MARIA Y JUANA 2

We have an expression in Colombia; ´Yerba mala no muere´. This translates to something akin to ´bad weed don´t die´. Yup, including the grammatical error. 🤣🤣 Like a damn zombie you just cannot kill this short, this story. The itch to make it was always there, but for several years I was working on other projects. Then, by the beginning of 2022, the family decided to go to live in Japan. It was something we all knew would happen one day. I owed it to my wife to do this. She had come with me to Colombia just because she loved me and wanted to be with me and wanted to support my crazy dream of becoming a writer. 12 years later, it was her turn. So we bought the plane tickets, applied for my visa, started to sell the house, the car and furniture. We were ready.

(THIS POST TELLS THE REST OF THAT STORY, PLEASE CHECK IT OUT!)

Then, when my friend Andrés Valdez told me he was going to Canada to study by October 2022, holy shit.

DIEGO

For real?

ANDRÉS

Yes, Don Diego. It's my dream to study there, and hopefully to stay there.

DIEGO

I see.

A moment of silence took over for a few seconds. Then,

DIEGO (CONT)

Shit, you´re leaving, I´m leaving. But... there is something we gotta do.

He didn´t hesitate.

ANDRÉS

Maria y Juana, right?

DIEGO

You bet your ass, boy.

It was August 24th, 2022. He was leaving on October 28th. We didn't have the luxury of time. But what we did have by this time were connections. Now we knew people, we had the equipment. We started calling. everyone and within a couple of weeks we had contacted several actresses, had received their auditions on video and we had selected three of them. Not everything was perfect. For example, we

couldn´t film anymore at Parque de Usaquén, my favorite location. But that's ok. These are the moments when we creative types show our true colors. We adapted. We chose another place that was closer to everybody. Another cool, more centralized park called El Virrey. Then Mr. Murphy showed up again - One of our actresses canceled, she couldn't show up at the last moment. But by now, Mr. Murphy is an old acquaintance, we know how to deal with him. We had a list of alternates at the ready. That same day we found her replacement. By then, we knew what we were doing.

El Virrey Park

FILM DAY 1 ... and only

The exact day escapes me, but it was in the second week of October that we set the date to film this elusive story. We were ready. Andrés and I had gone over all the scenes, checked and discussed the angles of the different takes, the different shots. We had done a couple of readings with the girls a few days before the shooting.

We were ready. The day came. It was a beautiful Saturday. We started early; 6AM. I had coffee for everybody, cookies, pandebonos, buñuelos, and water.

PANDEBONO Y BUEÑUELOS Colombian breakfast pastries

I wanted to make sure everyone had something in their bellies. Trust me, this is something you MUST do if you are ever going to film - FEED THE CREW! By 5:10 PM that day we were finished. The actresses did such a good job. They even ad-libbed several of the scenes that you can see in the final video. They were incredible, they were natural, they understood their characters.

I thanked them. I paid them. We all went to a super nice restaurant to have dinner and celebrate. I really wanted them to know how important this moment was for me. This was my last film in Colombia. 😭😿

The next day, the editing began. That was Andrés´s job. He works in VFX, so he added something very important to the story; the animated Bugs Bunny. Yes, we even have animation in this baby. You gotta go watch it! A couple of days later he sent me the first cut. Ok, ok. It 's good. It had the camera´s direct sound, so it was a rough version. I emailed back to him, ok, now let´s do this, and this and this. My brother is a professional. He did the adjustments. 5 days after filming I had the 2nd cut. At the same time the sound guy sent us his work. It wasn't perfect, but it was good enough. He had added the music we requested and the VFX sounds.

ANDRÉS

I can put the sound in, add the VFX and you can

come and see it at the office in a couple of days.

DIEGO

Perfect.

That's how it happened. He was leaving for Canada in 5 days by the time we met at his office. We started working on the final touches. Let's add here, take away from there, let's bring this shot, it looks better.

4 hours later we had it. The subtitles in English we would add those later, after he arrived in Canada.

The way I see it, from the time we decided to do it to the time it was finished, 8 weeks had passed. That's crazy in terms of Colombian production efficiency. And the result, although I know technically it's not the best, it´s soooo good, so pure, so natural. It has a magic of its own. I really loved it. I loved it so much that I started to write the treatment for the full movie.

This has now become another dream in itself; to make MARIA Y JUANA THE MOVIE.

That´s it for this post. But there is a 3rd part to this story which is happening right now as I write this. The next post will give all the details. Thanks for reading.