The lowdown about "Domino"-as the city of Jerez collapses

We are putting the finishing touches on my dramatic narrative film, Domino:  Caught in the Crisis.  These touches include getting the length absolutely spot on (a requirement for American television stations), having a sound tech go carefully over every second of sound to work magic so that voila, it sounds PERFECT, and having an image person do the same with the image.

Another little matter is that the reaction of the people in the private screening made it clear to me that I needed to add something to make our hero, Luis, really likeable.  I know that I don't much enjoy watching a movie if I don't really like the hero and it's reasonable to believe that lots of other people feel the same way.

That little matter has been taken care of by having Luis say a few key words in a key moment.  I'm not going to tell you how this was done (especially since the actor is in Spain while I'm in California), but we did it.  I'm happy with the results.

Luis (Antonio de la Malena).  Imagine him saying some sympathetic words.  You LIKE this man.  Right?

And sound tech:  well, I know one very good one who wants a whole lot of money to do the work.  I know another one whose work I don't know as well who has offered to do it for me for an extremely reasonable fee.  I'm giving the reasonable fee person a chance, and have my fingers crossed.  If it turns out he can't do the work, I'll move on to the expensive person.

The image problems:  I believe I've solved all but one of the important ones, and I believe I've found someone who will take care of the remaining important problem for me.  Some of this stuff gets to be pretty complex.  You create a mask that changes size and follows a point you set up in the image, and...and....

I am, therefore, still hopeful that Domino will be completed before the end of 2012.

In the meantime, Spain in general and Jerez de la Frontera in particular are falling apart.  (Jerez is where we filmed Domino.)  I'm just going to tell one horror story here to illustrate my point:  for 3 weeks, ending last Thursday, the garbage collectors were on strike.  (I understand the actual garbage collectors were willing to go back to work after only a few days, but their bosses wouldn't agree.) 

I pulled this photo off of a news article dated Nov. 22.

The reason for the strike is that the city wanted to cut 125 of the 400 garbage collection jobs as a budget balancing measure.  For those not mathematically inclined, I'll tell you that that's more than a 25% reduction in the work force.  The deal worked out that ended the strike cut pay checks drastically, but didn't eliminate such a huge chunk of the work force.

Garbage piled up in very large quantities.  Rats began breeding (to say nothing about the odor).  In desperation, people started setting the big garbage containers on fire, which brought out the fire department who, because the people were really angry, had to call in the police to be able to put out the fires.

Think of it for a moment.  Think what it would be like if in your neighborhood, there was no garbage collection for 3 weeks.  Then think what it would be like in the business district, particularly around restaurants.  Then imagine that you are in a place with few trees and less grass, in which many houses go right up to the street and in which things, when not collected, really begin to pile up fast.

By the way, garbage in Jerez is normally collected on a daily basis.  There is one very large garbage container for each block or so, and everyone takes their garbage out in plastic bags and tosses them into the large containers.  And for three weeks....

OUR NEXT POST will be about A Zest for Life in the Berkeley Video & Film Festival (scheduled for 4pm on Sunday, Dec. 9).

A doc. about flamenco--thanks, MAW!

Thanks to a grant from MAW (Media Art Works), we are getting started on a documentary film about flamenco.  It's tentative title is Flamenco:  la tierra está viva (Flamenco:  the Land is Still Fertile), and it will be written and directed by Antonio de la Malena.  Eve A. Ma (yours truly) will be the producer.

As many of you know, Malena is a flamenco cantaor, a professional flamenco singer.  He is very well qualified to write this, and due to his extensive experience as artistic director for the flamenco performances in which he sings, as well as his more recent work in video, he is also qualified to direct.

Antonio de la Malena on stage.  (Photo;  Casa Patas/Martín Guerrero)

The thesis of this documentary is that the original flamenco, the flamenco that Malena heard and learned as a child, the flamenco of his parents and his grandparents and his great-grandparents, the flamenco that came out of the gitano (Gypsy) community, still exists and is still being passed on from one generation to the next.

Now, you may not even have known that there was any question of flamenco continuing on.  After all, there are flamenco shows both large and small, and flamenco performances, taking place all over the world.

But as you will learn in the documentary, most of these shows and performances are not, in fact, the original flamenco.  They are more properly called flamenco fusion, but most people (performers as well as the public and the publicists) don´t bother to make the distinction.

Little Manuel (on his daddy´s lap).

ABOVE:  Little Manuel, though still in diapers, can hold his own in bulerias, as can his dad, his aunt (in pink), his mother, his sister....

The result is that the commercialization of flamenco is threatening to destroy the art.

Malena, however, believes that the art will survive.  He believes that the flamenco families who have handed it down for generations will be able to continue to give it life, and that although their children may turn away from it during their teenage years, enough of them will come back to it as adults to ensure its survival.

One thing that Malena considers very important for people to understand:  although flamenco families are gitano families, flamenco (and here he means the original flamenco) is not something that is confined to the gitano community.  Everyone is welcome to learn it;  but in order to learn it, they must first understand what it is, and the flamenco families must continue their traditions and keep it alive.

Rock-solid compás (rhythm), often clapped out, is the foundation of flamenco.

Once again, thanks to MAW, we are able to at least get the script written, create a trailer and simple web site, and position ourselves to be able to obtain the funding for the full production.  Great people at MAW.

Want to know more about what we´re doing?  Sign up at www.PalominoProDVD-CD.com.

OUR NEXT POST will be about the latest word about Domino:  Caught in the Crisis.

