Donnerstag, 19. Juni 2008

Oasis del Diablo

Between the natural humidity and heat of the Caribbean, and the artificially induced heat of the set lighting, I don't know which one was more painful. We arrived at El Batey, a local bar in the tourist area of old san juan, and began to set up. The original "El Batey" sign was covered with a sign that our scenic painter had made, which you can see above, stands for Oasis del Diablo.

The walls inside were covered in graffiti in the highest of places. Whether it was decoration made by the owner of the bar, or drunk and determined bar goers, there was graffiti 15 feet above the floor as well as on the ceiling, which is impossible to reach without a utility ladder. Lighting the bar took forever, and everybody worked in a crammed space at a hurried pace. They hammered and screwed beams on to the ceiling so lights could be attached to them. My job was to graffiti those beams to make them blend in to the graffiti'd walls. When Angel, the scenic painter, handed me four sharpies, I couldn't have been happier with my job! I wrote little paragraphs of nonsense, political quips and attempted subliminal messages.

After the lighting was set up, the extras rolled in, wearing punk/goth clothes and looking quite hellish. The twins made a cameo appearance as well, and although their initial outfits didn't look very hellish in comparison to the extras (who i am sure dress hellish on a regular basis, as their hairstyles were immutably punkified) the twins ended up looking hellish enough when put in the setting of the bar.

It all looked very amazing, and very hot, and all the actors/extras were sweating and glowing in the red lights.


The scene we were filming today goes as following. Henry and Diff speak in spanish for the purpose that I do not understand exactly what is going on (enigma makes art), then they walk out of the single stall bathroom together, still stubbornly speaking spanish. Then Henry goes to the bar and orders a whiskey, and receives what he thinks is rum. He yells at the waitress to give him his whiskey, and the waitress, whose costume is magnificent (and includes a marilyn manson style contact lens with the black dot) yells back at him because she gave him whiskey and will not be talked to in this manner, and then begins to serve somebody else. All of a sudden, WOAH Henry reaches over the bar, takes his cigarette from the ash tray, and burns her in the hand.

Bryan, the prop master, had worked hard at making a fake cigarette. The result was so good, that in confusion, Henry took the real cigarette, and burned the actress for real! The genuine reaction to being burned was validated through the actresses ability to stay in character and continue the scene. But her poor little hand had a real cigarette burn on it :(

We finished at around 11pm, with some shots of Henry and Diff screeching their tires as they speed off, and the waitress comes running out, yelling and screaming, and being very, very cool.



since our location was right in the middle of the tourist area, I got to do some sight seeing! It looks like I won't even have to have days off, since working is showing me more of Puerto Rico than actual vacation would be (as i'd probably just sit on a beach.)

Estefania and I were sitting at base camp, fighting the heat and guarding the food against bums and tourists (silly tourists think that puerto rico put up a tent and catering for the tourists... who do they think they are?) and it came across in conversation that the totem that the illustrators uncle made was right around the corner. I had heard of this totem, which is a landmark for puerto rico, marking 500 years of history. I decided to take a break from guarding duties, and went for a walk. The totem is earth toned, and represents the layers of stratosphere (is that the right geological term? I don't quite feel like opening a new window and googling it...) in which puerto rican history is buried.

Once, when javier (one of the twins, whose uncle made the totem) was around the totem, a gringo tourist started climbing the totem, breaking pieces off along the way. Javier started chucking the broken pieces at the climbing gringo, his friends saying "no, no! you'll kill him if he falls!" but javier was mad, because there's this dude climbing his uncles sculpture. Eventually the cops come, and the guy comes down the totem, and as he's being escorted into the cop car, javier jumps through the crowd and bitch slaps the offender, and then disappears into the crowd.

The offender was kicked out of school due to all the bad press, and also met Jaime suarez, the artist, to talk to him about helping to restore the pieces he broke. Unbelievable to the rising twin artist, the established uncle artist is unaffected and even jovial about the event. His reply:

"I haven't gotten this much press in years!"

Below the totem, a fountain entertains children, while the children entertain tourists by posing for pictures. The kids thanked me voraciously after I took this one.

I continued walking towards the fortress "el morro", which is a cliche tourist area. so cliche, in fact, that a commercial has been made where the punch line is "Dondey estah el morro?"

as you can see, the sun is almost set and its moments before the sky will turn a beautiful purple. I have a long way to get close enough to the fortress to take my masterpiece picture, and i'm rushing to catch the perfect lighting. However, I get distracted by the view:



and as I try for another picture of this same graveyard, which would include a larger view of the ocean and maybe a backdrop of the fortress and the setting sun, but then, my nightmare comes true:

I AM INEPT AT CHARGING MY BATTERY

and my battery died.

Oh well! At least we're filming inside the fortress for a nightmare/flashback scene! stay tuned.

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