La guera

Today when we went out to shoot the personal interviews with the “jornaleros”, I was hoping to talk to the lady that the guys call “La Guera” (the blondie). Unfortunately we were not able to talk to her because she was not there today. I had previously interviewed her on a previous project for work, and I was hoping to see her again because she very helpful and willing to work with us.

When we asked for her, we were told that it has been very slow lately at any corner that they go. There is a shortage of work because the weather is changing, and it is getting colder so there is not as much outside work any more. But they still go hoping that someone needs work inside, or even outside. They do not mind working in a bad weather, they just do not like it when they can not find a job.

Check equipment before you leave!!

This morning we were finally able to do the interviews on the street. We started testing the audio and it wasn’t working, i was very nervous of course because my friend i very busy and he ca not always come help since he is in school as well. Then i remembered to check if the right audio input was turn on and plug in right. Thank God that’s what it was, so tested some more and were ready to go out there and talk to people. When we approached the “jornaleros” we were trying to present ourselves and try to be friendly so they would feel comfortable talking to us. As i was doing that, Jose was doing the white balance off of a guys tshirt. He then approached me and mentioned to me that there was something wrong with the camera.

I was upset since we had driven very far and we were running out time. I checked the settings, and then i proceeded to turn off the camera to try reset it. I honestly do not know what happened but it worked, and then we proceeded to do the interviews as planned. We were lucky that 3 guys were willing to cooperate, as soon as i got one the other two were a piece of cake to convince.

After going through silly mistakes i felt good that still i was able to get my interviews and have something to work with. I know that little things like this can ruin a project, so that is why i recommend to always double check your equipment before you shoot. We were able to figure out what we were missing to fix on location our problems. You never know what you will encounter while shooting.

Sad Future

The guy that I am about to present was a male nurse in Peru, he worked for the government also for a while. Thanks to his job in the government he was able to ask for a loan for which he lied so he could get it. He told his boss that he needed the money to make renovations on his home, but he knew that if he was to say the truth he would never leave his country.

The sad story of this guy is that he was very naive, he wanted to get a job with the red cross here in Dallas. I explained to him that it might not be possible because he would have to go back to school to get acredited again. But he was very passionate about his career, and he was not about to give up. So we got him the phone number, and some directions on how to get to the red cross in Dallas; he was very grateful.

He also told us that the reason why he came to the States was because his son was on a wheel chair, and that he barely had money to take him to the doctor. He also mentioned that every time he talks to his son, he tells him that he is exercising a lot so he can walk by the time he comes back home. At that moment i could not speak, I wanted to cry so bad. I could not understand why this guy had to go through all this, he was going through a really tough time.

We talked to him for more than an hour, between the stories of how he got here, and what he used to do back in Peru; he told us also that he had worked after hurracaine Katrina. He told us that he was lied to, and promised money at the end of his work. He said that after working several weeks, he never got paid and that they dumped them in Texas to get rid of them. So he was here with no home, no money, and not knowing where to start from.

He also mentioned that he worked at a construction site and that one day a fellow co-worker had an eccident and was having seizures, he ran to help him. He was told not to touch him, but no one was calling 911. He yelled at everyone to get help but no one would go near them. He then checked his vitals, and made sure he could move him to the shade, and he started giving him medical attention as good as he could. Later that day he was called into the office; he was told that because he helped that guy he was going to be punish with no payment for the week. He did not care, he was happy that they guy had made it alive.

As he was telling the story he said that he doesn’t regret helping his fellow co-worker because he did what he was trained to do, save lives. And even though he wants to work as a nurse in the United States, he would probably never get to do it. One because he is undocumented, and two because he does not speak English. It is a sad Future but he gave up with he had back at home to be able to send some money for his son.

Single stories

While doing the interviews on the street I was able to photograph some of the workers and with that I will attach their stories to the photograph. This lady that I photographed, was an American lady that used to feed the homeless on the street. She would go to restaurants; and she would ask for their left overs at night. She explained that the food that she was getting for these people was still in good conditions, and for most of the time it was the kind that the restaurants trash at the end of the night.

She told us that one day, something happened in her life (didn’t want to tell us) and she started looking for a job, which she could not obtain. After a while she started seeing the Mexican workers on the corners, and decided to try her luck. After working for a while with them she realized that even though she was the only woman standing there, she was being respected, and the guys would watch out for her safety.

After working with them a while, she decided to start getting food for the Mexican workers instead of the homeless. She said that she didn’t feed them anymore because all they do beg for money instead of lucking for a job. And that after working with the guys at the corner she wanted to thank them by bringing them the same food she used to feed the homeless. I was very happy to find this lady it made feel good, that at least she was looking after them.

The guys at the corner used to call her “guera” or “blondie”, and she also mentioned that when ever they have problems with the police, or they need to buy a car, or rent an apartment; she would actually go with them and help them with the translations. Most of the guys that stand on the corners, are what we call “new comers”, and so they don’t have much knowledge of what goes on and how they need to do things. As a matter of fact only a small percentage of them speak english, and it’s not a lot. They only know enough to say their name, say what they know to do, and ask for payment.