Immigrants and Refugees

As has been said many times before, the United States is a nation of immigrants and their descendants.  Only about one percent of the population of the United States is Native American (including Pacific Islander).  That means that about 99% is not;  in other words, about 99% of the population is composed of immigrants and the descendants of immigrants. 

There is one special group of immigrants that I want to talk about here, and that is refugees.

Refugees are immigrants who arrived in the United States under especially difficult circumstances.  For the most part, they are people fleeing war and for the most part, they will probably never be able to return to their native land.  Many also spent months, or sometimes years, in refugee camps before settling in North America.

Dragon from Lao New Year's celebration, Richmond, CA.

And many know almost nothing of life in the United States before their arrival.  Government policy frequently directs that they be settled far apart from each other, I guess because someone in government thinks they will adopt the customs of this country faster that way.

If I had just had to flee my country due to war, possibly having seen neighbors and family members killed before I was able to get away, I'd be miserable if upon arrived, I also had to be separated from others who followed my customs and spoke my language, but no one in government asked me.

I've had the privilege of knowing quite a number of refugees, mostly from Southeast Asia and in particular, mostly from Laos.  They fled their homes because of what is called in this country the Vietnam War, but which in some other places is called the Southeast Asia War, since it involved at least three different countries.

One of the refugees who really stands out in my mind is named Yang Xiong.  Yang's language and ethnicity are Hmong.  He is from Laos, and we were lucky enough to be able to film an interview with him called Roots and Branches:  Yang Xiong.



Video clip from our interview with Yang Xiong in 2004.

Yang was about six years old when his family and everyone from his village had to pack up all their belongings and leave the country.  They walked through the jungle by night to avoid being shot, carrying their belongings on their backs.

When they, and thousands of other people fleeing Laos, arrived at the Mekong River, they had to cross it in order to survive:  the Mekong is the border between Laos and Thailand.  There were, however, only rafts and flimsy boats to get them across.  I heard from Yang and other Laotian refugees that many of the boats were overloaded with terrified people.  And many of the overloaded boats overturned in the river.  Most of these people didn't know how to swim, and so they drowned.

Yang and his family made it across, and were lucky enough to have to spend only a few months in refugee camps in Thailand before being accepted into the United States.

I don't have time to tell any more of his story here (you'll have to watch the video for that, or go to his Facebook page), but will just mention that as an adult, he spent many years working at a youth center in the San Francisco Bay Area that focused on  helping the Southeast Asian youth...and their parents.

Now, he lives in the Central Vally, is married, and has recently become father to his sixth child.

Yang Xiong in 2012.

 If I had undergone the experiences that he, and countless other refugees, encountered, I'm not at all sure that I would have ended up as well.  Good for him, for being able to make a life for himself, and for his work helping others.

If you want to find out more about the Hmong people in the United States, one source is LINK.

OUR NEXT POST will be about Thanks, MAW (Media Art Works) and a documentary about flamenco.

Flamenco, tap dance, and Afro-Peruvian zapateo (part 2 of 2)

Another major differences are in the rhythms.  The underlying rhythms in flamenco are more complex than in either tap dance or Afro-Peruvian zapateo.  I'm not saying that the rhythms created with the feet are more complex, because I don't think that's true.  In all three of these dance forms, the best dancers create some really exciting and complicated rhythmic patterns.

But the underlying rhythm in tap is usually 1,2,3,4, while in Afro-Peruvian, it's 1,2,3,4 or 1,2,3,4,5,6.  In flamenco, the underlying rhythms is called compás, and it's usually based on a count of 12 with accents in very different places depending upon the flamenco form the dancer is performing.  Placing the accents correctly is part of the essence of compás.

 
Here is Flamenco singer Antonio de la Malena beating out the compás of bulerías, one of the Extras in our drama, "Domino:  Caught in the Crisis."

Even another major difference is the music.  In Afro-Peruvian zapateo, the music isn't very important or very elaborate.  In tap dance, it's usually something chosen out of the contemporary rap, or rock, or swing scene.

In flamenco, the music is very important and comes from a long tradition.  The music is not as important as the singing, but the dancer is not supposed to do flamenco footwork, taconeo, while the singer is singing.  The singer is more important than the dancer, and must be respected.


 Some pretty fancy zapateo by the world champion, Freddy "Huevito" Lobaton. 

And then, there is body posture.  In flamenco, the body and hands and head all go towards the same expressive purpose of the feet, and are supposed to compliment and make more concrete the sentiment, the emotions, inherent in what the singer is singing.  In addition, the way of moving the body and head is like looking at a bunch of still images.  The dancer moves from one pose directly into another.  When the flamenco dancer is doing taconeo, the body, head and hands are often fluid, to provide continuity.  When the dancer is not doing footwork, the body and head move abruptly, while the hands provide the fluidity. 

  
This tap dance is the exception that makes the rule...LOTS of body position and hands and...

In tap dance, and in Afro-Peruvian zapateo, the body usually isn´t that important.  Of course there are movements and positions to learn, but the real essence of these two dances is in the feet...or, occasionally, the hands.

To sum it up, although all three of these dance forms use the feet as elaborate percussion instruments, they really don´t resemble each other much once you get beyond that initial threshold.

NOTE:  I would have liked to include a video of Riverdance (remember Riverdance?) in this post but already had so much and besides, it's Irish step dance, not tap dance, Afro-Peruvian zapateo, or flamenco taconeo.....  But if you´re interested, go to LINK.  And finally, what the hey, there´s some good Afro-Peruvian zapateo in our trailer (and our documentary) on our web site www.AZestforLifeDVD.com.

