.

day fourteen – activities

Day fourteen was filled with some fun activities. We got up daly an piled into a van and headed south down the coast to San Antonio where Gonzalo lives. Once there we met his parents, took a boat tour of the port, then went backabd ate lunch with his family. His dad made his own bread and salsa, and we had the choice of either a seafood gumbo or a piece of steak – I had both and both were delicious.

After we ate the group headed up to Pablo Nerudas house – well his one by the ocean. Pablo was a famous Chilean poet and depending on who you ask he was either a jerk or a great man. During the tour we learned a bit about his seaside house. We got to see his collection of ship leaders(?) [the decorative person like object at the front of a boat], all of his beetles, collection of instruments that he didnt play but liked the shape of, and his amazing view of the ocean even from his bed. The whole house had a ship feel via the narrow doorways, wood floors held together with pegs not nails, and décor.

Once we were back in Valparaiso we all got cleaned up and headed out to Pajarito (little bird in Spanish) to have one last group meal. We had gone to this place one time as a large group in the very beginning and the service was slow but this time it was extremely disappointing. Not only did it take over two hours for everyone to get their food but they didn’t have half the items on the menu. We hypothesize that the resturant is incappable of accomidating the orders of a group that has more than four people. Although the service was terrible it was still nice to have everyone together for one last meal.

That night Gonzalo took just about all of us to this five level dance club called Huevo – or egg in spanish. The first floor was a metallica cover band, the second was kinda like a coffeehouse with some no names performing, the third floor was the reggatone/top 40 in the Spanish world room, the fifth floor was this small hallway of a room playing some Chilean dance music and a room that was half outside for salsa dancing. The fifth floor was the roof and it featured chill dance/trance/house mixes. We all started out on the roof then spent some time in the top 40s room, but then it got too Spanish for me and I decided to check out re reggaetone room – it was packed. I hung out in there for a bit then headed back up to the roof. On the way I passed by the green hallway room by the salsa one because I heard some good 90s dance music coming from there. Slowly everyone gathered there and then spent the next couple of hours enjoying classics such as Rythem of the Night and the Twist.

One thing that I really didn’t like about the bars there (and in places in chile) it is set up where you have to pay first then wait in another line to get the product, unlike here where one person handles getting you the product and playing cashier. And the fact that since the water is bottled you have to pay for it and it can’t be found at each bar. Annoying.

day thirteen – trip to santiago

Friday was a day off – or atleast a day of not filming. We all headed to Santiago to visit Channel 13, a local television station. Not only do they cover local, national, and world news but they have 12 other sets for soap operas, gameshows, a virtural set, etc etc. We got to see the news set, the set of a soap starting in March, the virtural set, an HD control room, some outdoor sets, and their major gameshow set.

Afterwards we went to the president of Chile’s white house equivelant and were able to just walk through a couple courtyards and see a few sculptures. Then we went to another museum but this was on Chilean history – a lot of paintings and artifacts. I think u would have gotten more out of it if I could read Spanish and understand what I was looking at. The last thing we did was head to an exhibit of a famous artist who does etchings of Valparaisian scenes.

Once we got back to Valparaiso I went and grabbed our camera and headed back out to the streets to get a few more night shots. It really wasn’t that busy and I had less people crowding me than before so it was easier to steady my shot and get what I need.

day twelve – the little things

Day twelve started out with our usual morning meeting and then we headed back to review tapes. The rest of the day was watching footage to make sure we had what we needed and making a todo list of what still needed to be filmed. Around 7pm we met Barbara and went to Ascensor Polanco, the huge elevator outlook that we were at before. It was a good thing Barbara was along because we wanted to film the sunset from 8:30pm to 9:30pm and the trollies stopped at 9, and the area that the ascensor is in can be shady and contain a lot of gangsters looking to start something – especially with tourists.

After we filmed the sunset Barbara took us someplace to eat (and it was delicious) then we went back and headed to bed

day twelve – the little things

Day twelve started out with our usual morning meeting and then we headed back to review tapes. The rest of the day was watching footage to make sure we had what we needed and making a todo list of what still needed to be filmed. Around 7pm we met Barbara and went to Ascensor Polanco, the huge elevator outlook that we were at before. It was a good thing Barbara was along because we wanted to film the sunset from 8:30pm to 9:30pm and the trollies stopped at 9, and the area that the ascensor is in can be shady and contain a lot of gangsters looking to start something – especially with tourists.

After we filmed the sunset Barbara took us someplace to eat (and it was delicious) then we went back and headed to bed

day eleven – the beach

Today was somewhat short – or at least it felt that way. After the morning meeting we came back for an hour nap and then headed out to film some shots of the Poets Cafe in the day light, the bar area during the day, and the streets. Afterwards we all came back and got ready to go to Vina del Mar for the day. Once there we went to their mall to use the food court for lunch. Oh and I finally got a pizza cone – it really wasn’t as amazing as all the hype suggested – just some pizza in a cone shape – and it was sorta small. Since that really wasn’t filling I went to the place with the shortest line- subway. Not only was everything in Spanish but they didn’t have ranch or Italian dressing. Also the $5 footlong thing really doesn’t work since it’s $5500 peasos for 30cm.

After we were all done eating we went to the beach and hung out there for a couple of hours. Once we were back we went out for dinner – I had a ham an cheese omlet – and then called it a night.