Pictures of Protest at Irving City Hall

On the day of the protest my crew and I got there early, we set up just like any other news reporter that was there that day, and we were hoping to get a lot of interviews, as well as B-Roll.  Many Hispanic tv stations as well as radio stations were present during the protest, but I only saw one American tv station. It made me wonder why was that, this protest was big enough to draw attention, or at least the subject was big enough. I guess it depends on how the media is feeling that day, or what they think is most important.

As the speaker started talking to the crowd i could notice that the people that had showed up to support the protest were mostly families, with babies, elderly people with American Flags. Everything seemed like a pacific protest.

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 But as the crowd started to grow more and more oponents of undocumented immigrants started showing up, they had signs, pictures, etc. I approached a lady and I asked her why she was against the immigrants that were coming to work to the U.S. and she told me that the reason why they were there was because her group believed that undocumented immigrants were responsible for the death of many people, I tried to get an interview out of her but she wouldn’t show her face in camera, how odd!!

As time started going by, I noticed that there were certain people being aggressive, so I ran towards a group of people and I noticed that an elderly lady was yelling at kids, calling them wetbacks; she was being very rude to the Hispanic community in general.

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While I was photographing around me, I heard people yelling and I saw the police running. So I ran after them, when I got there I noticed that the same older lady was being arrested. So started asking what had happened so I was told that she tried to stranggle a guy, she hit another elderly lady, and scratched a young girl.

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I was very surprised, but apparently they were not the only ones that were aggrevated, a reporter from Fox 4 I believe got attacked by the same lady as well.

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As I was doing the interviews I encounter people that was against illegal immigration, and I had to interview them just as well because everyone has the right to present their point of view. So I got into a very hot conversation with this lady who was running for a position in Irving. I asked her if she believed that it was right for police officers to go into the homes of Hispanic families and deporting them while having a get together, she obviously denied this. But while I was arguing with her, I told her that American born Hispanics are left behind and that many of these kids are 1 month old, or 3 years old; and they don’t have their parents anymore because they are being encarcellated. I asked if she though it was fair for them to be left alone, since their parents are taken back to their countries, and they are not allowed to go back and get them.

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After a while people left peacefully and they were yelling “We are America, We are Americans”. There was only people arrested, and when I heard it on the radio they only said “there were only two arrest”. They never said names, nor did they say whatever or not they were White, or Hispanic. To me this was sort of funny because usually if it is an African Amercian or a Mexican they will make emphasis on the news.

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City of Irving

well as every week we plan on doing interviews on the street , but this week we got information that there is going to be a march in the city of Irving, it will start at city hall…the plan of course is to be there. Hopefully we can get more than b-role, and actually get stories that will benefit the project. If you don’t know what’s going on in Irving i can help you with what i have heard so far, on the radio (or read on the net). The city of Irving has been picking up illegal immigrants to deport them. it has got to the point where immigration is even traspassing people’s homes, they go to their family reunions and take them straight to immigration to deport them right away. I also heard that they are also pulling people over just because they look mexican (this sounds like farmers branch)….and they ask for their driver’s licence and insurance and if they don’t have them then they take them in and deport them…I can’t believe it’s got to this point!!! Here it is something that i found on the web…if you have cable and you have mtv tr3s please watch this show…unfortunately i don’t have that channel, but i found the video on youtube, so watch this:

Also check out this site, read the cartoons…i hope that if you have the time you can go to the protest tomorrow wednesday at 6:30 p.m. at Irving City Hall…
http://oneoldvet.com/

Also the Hispanic community and media communications are trying to warn people to avoid going to Irving to prevent them from getting deported. Please if you know someone pass the word!!! I know i will!!!

Thanks for reading this!

still shooting

yesterday we were working with the documentary a little bit, we interviewed a Professor from the Austin University, and we talked to him for a couple of hours about facts, and statistics about Hispanics or Latinos like he said this side of the country would rather label us. We had our sound guy on site, and the place where we were shooting was very nice, and so the floor of the room was marble….so!! we had a problem, the sound was bouncing off the marble!!! but thankfully we had a wireless microphone that we placed on his lap, also we had another mic that we plugged to the second camera. So usually when we record we use two cameras obviously in different angles and we have two mics and we sinc the sound by using a clapper, so that when we edit we can get the sound to match the image.

So a bit of advise always carry extra equipment, mics, batteries, stands, tools…etc!!! you never know what you can encounter while filming on location. Always think of what can go wrong instead of thinking what is going to be good. I hope i make sense, what i’m trying to say is if you prepare yourself for the worst you will always be prepare to fix it.

Getting started with some ideas

Last time that i met with my co-workers and boss, we talked about the options that are going to be available for me as far as potcasting. They already have a few shows in mind that are being discuss with a client. As far as i am concern the special effects or graphics will be taken care through our 3D department, which is sweet because they really are good at it. Some of the shows that they are discussing to do is a photography show, since my boss is a photographer he wants to show, and share what he has learn through the years. To me that’s awesome because not many photographer share their techniques. Another show will deal with modeling, since we are a production company we do our own castings; we DO NOT deal with agents they are a pain in the b*#@*!!! So we will be talking about the things that models can do to improve their presentation, interview skills, and portfolios. Basically we will be touching things that we always find while doing castings, things that seem common sense to us; but not many people are aware of it. A third show that we are talking about deals with movie reviews, so we will be going to the premier of different movies, and we will be doing reviews on them. I hope i can work on the photography or modeling show, i love doing castings and taking pictures.