OUR NEXT POST will be about immigrants and refugees.

Flamenco, tap dance and Afro-Peruvian zapateo (part 1 of 2)

I've heard people who aren't dance junkies say, when watching flamenco dance for the first (or second or third) time, "Hey, it's a lot like tap dance."  If you think about all the footwork in flamenco, and think about the footwork in tap dance, there is some truth to that and while we're at it, we may as well throw in Afro-Peruvian zapateo (sometimes simply called Peruvian zapateo).

The footwork sections in flamenco, by the way, are called taconeo.

Being someone who has recently made a documentary about Afro-Peruvian music and dance, who's made videos about flamenco, who's produced a CD of flamenco singing, and who has performed flamenco as a soloist on stage, I started thinking about the similarities and the differences between these three dance forms.


 
Here's one of many cool videos of Afro-Peruvian zapateo you can find on YouTube.

The similarities:  all three use the feet as a percussion instrument, and the footwork is elaborate and rhythmically complicated -- and pretty impressive, when done by a master.

Then, there're the differences.  Lots of differences.

One is intention.  In tap dance, the intent is to amuse and the musical background is almost always upbeat.  The dancer's expression ranges from a smile to a smile to a blank face, but we in the audience know we're supposed to be having fun.



Here's a great selection of very fine tap dancing.

In Afro-Peruvian zapateo, as it is seen on stage, there is the same intent to please and to make the audience happy.  There is also an element of competitiveness to it, so you usually see more than one dancer and each one dances solo, at least for a while, letting the other dancer(s) watch.  Then the next dancer performs and tries to do something more complicated, etcetera.

The original and traditional Afro-Peruvian zapateo, however, is/was not competitive.  Instead, it's done to honor Christ and actually, two centuries ago, was done in order to communicate the dancer's feelings to Christ.  The Catholic religious aspect is preserved in Afro-Peruvian communities in coastal Peru, in something called the hatajo de negritos.


And some flamenco, showing not only taconeo but also in the second half, the interplay between singer, dancer, guitarist.

In flamenco, the intent is to express the emotions being created and expressed by the singer and the songs that are being sung.  Many of these songs are about suffering, loss, death, and pain.  Sure, some flamenco forms are upbeat and communicate happiness and a sense of having fun, but these are by no means in the majority.  Plus the intent is to express the inner feelings of the performer (dancer, singer, guitarist), not to provide pleasure to the audience.

And a flamenco dancer having fun.

 The idea is that by reaching deeply into yourself, you also touch a deep part of each individual in the audience.  

OUR NEXT POST will finish up this topic.

Strikes and demonstrations in Spains

Our drama, Domino:  Caught in the Crisis, is not only about the effects of the economic crisis but it also includes some footage of two demonstrations in Spain...in Jerez de la Frontera, to be more specific  This makes me think of strikes and demonstrations in Spain, and how they differ from their counterparts in the United States.

Some of the strikes and demonstrations in Spain are linked to the Movimiento 15-M (Indignados) but more of them are organized by the labor unions, which are pretty powerful.  Yes, May Day in Spain is cause for a big, big celebration (with big, big marches).

Sign on a tent of the Indignados encampment:  "Nothing moves unless you push.  Civil Disobedience Now."

Strikes in Spain are not like the strikes that have come to my attention in the United States.  The strikes I think of from here (both from being physically present when they took place, and from my studies of United States history when I was a graduate student) shut things down, or at least they try to.  There is often a lot of violence and confrontation associated with them, where the police (many times egged on by big capital) go in there with billy clubs, truncheons, rubber bullets and the like and try to break them up.  I also come up with the image of dockworkers on strike generally fighting pretty hard (and pretty violently) against the (violent) "forces of law and order."

The strikes in Spain, however...speaking only from what I personally know...are different.  For example, when I heard that Iberia Airlines planned to be on strike for an entire month last spring, I worried that I wouldn't be able to make it to the festival in Berlin.

The strike was settled before my flight date, but it turns out, I needn't have worried.  "Being on strike" meant that for one day of the week (Mondays), there were almost no flights.  The rest of the week, airplanes left on their normal schedule and on Mondays, I believe that some flights left with either their regular pilots or other, experienced personnel at the controls.

A union building (CGT) last winter.  See translation below.

Translation of signs on the CGT union building:  (on the left) "Ms. Pelayo [the mayor], when will it be?  No pay for four months."  and (on the right) "The struggle is in the street.  Join in the General Strike."  and (below, center) "Unemployment and exploitation:  paternalistic terrorism."

Then, there's the bus strike in Jerez, which has been going on for many months, perhaps even for over a year.  The strike doesn't mean that there are no buses.  It means that they come around less frequently.  It also means that the bus drivers march to city hall every week.  They have marched so often that they decided to liven things up with drummers.  And they have marched so frequently that the drummers have gotten to be pretty good.

Sorry that I have no photos of this.  I never had my still camera with me at the right time.

So what's with the strikes and demonstrations (and there are plenty more beyond the few I´ve mentioned)?

Well, in the case of the bus drivers, the city hasn't paid them their full wages for months and months and months and months.  In fact, last winter, the city didn't pay any of the city workers (except, I think, the administrators) for over three months.  THAT led to city workers camping out in tents in front of city hall.

One of the protestors' tents with City Hall in the background.

