Day10 – Hands of God – Surgery
July 30th, 2008
by Carlos in Film
Dr. Sozer of El Paso Plastic Surgery was kind enough to let us use his operating room to stage some of our operating scenes. Of course, Dr. Sozer was out of town for a few days and we only had an 8 hour window to use his operating room. Manny, Marco, and Benny all took the day off from their day jobs to come do these scenes. Frank Laverpool also came by today for his first few scenes. He did very well in the operating room and I can’t wait to see him in action for the rest of his scenes. My dad also stopped by to make sure we were doing all of the surgery scenes correctly. Since the movie is based on a lot of his stories, he came in to consult the actors to make sure that the motions and atmosphere were capture. He was also in a few of the scenes and looked great. It got a little tricky in there since we were moving things around constantly but luckily we were able to finish all the scenes by 5pm.
After we finished in the operating room, we went back to El Paso LTAC Hospital and did one more scene. Mr. Metz was kind enough to let us use his office for the shoot. We did have to a few funky things in there though since we weren’t able to move the furniture around too much. We finished around 9pm and called it a day. Another full day shoot and we were all exhausted. We packed up and for the day and went home. Sandy and I double checked the schedule and it looks like we might have to reschedule a scene because Mr. Metz said that the hospital may be at full capacity on Thursday. Let’s see what we can re-schedule.
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Day9 – Hands of God – Hospital Hall
July 30th, 2008
by Carlos in Film
Attorney General Jim DaRoss of El Paso joined the Hands of God cast today. It was a pretty small shoot with 3 simple scenes. Jim is a lot taller than I remember. I first met him during our auditions at LAT studios a few months ago. We will all be going to White Sands with him later this week to film more of his scenes. Mike Sherman and Richard Thomas also came by the set for their cameo appearances. Both of them were in my previous film SANTOS as mob men but now they get to be medical interns. We ran into a few complications around the end but luckily everything ended perfectly. Tomorrow is going to be a long day since we will be filming all day at Dr. Sozer’s Operating Room. I get to work with Frank Laverpool for the first time tomorrow as well. He had a great audition for Dr. Leonard and I’m looking forward to working with him.
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Day8 – Hands of God – The Hospital
July 28th, 2008
by Carlos in Film
We had our first full day at El Paso LTAC Hospital yesterday and everything went very well. We started with several interior shots with Manny and then went on to the roof of the hospital. The view was amazing from up there. On the way down form the roof, we got a few scenes of Manny climbing up and down the stairs. It had rained that morning so I told him to be careful. Sure enough, he ended up slipping but managed to catch himself on the way down. Close Call!
The Ambulance arrived at 5:30pm and we finished one last scene with Manny before he left. Once outside, Benny strapped the camera down to the back of his truck. We had the ambulance follow us around the block for about 5-7 minutes as Benny got shots of it from the back. Once we finished there, we went back to the hospital and started Ivan’s scenes in the Ambulance. We didn’t get to far though because thanks to Hurricane Dolly, more rain was coming our way. I was debating whether or not to call the shoot for the day but luckily, the front of the hospital has a canopy and we were able to get one of Karen Moore’s scenes in the can before having to call it for the night. It never rains in EL Paso. Why all this now? The EMT drivers were very nice though and said that they would be available next Sunday. That’s a relief at least.
Check out more pictures at www.epfilm.org
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Day7 – Hands of God – Office
July 25th, 2008
by Carlos in Film
Hands of God resumed production yesterday over at my Dad’s office building. The scene we filmed was between the District Attorney and Jimmy Chavez’s men attempting to assassinate him so their boss wouldn’t go to trial. Benny thought it would be best to do the parking garage scene first since we were low on light. After that, we went up stairs to my dad’s office and finished up the rest of Scene 25. Not bad for 3 hours of work. We will be resuming production again hopefully this coming Sunday. Check out more pictures at www.epfilm.org
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Current Status
July 25th, 2008
by Carlos in Film
We’ve had some down time these last few days due to some location agreement problems. The original hospital we were going to use fell through, so Sandy and I had to find a replacement location as quick as possible. I had heard that the original hospital we filmed SANTOS at, Southwestern General, had closed down several months ago. We decided to go check it out anyway. As it turns out, a new hospital now occupies the building.
El Past LTAC Hospital has now opened. Sandy and I met with the Administrators Leon Metz and Evelyn Stewart and told them about our Hands of God movie. They were very supportive of the idea and told us how much they love movies. In fact, not to long ago, Guillermo Arriaga and Charlize Thereon and their crew had come through that same hospital and filmed part of their movie The Burning Plain. Awesome! Hopefully we can start filming there this coming week.
During the down time, I’ve started editing the scenes we’ve shot so far and everything is turning out fantastic. I’m starting to warm up to Hard Drives again since its so useful to just plug in the HD to our laptop and transfer the footage we have shot that day in just minutes. We will resume filming tomorrow over at my dad’s office.
Felipa Solis was also very kind to write about our adventures in her blog. For more info, check out Felipa’s Flicks!
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Day6 – Hands of God – Apartment
July 19th, 2008
by Carlos in Film
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Day5 – Hands of God – EPCCC
July 17th, 2008
by Carlos in Film
It’s been about 3 years since I last visited the El Paso County Commissioners Courtroom. The last time I was here, I made a presentation to the presiding commissioners about helping fund my previous film SANTOS with money from the Hotel/Motel fund. Good Memories. Now I’m filming a movie in the very room I was declined funding haha. We met up with the EPCCC staff and they let us into the courtroom around 8:15am. Angel Herrera joined the cast today as District Attorney Anthony Rodriguez. Solid acting all around. We were done around 9:45am and packed up for the day. Big thanks to Nancy Turrieta and Jamie Perez for helping us get the location.
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Day4 – Hands of God – AJ’s Diner
July 16th, 2008
by Carlos in Film
We had small shoot today. The owner of AJ’s Diner, Rene Gonzalez, was really nice and was letting us use the diner from 3pm to 5pm. Those were the slow hours which was good since it kept the noise down. My brother Chops wasn’t able to join us since he got busy with more website work for our company. Benny got off work early and arrived around 2:30pm. Sandy and I helped him unload all of the equipment and we prompted to setup the scene. Manuel Rubio and Armando Beltran arrived half an hour later and they were ready to go.
Manny and Armando rehearsed there lines for a few minutes before we started. Armando had played Don Beltran in my last movie SANTOS. Lights, Camera, Action! I had my only one audio-techinca lav mic and the boom mic for sound. I had to have the actors switch the lav mic from one to the other for certain parts of the scene since the boom was picking up everything. Sandy made her cameo in the film as The Waitress and she did a great job. We were done by 5pm.
More pictures at www.epfilm.org
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Day3 – Hands of God – Living Room
July 16th, 2008
by Carlos in Film
Short and simple shoot. We shot one of the last scenes of the movie. Sandy, Chops, my mom, and I were busy most of the day doing production design in the living room. Once again, we had to turn off the air conditioner. The house got hot as hell again. We did get some great shots in the living room and the performances from Marco and Karen could not have been better. Benny and Monica have also been doing an awesome job. I remembered my old movie shoots at UT Austin. My brother and I were always doing the lighting, sound, and video during the production. Everyone has to start somewhere.
More pictures at www.epfilm.org
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