By the way one of the things i do at work is castings, it is fun and exciting; some times frustating just because some days you get really bad actors all day. Those days you feel like you haven’t accomplish many things; but you ALWAYS learn things no matter how bad the day was!!!

Well i’ll give you the links to our website, and my boss’ photography website.

www.latimundo.com this is the company i work for
www.alameel.com this is my boss’ website

after a few months of production

We have been working on the documentary for quite some time, and a lot of things have happened since we started. One of the things i forgot to mention was that when i sold my documentary, i signed a non-disclosure agreement; therefore i am debating whatever or not to do my project on the documentary. But honestly, that’s not why i really don’t want to do my project about it…my real reason is because i would like to have something different in my porfolio, a variety. I already have the experience of working with a documentary, now i want to get my hands on something completely different. And since we are going to be working with potcast at work, i’m interested on learning to do it. I know it’s a different way to present ideas, but nowadays many companies are working with potcast. I think it’s important to get my hands on the things that are popular, i want to update my skills.

So after thinking about it for a week, i decided that i am not going to deal with the documentary, that’s on the past and present persay. But non the less it still is important.

How did I get Started…

When i first came up with the idea of a documentary it was for my editing class, the original documentary is up on youtube; i will add the link at the end if you want to see it. The main reason why i did it, was because i have a lof friends, and family that are here illegal and they are my inspiration and i’m proud of them. When i showed my boss the documentary he offered to buy the rights from me, and obviously make it bigger and hopefully have it display or shown at a festival.

The original documentary is different to the present project in a sense that i have been very fortunate about the fact taht i have add new interviews. During the summer we flew to California to interview a guy that is from the Cesar Chavez foundation, he talked about the wages and hours that farmers work, as well as what Cesar Chavez did, which not many people know who he is. We stayed for a whole week waiting for a really good interview, the guy we were persuing is a radio dj in California who (his known as Piolin) delivered one million letters to Washington to try to push the law that would legalize Hispanics. The issue that we encountered was that his agent wouldn’t allow us an interview because he wasn’t going to get paid anything, we then offered him to come to Dallas and film a commercial for one of our clients, therefore he would get some money. We are still waiting an answer from the tv station…funny how it works!!!

We are also adding interviews that are done on the street, we go every wednesday at 6 in the morning to look for immigrants on the corners and wait to get picked up for a job. We have been doing this for 3 weeks, and we have actually met a lot of interesting people who have share their stories. Something that was very interesting to me is that last time we went out, we met a white guy who was there too looking for a job just like the other guys, and after 10 minutes we started seeing more and more white people. We finally approached one of them and we asked them why they were there instead of being working at a place where they could have a settle job. The answer that we got was super positive, one of the guys told us that he had a criminal record, but he was clean now; obviously it was hard for him to find a job. He also mentioned that sometimes he didn’t have money and that the guys there (mexicans) would buy him his cigarettes, or lunch, or a soda. I felt big at that moment, i was proud of these guys even though i didn’t know them. Whenever we talk to the “jornaleros” the guys that work on the street, i find all sorts of people but mostly good, religious, hard working, honest people. And these are the stories we want to show.

We are also working on doing interviews with the minuteman here in Arlington i believe, but we had to hire a white guy to go out there and do the interviews for obvious reasons (the name of my company very hispanic).

As the project progresses we had to do some changes, because unfortunately not everyone is willing to show their face on camera, they are afraid that someone will recognize them and do something to them. We met a lady that was raped by the coyote (the person that brings them illegaly) she got pregnant; and kept the baby. She now has 2 jobs and works too many hours. When i approched her i offered her money for the hours she would miss from work, i also offered her to have her as a silhoutte, change her voice, etc. you name it…i offered!!! But she didn’t come forward, her story is very interesting but she is afraid. The reason why i think she is afraid is because nowadays many people get pull over just because they look Hispanic…example “farmers branch” http://cbs11tv.com/politics/local_story_233231017.html (read about it).

And so it is hard to tell everything about it when we are changing it as we go, not because it’s not working but because we are trying to do something different, or MAKE A DIFFERENCE.

Here you have the original documentary, it’s titled “Dreamers”. I named it in English because most english speakers feel uncomfortable while watching a movie that is not in their language. Why dreamers? because all these people came looking for the American Dream, they came looking for something better…Some did, some didn’t. The song at the end of the documentary was composed by a high school classmate that i found on myspace, i told him about my project and he offered to write the song for me….I really liked it so left all of in the video…but because of the time taht i was given in class i couldn’t fit the whole song with images…but if you let it run all the way to the end you can hear the whole song, but without images…enjoy it!!!

http://youtube.com/watch?v=KfxnmEubiwY