As for the Iberia pilots, I think they got paid, but their wages were drastically cut.

My point it that, although I understand things are different in the capitol city of Madrid, and the northern major city of Barcelona, in the south of Spain people are more civil.  They are more patient, if you will.  They are not out to ruin anyone's life, or business, or what have you.  I'll even point out that the degree of violent crime is much, much less in Spain (especially southern Spain) than in the United States.

A more civil, and more civilized, place...even if its financial sector and its administrators are messing things up  (current ones as well as the past ones...but for different reasons).

OUR NEXT POST will be about ... comparing flamenco with tap dance and Afro-Peruvian zapateo.

How to know when to stop

Knowing when to stop is an important part of creating any kind of work, whether it be a film, a fine art painting, a book, or whatever.  You are never going to get it perfect, but you need to get close enough to communicating your thoughts and feelings so that your audience will be responding to what you intended to create.

Because, presumably, the reason to create is to communicate.  And if you aren't communicating, well, all that time and effort was for nothing.  It could be kind of sad-unless you put your work in the closet and chalk it up to a learning experience.

Ernesto Olmos with his Flute of Fire.

I've done a lot of writing, mostly non-fiction (things like these blogs, and my scholarly books and articles), but also some fiction, like the script for Domino and I feel reasonably confident about my ability to communicate when I write.

As for my work in film and video, well let´s say I´m still learning.  And it´s a hard medium to learn in because it is so expensive.

And of course, one of the most important lessons to learn is when to stop.

Thinking of the matter in terms of another medium, can you imagine the Mona Lisa with, let´s say, a little bit more happening in the background?  Wouldn´t be the same.  Probably wouldn´t be a masterpiece either because the focus would have been diluted.


This is true of all art forms.  If you overwork your piece, you´ll dilute your focus.

Script writer-film director (me) and crew on the set:  creating a scene.

 So the first step in knowing when to stop is knowing what your focus is.  Sounds easy, but if you are creating, you often don´t really know until you are nearly finished, or even not until after you´ve finished, and sometimes, not even then.

Art and the creative process have a lot to do with emotions and sentiment.  They have a lot to do with our subconscious, and with non-verbal expression even if you´re working in a verbal medium such as poetry.  And the art needs to speak to these same centers in the ideal audience...to the audience´s subconscious, to the audience´s emotions and sentiments.  Yes, to the audience´s rational mind as well, and the question as to which part of the audience´s conscious and subconscious is the primary target will vary with the particular piece of art.


So how do you know where to stop if you´re not sure of what your focus is, if you don´t know what you hope to achieve?

Painter Hershell West in front of one of his paintings.

 One common mistake is to imagine that what is crystal clear to you, the creator, is also crystal clear to your audience.  You need to be able to back away from your work and look at it from the point of view of someone outside yourself.  This is not necessarily easy, but it´s important.

Once you´ve done that, and satisfied yourself that it should be comprehensible to someone else, well, I think the next step should be to go over and over your work once you think you´ve completed it.  Show it around and listen to comments, not that you will make all the changes people suggest but to see their reaction, decide if that´s the reaction you want, make whatever changes you feel are warranted, and then...

STOP.  QUIT.

To my mind, the only way to finish a piece of art is to say at some point:  "That´s it.  I´m done."  If in the long run you don´t think you achieved your aims, well, use that information for your next piece of art.  You´ve got to move on at some point, and refuse to let yourself turn back.

Actor Javier Padilla emoting.

 This is one of the most difficult things for me, but usually, there is a point at which I say to myself

ENOUGH.

And I think that´s enough for this blog.

Comments anyone?

OUR NEXT BLOG will be about some misadventures I´ve encountered when shooting.

Afro-Peruvian percussion instruments--and our new web site!!

Africans kidnapped and brought to Peru as slaves were forbidden to play musical instruments, especially drums.  This is primarily because the Spanish plantation owners realized the Africans could use the drums to communicate over long distances, which could be a threat to the slave-holding system.

As a result, Afro-Peruvians were put in the position of developing their own musical instruments with materials they found at hand.

Some of these percussion instruments.

They made percussion instruments out of donkey's jawbones, wooden packing crates, hollowed-out logs, the wooden collection boxes in the churches, ceramic jars, gourds, and on and on.  They were nothing if not inventive.

These instruments have been handed down and refined, so that now, some of them are widely used in Peruvian music and one, the Peruvian cajón, has also entered many other forms of music including jazz and flamenco.

The Peruvian cajón.

It is to be expected that over time, others will also find wide acceptance in the musical world because, when handled by a master, they provide rich and varied sounds.

And now, a short note...not from our sponsor (we don´t have one) but just to let you know that we´ve made major revisions in our web site over the past month and would like to invite you to check it out.  Kudos for this work go to our web master, Nicolas Patris.  Here´s a link to his web site LINK, and here´s a link to ours LINK.

OUR NEXT POST will be about how to know when to stop.

Dramatic movie vs. Documentary, part 2 of 2

Another major difference between a drama and a documentary is that in a drama, you may need to shoot a scene, and indeed, the individual elements of a scene, many times before you get the effect you are after, and before you get enough material so that the editor will be able to put together a well-made finished product.

But in a documentary, you usually only have one chance.  Under normal circumstances, you can´t ask your interview subjects to let you ask them the same question over and over until you get an answer, or an image, or an angle, that you like.  If you don´t get what you want out of an interview subject, you usually have to find another one to provide what is lacking.

