Written by Braulio Lin Last month I had one most memorable experiences in my life. I took a month off from New York and flew back to my home country Honduras, to work as a production sound mixer for the feature film Café con sabor a mi tierra (click for link). This project was made by Sin Fronteras Estudios (click for link), an independent production company that built its own fame by churning out four successful blockbusters in the past two years. With Café, their goal is not only to hit the big screen, but also to win prizes in international festivals. It will be their first film to go out of the country, and it is also their first drama film. Principal photography lasted approximately 30 days non-stop. It involved travelling to remote locations in the central and southwest regions of the country, across five departments (La Paz, Intibucá, Cortés, Santa Bárbara, Francisco Morazán). We slept an average of 5 hours every day and drank way too much coffee–specialty coffee actually. About one third of the film is set in coffee plantations, where blood-sucking flies roamed wild, free, and undefeatable. We lived through some hilarious and scary moments, like when we were chased out of a jungle by a stirred-up bee swarm (I got stung twice on my right cheek). One day we even spent 20 hours filming inside a hospital! Like March Madness, it was tough, but we had a lot of fun. Personally, I used the experience to reconnect with the country that watched me grow up. In the past 6 years that I have lived in New York, I gradually lost touch with life back home. I let my Honduran-ness get distilled by a mixture cultures that I encountered in daily met life, and, as a coping mechanism for homesickness, I learned not to resist. When your home is two thousand miles away, you have to let it go and embrace the next closest thing available to you. During the rare leisure hours that were granted to us by our assistant director (looking at you, Daniel Fung) I would put down my equipment and breathe in the fragrance of pine sap and coffee fruits and listen to the wind bristling through pine needles (a.k.a. psithurism). During our commuting hours I would enjoy the rushing scenery outside the window of our cramped van, counting clay huts esconded among the forest. I focused on engraving those sights, smells, and sounds into my memory, knowing that once the shoot was over I would be flying back to a freezing city full of fire trucks and ambulances (which sometimes I do miss too). But more importantly I tried to save these little moments of what I consider paradise, so they could be present to recall if I ever missed home while being away for too long. One such moment came to us in the last few days of the shoot. We found ourselves in an impromptu trip to Peña Blanca, a small city bordering the north coast of Lago de Yojoa. The second morning, the director disappeared for a few hours and returned with a look of divine revelation in his eyes (cause of cold sweat for producers). He had scouted a coffee plantation up in the mountains and discovered the place for the perfect ending shot of the film. We had no choice to get going. A decision was made to go up to the mountain at night and camp near the summit in order to be ready to shoot at exactly the break of dawn. Later on, about fifteen of us plus climbed up to the back of an old M1078 6x6 tactical military truck still sticky with coffee residue and made our slow and boisterous ascent toward the summit. That night was foggy, but as we climbed the rocky driveway, more and more stars started to appear among tree branches above us. Soon, the truck broke through the blanket of the fog and continued climbing into the darkness. We were going really high, to where the God(s) live… At 5am I woke up on a thin mattress on the floor of a cement house, my bones chilling. The sky was still dark and the plantation was dead quiet. I tried to recall the events from last night, but the only things I remembered through all the drowsiness were seeing the blue glow of incandescent lightbulbs and hearing three loud bangs, like someone beating dirt off a mattress with a stick. Later I learned that those bangs were actually gunshots made by the plantation owner’s revolver. The night before, some of the crew had remained camping under the stars because there was not enough room for everyone inside the house. They had been hanging out with the plantation owner when suddenly they heard three gunshots thunder from across the mountain. In response, the owner pulled out his own gun and emptied three shells of his own into the black void. “Don’t worry,” he had told the startled crew, “It’s completely safe around here. This is just how we greet each other.” The coffee leaves rustled as we caravanned with our equipment through the tight rows of red bourbon and catuai. The insects and birds were still hiding from the morning cold. Slowly the sky started to clear. After a short prologue of orange glow, the first rays of sun broke through the horizon. Below and beyond, a sea of orange clouds concealed the Lago de Yojoa, like a blanket giving the famous lake a few more minutes of bedtime. I looked to our left and saw endless rolling hills of coffee plants. To our right lay a deep valley, and across from it, dense vegetation and shacks clung to the steep mountainside, all painted pink by the premature sun. Soon, the air became damp with the mist of steamed dew. We filmed the shot, several takes in a row, and, as I was holding the boom pole above my shoulders, and I told myself, “This would be a nice place to die.”
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AboutThis blog was launched in August, 2015 during my 8th year of studying abroad in Barcelona, Spain. I decided to start this blog and record some of my thoughts and moments. This blog is also dedicate to Richard Fu, a good friend of mine who is now guarding me from above. He inspired me to get out of the comfort zone and be curious about the world. Amig@'s blogs
Check out my brother Will's blog (in Mandarin) to see what he's up to these days (Design, fashion, food, technology, music, film...etc) Check out Kris' website for some high quality photos around the world Archives
September 2023
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