Went to see Maria Full of Grace last Saturday. It’s a good movie, not all doom and nastyness, but just real people doing real things.
As someone who has lived in Colombia (and my gf who is from Colombia agrees), I can say Colombia is exactly as portrayed in the movie. My gf said the moto guy was exactly like the real moto guys she knew in Colombia.
I’ve shot a documentary in Colombia earlier this year, and in the beginning of the movie, I kept thinking “we have that footage!”. All the scenes where shot in places we have shot or at least been to as well (Queens, NYC; the airport; Medellin Colombia, Bogota). Of course, we don’t have that story, nor that acting, nor that moviemaking talent.
August 24th, 2004 at 2:25 pm
I’ve found your notes on making a documentary very insightful! I’m going to
start making a documentary as soon as I get some equipment. It’ll take place
in San Diego and the Netherlands, where my grandparents are from. Did you have
to get lighting equipment too?
August 25th, 2004 at 10:49 am
No, I only used available light. Depending on the style you’re shooting for, available light should usually do.
September 9th, 2004 at 1:27 pm
I realize you aren’t blogging about your documentary any longer, but I wanted
to ask you if you thought you spent more time on editing or actual filming.
Also, did you wait until you had uploaded everything/finished filming to start
editing? Or did you edit as you went along. I’m trying to figure out how long
it might take me to make this film, because I’d like to finish it by June/July.
I actually don’t have the equipment yet, because of financial difficulties and
a family emergency, but I think I can get the equipment by the end of this month
or by the beginning of October. Sorry if I’m asking too many questions.
September 18th, 2004 at 4:12 pm
Funny, the movie “Maria Full of Grace” was not even shot in Columbia - aside from a few arials. It was shot mostly in
Equador (The Colombia scenes of course).
September 19th, 2004 at 1:01 am
Editing took longer than filming! Filming took about 2 weeks altogether. Editing isn’t finished yet but it takes 2 days just to watch everything we filmed once! So I expect editing to take about twice as long as filming, or longer. I will blog when I get back to it, I haven’t been able to spend much time on it since we finished filming…
As for your second question, editing on-the-road seems very hard. We definitely edited AFTER filming. With a feature film you might be able to do some editing while still shooting, but with a documentary it’s almost impossible. The thing about editing is that it is a lot of puzzlework, moving things around, trying different approaches.
December 13th, 2004 at 3:20 am
Hi! I was wondering…can you just update your progress on the documentary. How is it going?