PHOTO


Another difference is crew size and cost.  In a drama, you generally need a pretty sizeable crew.  Even on a small production (like the kind I do) you´ll want  not just sound and camera operators, but also lights, director, floor manager, and their assistants. It gets to be very expensive, very fast.

Here are 4 crew members and one actor, from Domino.

But documentary filmmakers often do most of the filming themselves, especially the interview parts.  They get themselves a lighting set-up, some good microphones with a good sound recorder, and a decent camera and there you have it.


In both a drama and a documentary, post production is a very important element in completing the film.  Post production includes editing, and technical work such as making the sound free of unwanted background noises (such as the hiss given off by neon lights or air conditioners).

Background music usually gets recorded in a sound studio, like this one.

Having just completed one documentary (A Zest for Life) and having brought a drama (Domino:  Caught in the Crisis) to the mid-post production phase.  I am hard put to say which requires more work.  Certainly, a drama requires more money.

I am also hard put to say which is my preferred form.  Each one serves such a different purpose that it´s hard to decide.  But I will say that working on my first hour-long drama (Domino) was thrilling for me.

So there you have it.

OUR NEXT POST will be about Afro-Peruvian percussion instruments.

Dramatic movie vs. Documentary, part 1 of 2

NOTE:  My long silence is due to my daughter´s coming to visit me in Spain, followed by my preparations to return to California for a long stay, followed by the actual trip back to California.  

                                        ____________________________________

 My two major current projects, Domino:  Caught in the Crisis and A Zest for Life:  Afro-Peruvian Rhythms, a Source of Latin Jazz, are respectively a dramatic movie, and a documentary.  And this seems as good a time as any to talk about some of the differences and similarities between the two genres.

To begin with, a dramatic movie, or a dramatic narrative film, is fiction and a documentary is, well, "real life" (whatever that may be).  But as soon as you look closely at these two categories, they begin to blur.

Some of the actors from Domino.  I just love this photo!  taken by Ana Alvarez.

A good drama is good because it has a strong relation to "real life."  It may engage in enormous flights of fancy, but at its core, it speaks to real people in a way that real people can relate to their real experiences.

And a good documentary usually is good in part because it has a strong story line.  In addition, the documentary might look at something really unusual or weird-looking, something that almost appears to be out of science fiction (a form of drama).

But let´s forget all of that for a moment.  When creating a drama, you need a script.  The script can easily run close to 100 pages for a feature-length film.  The general rule of thumb is that one page of script equals one minute of finished film.  For your feature-length film, then, you´ll expect a script to be about 90 pages long.

Actor with script (from Domino).

 Why do you need the script?  Well, mostly because you need something that tells you who the characters are, that gives the actors their lines to memorize so they know what to say and when to say it, and that gives some stage directions so they know HOW they should say it.  Just the fact that you´re using actors is one of the hallmarks of a drama.

For a documentary, on the other hand, you don´t use a script.  Instead, you work off of a "treatment."  A treatment will often be only 3-5 pages long.  It tells who needs to be interviewed, and where, and why.  It gives a general idea of where the filming should take place, and where you should film any extra visuals.  But the people being interviewed, for example, don´t have lines to speak.  They have questions to answer, and you will only have a very general idea in advance of how they will answer these questions.

One of our interview subjects from A Zest for Life.

OUR NEXT POST will finish up this topic

"Domino" is becoming more relevant by the minute, and some good news, too

As the economic crisis in Spain worsens, Domino is becoming more and more relevant.  I see specials on TV about how some of the unemployed are moving back to the land, and raising vegetables or livestock.  In some cases, they are squatting on the land.  In others, it´s land that has been part of their family for decades, or that they were able to purchase for a song because so many people moved to the cities in the last several decades.

In some cases, it looks like these people (apparently, most of them former construction workers with their families) will do fine...until the winter comes and there are no crops to be had.

The countryside near Medina-Sidonia, in Andalucía (southern Spain).

There are also plenty of stories in the newspapers about people losing their homes, government workers being laid off, banks loosing millions and in some bases, billions of Euros (where do they lose this money?  did it blow away in the wind, or did someone carelessly throw it out in the garbage?) and getting the government of Spain to bail them out.

This used to be a branch of a savings and loan,.  No more.  It closed months ago.

In a related development, a couple of weeks ago, the city government got a big paycheck from the provincial government to be used to pay a specific set of workers who had gone months without pay.  Before the city could get the checks out, however, another government institution grabbed the money from the bank where it was--briefly--sitting because the city owed this government institution lots of money and what they hey, there it was, all that money, and....

A few peculiarities concerning the Spanish economy:

As I may have mentioned some time back, if you lose your home--if you´re foreclosed on for failure to pay the mortgage--not only are you out of your home, but in addition, you still owe the back mortgage.  This means the bank gets your home AND your money.  If you ever get another job (assuming you lost your home because you lost your job), your wages will get garnished until the cows come home.

Another peculiarity:  some statistics say that 95% of the Spanish economy is based on small businesses.  That´s an exaggeration, since other statistics will tell you that 10% of the country´s GNP comes from automobile production, but at any rate, a LOT of the Spanish economy is based on small businesses.

"Se vende" means for sale.  There are actually 3 in a row here, all former small businesses.

