Back from the Field; Shooting the ENCUENTRO documentary!
After traveling to Bogotá, then heading to the Montes de Maria region on the Atlantic coast, we shot a great deal of performance footage, interviews, and photography at the annual Gaita Festival de San Jacinto, the traditional music festival that features some incredible artists from throughout Colombia playing cumbia, porros, gaitas, and puyas, the variety of genres which define costeño musical culture. As any decent filmmaker can tell you, the documentary medium poses some real challenges, since it relies less on written or improvised scripts, actors, or standard production techniques and methods, and more on the dynamic action of capturing real life, which often presents incredible obstacles. Nevertheless, with the help of my incredible DP, Juan Pablo Assmus, we collected some great stuff!
Here’s a view from a street parranda as it winds its way through the pueblo.
The Gaita festival competition was intense, as I documented the participation of the NYC-based gaitero MartínVejerano and his Marioneta project, which won 2nd place in the “aficionado” contest for the second year in a row! The band was made up NYC, Bogotá, and costeño musicians, who won over the local audience with their talent and genre-expanding innovations and style.
Here we are after a public presentation we did together at the National Library in the capitol city, my first presentation completely in Español!
The Ministry of Culture did a small write-up: see
http://www.mincultura.gov.co/eContent/newsDetail.asp?id=1804&IDCompany=4).
It’s all coming together, albeit slowly. And in any case, where there’s tons of footage to edit, dozens of interviews to transcribe, and great music to produce for the ENCUENTRO film, it’s all part of a creative process that is steeped in real people and real music.
Paz y nada mas o menos.
Jorge (aka DJ JAM)
And don’t forget to tune in to my weekly radio show—La Pipa de la Paz—on WESUFM.org, every Tuesday evening at 5:05 PM! Escuche!
After traveling to Bogotá, then heading to the Montes de Maria region on the Atlantic coast, we shot a great deal of performance footage, interviews, and photography at the annual Gaita Festival de San Jacinto, the traditional music festival that features some incredible artists from throughout Colombia playing cumbia, porros, gaitas, and puyas, the variety of genres which define costeño musical culture. As any decent filmmaker can tell you, the documentary medium poses some real challenges, since it relies less on written or improvised scripts, actors, or standard production techniques and methods, and more on the dynamic action of capturing real life, which often presents incredible obstacles. Nevertheless, with the help of my incredible DP, Juan Pablo Assmus, we collected some great stuff!
Here’s a view from a street parranda as it winds its way through the pueblo.
The Gaita festival competition was intense, as I documented the participation of the NYC-based gaitero MartínVejerano and his Marioneta project, which won 2nd place in the “aficionado” contest for the second year in a row! The band was made up NYC, Bogotá, and costeño musicians, who won over the local audience with their talent and genre-expanding innovations and style.
Here we are after a public presentation we did together at the National Library in the capitol city, my first presentation completely in Español!
The Ministry of Culture did a small write-up: see
http://www.mincultura.gov.co/eContent/newsDetail.asp?id=1804&IDCompany=4).
It’s all coming together, albeit slowly. And in any case, where there’s tons of footage to edit, dozens of interviews to transcribe, and great music to produce for the ENCUENTRO film, it’s all part of a creative process that is steeped in real people and real music.
Paz y nada mas o menos.
Jorge (aka DJ JAM)
And don’t forget to tune in to my weekly radio show—La Pipa de la Paz—on WESUFM.org, every Tuesday evening at 5:05 PM! Escuche!
Posts
1 comments:
Very cool! So who exactly are the musicians (left to right) who performed with you at the library? Which one is Martin Vejerano? Hey, and I read the Ministry of Culture's write-up and understood the whole thing ("yeah, right...BIG deal" says Jorge about Jody's skills in Spanish!) ;^) Anyway, I'm looking forward to seeing some of the photos and hearing some of the recordings!!
Post a Comment