It´s not hard, or expensive, to START a small business, but my is it expensive to maintain it.  The sales tax, for example, runs at 18% for most goods being sold.  You must also pay sales tax on whatever money you give to professionals.  In addition, a self-employed person or a small business is required to retain 15% of the salary not only of employees, but also of professionals who do work for the small business.  Actors, for example, count as professionals, so if you hire an actor, whether you are self-employed or a small business, 18% of what you pay that person actually goes to one government organ and another 15% to another.

In addition, when it´s a question of goods, not only the retailer but also the wholesaler is required to collect the sales tax (so essentially, the government is getting double the tax).  AND you are required to file with the government the number of employees you have.  If one of them is out sick for more than a few days and you don´t hire someone to replace that person, you get fined.

This is just to cheer you up--some old-style farm implements in a museum.

 Under these circumstances, it´s easy to see why, once the bubble was over, the Spanish economy started running into trouble.  Add to this the willingness of the Spanish government to bail out its banks (which in some cases were/are being run by people with their hands in the till), etc,., etc.,  well--you get the picture.

Which reminds me of the American government´s tendency to bail out banks, some of which are just as corrupt or even more corrupt than their Spanish counterparts.

And now, Germany is requiring Spain to raise its taxes further, and to cut the number of government employees further.  The latter might make some sense because the cities are broke and the civil service is bloated.  but you also have to think ahead and provide some way the people who are laid off are going to make a living.  And the idea of raising  taxes..., it makes no sense to me, especially under the current circumstances.

So there.

And all of this, and more, you learn about in Domino, which puts a human face on the current economic crisis in Spain.  (We really have finished with the filming of Domino, by the way, which is now about 2 minutes over that magic number...meaning cut, cut, cut.)

OUR NEXT POST will be about music in film.

Exciting: flamenco, Afro-Peruvian, and more

One of the exciting things that has happened this month is that we have completed Antonio de la Malena's CD of flamenco cante.   It's called Para ti mi cante, que es mi libertad (I give my song to you, my song which is my freedom), and we've already delivered the finished sound track to the manufacturer.  The design work should be off within the next 48 hours.

As you may know, I love flamenco, and this CD is really good.  I say "CD," but actually, it's two CDs in one packet.  When Antonio sings, he sings.  He's given us 16 cantes (flamenco songs), and a pretty complete collection of all the major and many of the less-well-known flamenco forms:   from alegrias and segiuriyas to serrana and trilla.

Antonio de la Malena (photo:  Martin Guerrero and Casa Patas)

There are four different guitarists who accompany Antonio in the 16 cantes (songs) on the double CD.  One of them is his very talented older son, known as Malena Hijo.  Malena Hijo also is responsible for a lot of the background music in my productions.  He is a very talented composer and a fine guitarist.

The other guitarists are Manuel Parilla (a pretty famous guitarist), Domingo Rubichi, and Santiago Moreno...all very good.  In addition to Antonio singing 16 cantes, in the taranto his brother Manuel de Malena joins him.  In the fin de fiesta, Antonio is joined by six or seven other singers, and in the opening number, there is an estribillo written by Antonio and another son (Diego de Malena) performed by two other singers, after which, Antonio enters.  Lots of variety in the presentations.

Malena Hijo

We are releasing this double CD in Europe first.  We THINK we´ll have it in our hands before the end of this month!!!  I´m going to save its U.S. release until I return to California and (gulp) restore my finances a bit.  I haven´t quite thought this matter through (since I´m focused on the release in Spain right now) but I will keep you posted.

AND DON´T FORGET THE AFRO-PERUVIANS:
As for our CD with Afro-Peruvian and criollo music, we've gone through one order of 100 and have ordered another.  We've also re-named it to better reflect what it is:  Afro-Peruvian Rhythms is the new name.  It´s lively stuff, well-performed, and great for zumba, by the way.

Here´s a sample track, with dance and illustrations, to whet your appetite.  It´s called Toro Mata.





--You can get a free download of this track at AZestforLifeCD.com.  And what the hey, if you want to simply buy the CD, go here:  www.AZestforLifetheCD.com.

OUR NEXT POST will be about new developments with our dramatic narrative, Domino, and our documentary, A Zest for Life.

Sonny Kalimba and his song

As part of our television series on world music and dance, The Languages of Sound and Music, we recorded one episode featuring the music and dance of West Africa, here meaning Nigeria and Ghana.  One of the songs from that episode has always enchanted me.  It’s sung by someone from Ghana whose stage name is Sonny Kalimba, and the song is called…Oh, Kalimba!

I well remember when we recorded this music.  We were working in the studios of CCTV (Contra Costa Television) in Martinez, CA., which were donated to us free of charge by the County of Contra Costa, with the support of AC5 (Arts and Culture Commission of Contra Costa County). 

We shot this episode, as well as the others, on a Sunday because that way, there were no worries about us disturbing county workers, since the studio is located in a government building used by several county departments.

Our crew showed up on time at 9:30am and we began preparing the set.  Yours truly (Eve Ma)  was Producer/Director, Richard R. Lee of Sidewalks Entertainment was Studio Director, and we had six other crew—three cameras, a sound tech, etc..

Our dancers and musicians were supposed to come at noon, and they did, except that at the last moment, one of the planned drummers didn’t show.  This was a shame, but we still had enough to film the episode.

Most of the show focused on Nigeria since the dancers and the lead drummer (actually one of only three drummers under the circumstances) was from Nigeria.  His name, in case you happen to know him, is Friday Jumbo.  He's a veteran of seven CDs on which he sings and plays the drums, and is very talented.

Since the one drummer didn’t appear, to make up for it, Friday brought two other musicians:  Sonny Kalimba (stage name), a musician/singer from Ghana, and his friend, another musician from Ghana.  Having them there made it perfectly logical to include some of their music, so a show that I intended to be only about Nigerian music and dance became a show about West African music and dance.

Do you know where Ghana is?  (Or for that matter, do you know where Nigeria is?)  Both countries are in West Africa – no surprise here – and they are very close to each other.  Here's a LINK to a map, in case you want one.

The straight Ghanaian part of the show consisted of Sonny Kalimba singing “Oh, Kalimba!” with Sonny's friend (don't have his name here in Spain) along with Friday Jumbo accompanying him on the drums.  Dancer James Esoimeme's son also played the shekere, but not with a whole lot of enthusiasm and he definitely took a back seat to the others.

The kalimba is a musical instrument.  It’s steel keys inserted into a half gourd.  The music is lovely…sweet, but because of the way it’s played, sounding more like broken chords instead of melodical.   The song is very upbeat, has an infectious rhythm and Sonny Kalimba is a great singer, plus he has good presence.  He seems a happy guy, and the song is a happy song. 

We shot the whole thing in one take.  Check it out—which you can do by signing up for our newsletter “Straight from the Horses’ Mouth."  We'll be providing a different free music download each month, and the music for June is Sonny Kalimba's Oh, Kalimba!

OUR NEXT POST will be about our production of a double CD of flamenco cante (singing) by Antonio de la Malena, and other recent activities.

Percussion and percussion instruments: the checo and the angara in Afro-Peruvian music

You can use almost anything as a percussion instrument:  hands, feet, pots, pans, spoons, boxes, gourds....  Gourds!  Yes.  In Peru, there are several large gourds that Afro-Peruvians have used with great success as percussion instruments.  The ones I'm familiar with are the checo and the angara.

Both of these are really big gourds that look kind of like a doughnut without the doughnut hole.  Of the two, the angara is the largest.  Some are more than a foot and a half across.  A big checo is only about a foot across.

Here´s a video in which Lalo Izquierdo demonstrates a large variety of Afro-Peruvian percussion instruments, including the checo.  Not a word is spoken (or sung) in this video.  It´s just percussion.




You turn the checo and the angara into percussion instruments by cutting a hole in the sides, scraping out the seeds, and drying the gourd.  The hold in the side not only allows you to get at the seeds, but it also serves as a sound hole.

Both gourds make a wide range of sounds.  The checo has been used at least since the mid-1800s, and is enjoying a revival today due to a group in the northern Peruvian city of Zaña, a group associated with that city´s Afro-Peruvian Museum.

As for the angara, I have only seen it played in a couple of videos on YouTube.  Here´s one of them, dating from the 1950s, from a great program hosted by Dr. José Durand, broadcast by a television station that no longer exists.  If you don´t speak Spanish, wait for about a minute and the musical demonstration begins.




National Geographic´s on-line encyclopedia about musical instruments confuses the angara with the checo, and thinks they are one and the same.  They are not.  They come from different plants, and have a different sound.

At least two people in the current musical world are aware of the difference:  percussionist Hugo Alcázar and Chalana Vasquez, who wrote the article in Alcázar´s blog.  Good for them.

OUR NEXT POST will be about the kalimba, a musical instrument from West Africa, and the Ghanaian singer, "Sonny Kalimba."

Photo essay on the Black International Cinema festival in Berlin

Our documentary, A Zest for Life:  Afro-Peruvian Rhythms, a Source of Latin Jazz, screened in the recent Black International Cinema festival in Berlin, Germany.  It was a satisfying experience:  nice people, interesting films, our documentary was well-received and yours truly (Eve Ma) got interviewed for an English-language television station in Berlin.

Here are a few photos.

Eve Ma (me) with festival organizer Dr. Donald Griffith

Rathaus Schoenenberg, where the festival was held.

Close-up of clock tower of the Rathaus Schoenenberg

The festival´s hard-working projectionist.

A bit of Berlin, new synagog in the background (left).

Speaks for itself, doesn´t it?

Me in front of the city concert hall, between the German and French towers.

Top of the Brandenburg Tor.

This (the line of bricks) is where the Berlin wall once stood.

The river Spree, where it splits, near the cathedral and Museum Island.

 And that´s it, folks.  I have about 100 photos but decided this is enough.

OUR NEXT POST will be about "the festival circuit."

THANKS to Joyeria Juncal

We have had a lot of support in Jerez de la Frontera from people in the community with our shooting of Domino.  This is partly because the topic is dear to the heart of people here (lots and lots of people are suffering because of the economic crisis).

To be truthful, however, it is due even more to the huge number of friends that Antonio de la Malena, our star, has in the city of Jerez.  That he is charming is also a help.

Antonio de la Malena, playing Luis, counts the money for the ring he's pawned.

As a result, the jewelry store/pawn shop is another one of the small businesses which have allowed us to shoot on their premises, and in this case, the founder and owner's father played the part of the shop owner.  He knows his stuff, so when our star needed to ask for a price for a ring he was trying to pawn (this is part of the script, NOT the real life of Antonio de la Malena), we got a great performance of testing the ring's purity, weighing it, giving a price for it, and so forth.

All very realistic, which is exactly what we want.

So--we thank Francisco Juncal the younger for his willingness to let us film in his shop, and his father Francisco Juncal the elder for playing the part of the owner.  We've ended up with a great scene, not only because of the realism (and the good acting on the part of Antonio de la Malena) but also because Francisco Juncal the elder wore a bright orange sweater.  It looks really good on film, especially since the shop itself is attractive and brightly lit.

When I said bring orange sweater, I meant bright orange sweater.

OUR NEXT BLOG will be about--remember our experimental short, "Two Streets & Adela"?  Well....

WHOOPS. I'm now overwhelmed with other kinds of news.

Perhaps I should be careful about saying how great things are.  Shortly after posting the last blog about how good things were, I injured my back (third time in six months) and have been unable to work at the computer.  I'm still not fully recovered but am getting back to normal.

And as if that weren't enough, the Spanish government has lost one of my important documents, which will make it difficult for me to travel to Berlin to attend the festival.  I won't know whether or not things can be straightened out in time until at least Tuesday.

The festival takes place in Berlin's Rathaus Schoeneberg (city hall)--here it is in 1895.

Next, the pilots of Iberia Airlines have gone on a one-month strike, and you guessed it...my ticket to Berlin is with Iberia.  So if I get my documents straightened out, it's unclear if there will be an airplane available to take me there.  Maybe I'll just walk.

But on the other hand, I DO have a reservation in a bed and breakfast in Berlin (3 metro stops away from the festival, and I don't speak German).  My fingers are crossed on this.

And here's the Rauhaus Schoeneberg today.

Once more, here is the LINK to the festival, showing our entry on the program--A Zest for Life:  Afro-Peruvian Rhythms, a Source of Latin Jazz.  Scroll down to the bottom of the page.  We're on at 10pm.

In other news, we are moving forward on the television version of Domino:  Caught in the Crisis, and our experimental short, Two Streets and Adela, should be airing in the San Francisco Bay Area in the near future over Peralta TV.

OUR NEXT POST will be our Thanks to the Joyeria Juncal in Jerez, where we filmed an important scene for Domino.

I'm overwhelmed, and other news

I haven't felt so good in a long time.  I work, and work, and work....and where's the payoff?

WELL...

Another festival has accepted A Zest for Life.  This one is in France.  In Cannes, to be exact, but let me be clear about this:  it's not THE Cannes film festival.  It's something completely appropriate, and I'm very pleased.  It's the Festival International du Film PanAfricain.  They've accepted us for their festival in 2013.  (By the time I applied, the 2012 festival entry period had already closed.

And even more good news: Peralta TV, a San Francisco bay area television station wants to screen Two Street and Adela. It will probably screen at the end of April or beginning of May. will try to keep you inform.

And I'm in the middle of planning my trip to Berlin for the festival there, where they'll screen A Zest for Life. I've bought my ticket but still I don't have a hotel. If anyone has any suggestions, please let me know.

And if anyone has even the slightest inclination of helping me out financially in this exiting but expensive endeavor, please go to LINK

OUR NEXT POST

Will be about more filming.

Moving forward on "Domino"

As I reported a while back, we've finished filming Domino:  caught in the crisis in the sense that I'm satisfied with it.  It's now coming in at 45 minutes.

This presents a problem.  It's now too long to be a short, and too short to be a feature.  It's also right in between the standard television lengths for a half-hour and one-hour program.

This means either I have to cut 15 minutes, or add 11.  I'm currently going for the idea of adding 11.

I've mentally created scenes to add these 11 minutes.  There'll be one more scene with domino players.  There'll be a scene in a near-by city called "el Puerto" (actually, Puerto de Santa Maria) with the son and his finacee.  And there'll be one more mini-scene with Luis, in which he and his son have a brief conversation.

On Thursday, I plan to go to el Puerto to check it out.  (Originally I was going to go on Tuesday, but my small camera has to be taken to Sevilla to be repaired, so I'm putting el Puerto off until Thursday.)  I need to find a location that's scenic (not hard) and that doesn't have too much wind (very hard).  Wind is a real problem when it comes to recording conversations with a microphone.

Plus I have to get the scene out of my head and onto paper, since the actors will have to learn their lines.

All things considered, we plan to do this filming in early April.  Plus I've already started to do some heavy duty thinking about background music.

OUR NEXT POST will be about our beautifully revised web site for A Zest for Life.

HOORAY! "A Zest for Life" has been accepted into a festival in Germany.

Ah, fame!  Ah, a little recognition for all the work I've been doing.

It feels nice.

The Black International Cinema festival of Berlin (Germany) has accepted A Zest for Life as part of its upcoming festival (May 2-6).  Do I plan to attend?  You bet I do.  After all, I'm in Spain and Germany is not all THAT far away.

That's not the only good news I have for A Zest for Life.  The material I've been waiting for all these months finally arrived.  I only needed about 30 seconds of it for the documentary, but these are important 30 seconds.  They give the documentary a balance I wanted, plus more of the Peruvian coastal countryside (where most Afro-Peruvians live).

A checo on the vine.

And even more importantly, one section of the video clip I used shows fine, and well-known, Afro-Peruvian percussionists playing the checo, an Afro-Peruvian percussion instrument made out of a gourd.

Now, you probably don't know all that much about the checo, but that's part of the point.  After watching A Zest for Life, you WILL know what the checo is and how to use it.



SO--thanks to the Museo Afroperuano de Zaña (and Sonia Arteaga), thanks to 1 Frame Producciones (and Gisella Burgo Polo plus Javier Exposito Martin), and thanks to the Black International Cinema festival in Berlin.

OUR NEXT POST will be about moving forward on Domino:  caught in the crisis.