Flowers in the Slum

There’s a storm brewing in Guatemala. Last week, a lawyer was assassinated. Soon after his death, a video surfaced with him telling his fellow citizens that if they were indeed seeing him on this video, it meant he had been assassinated and he knew exactly who did it.

The news finally reached the Drudge Report today, which means it’s pretty big.

Being here in Guatemala puts it all front and center.

There were demonstrations again in the central plaza today. We were there later and it looked like a hurricane swept through the plaza and left tons of garbage behind. We didn’t get there in time to film the event though because we didn’t come here to capture up-to-the-minute breaking news. We came to get the much older story of poverty.

Today was our first day of shooting in Guatemala. Joel A, our guide, drives us to the right places, tells us when to shut the windows of our car because the neighborhood is bad, translates for us, and gives us good advice and answers to our many questions.

We didn’t actually go into the slums today, that’s our job for the rest of the week. Today was a day to get the lie of the land, get some establishing shots, get some of the stuff we’ll forget about later like government buildings, landmarks, candid people shots, culture, sort of essence-of-Guatemalan-life shots.

We did get to the outskirts of La Limonada though. We went up on a precipice that overlooks the slum. Actually, the slum creeps right up to the edge of that precipice and almost crawls over. We shot long, wide establishing shots to show this piece of the slum when we were quietly and wonderfully interrupted by the type of hospitality poor people are so good at.

We were shooting when Joel started talking with a tiny, elderly Guatemalan woman who’s home almost reached the top of the precipice. She was curious. What were we doing? He explained. She invited us—four strangers from another country, plus Joel—into her house.

We might enjoy getting some shots through her window, she explained. Then she led us through her little house to the back onto a tiny verandah that emptied out onto more little homes straight down, down the slope of the embankment we were on, a perfect picture of how the very poor build their homes on the absolute worst and most dangerous pieces of land.

She had flowers on her verandah and proudly showed them to us. I asked her (through sign language. My Spanish is horrible) if I could take a picture of her with the flowers. She agreed. You can see her picture here.

We got some great footage from that vantage point; shots we would not have gotten without that serendipitous moment provided by that gracious Guatemalan woman.

In her home, I forgot all about the storm brewing in Guatemalan politics. I forgot completely that I was on the cusp of a slum and surrounded by poverty. In her home we were treated as friends. And our political persuasions, incomes and countries of origin didn’t seem to matter.

From Tulip Lanes to Slums

It’s Tulip Time in my home town. It’s an annual celebration of all things Dutch. There’s Dutch Dancing in the streets, gorgeous tulips planted by the thousands all over town; there’s windmills and a canal, wooden shoes klomping all over the place and tourists by the thousands who bus in to see the street scrubbing, eat Dutch treats (including almond bars), watch the parades, take trolley tours and more.

In two days, four of us will be in La Limonda, Guatemala City, Guatemala. Though I haven’t ever been to this particular slum, I rather doubt we will see scrubbed streets, tulips, or even authentic ethnic costumes.

I suspect we will find many kind people who are generous to four strangers, and who are fabulously rich in community.

As I explained to my daughter Lauren once when we were filming in San Salvador; there are different kinds of riches. What she experienced there in that poor community was the richness of community. People knew each other, knew each other’s business, names, took the time to talk to one another. There wasn’t a lot of material wealth, but my young daughter definitely picked up on this other form of richness.

We were living in another state at that time, and we certainly did not have that richness of community. When we got back, she was hungry for it. She missed it.

Of the four of us, two of us, Jess and myself, have spent considerable time in this region of the world. Jess is a recent college graduate with a degree in digital media production. He grew up in the Dominican Republic and speaks Spanish fluently.

The other two will have their first taste of both Latin American culture and of slums. One is John, a friend of mine from town. He’s eager to see for himself what life in the slums is all about. John has a big heart for the poor and for justice. I’m eager to see his response.

The other traveler is my dad. He’s 70 years old and though he’s followed his kids around to East Africa and Israel, this week in La Limonda will be an eye opener for him. He’ll carry equipment, hold shotgun mics, recharge batteries and generally do whatever needs doing. And like the rest of us, he’ll meet people who are part of the one billion.

And he'll wonder how some of us can live in tulip-lined lanes, while others live in slums.

La Limonada, Guatemala: The Precarious Life

Next week we go to Guatemala to shoot.


Why there and not a favela in Rio, or on the outskirts of Mexico City? Why do the Latin America shoot in Guatemala?


As we looked at the various slums in Latin America (unfortunately, there were plenty to choose from) we decided to focus on a slum that hasn't received much attention from the world. Not that most slums have, but some are more famous than others. Rio, for example, has been featured in several movies and the favelas are almost romanticised in some quarters. Funny how media can make a location famous (i.e., just think about the baseball fields here in my home state of Iowa.)


Guatemala is a small country right next to Yucatan, Mexico. We don't hear much about it in the news, it gets very little attention, and yet, 70% of the population lives on less than US$2 per day. In the countryside, 30% live on less than $1 per day. In the city, 8% does.

Guatemala City has about 2.5 million people and estimates show that at least 60% of them are poor. Those with the lowest incomes live in very precarious situations.

Our goal is to spend a week with two women who live these precarious lives; Tanya and Selma.

Tanya and Selma have stories that border on the unbelievable. We hope to make their stories real and believeable with our lenses and microphones. They live in a slum community called La Limonada, which had its beginnings in 1959.

When the government put an end to the agrarian reform program in the '50s, that, plus socio-economic problems accelerated the migratory process from rural to urban. About 600 families invaded the sides of the gullies in front of the Olympic Stadium and thus was born La Limondada, one of the largest slums in Central America today.

We don't know Tanya and Selma's history or complete story yet, but we hope to find out. As the author Chaim Potok said, "in the particular is contained the universal." Through the particular stories of Tanya and Sara, we may gain clear insight into the more universal story of the plights of tens of thousands more who live the precarious life in Guatamala City and in cities around the world.

I'll post more here about Tanya and Selma, the good people who are making this possible in Guatemala City, our experiences as we shoot, and what we learn. Thanks for checking in.

...better late than never.

I'm at a “Going Global” two-day workshop in Santa Monica. The reason I'm here is because I've discovered something all independent filmmakers discover at some point in the production schedule: The marketing and distribution of a film is one of the most difficult aspects of the entire production.

Filmmakers get pretty excited about their films. That's good because it takes a lot of passion and energy to make one! They do the preproduction, they do the shooting, they do the postproduction, and then … then they start asking questions like, “Who's going to buy this thing?” “How will I get this out to my audience?”

I was very fortunate to come across Stacey Parks and her company, Film Specific. Stacey has a long history of working with independent filmmakers and getting sales and distribution deals put together for them.

Stacey had a nine-week, weekly conference call that about 50 of us from around the US and Canada were part of and the topic was, “Distribution in Reverse.” The premise being; whatever stage of production you're in right now, you need to be thinking clearly about the the final stage, which is, marketing and distribution.

To that end, our conference calls were useful in getting us to think about questions like international financing deals, global distribution, the film festival circuit, and the mother of all deal breakers: deliverables.

Deliverables are the myriad nit-picky little things that any TV distribution deal worth its salt, or any deal for that matter, will lay out in the fine print. The list of deliverables can stretch to nine pages long and will include things like:

E&O Insurance: Errors and Omissions Insurance. After I've proved that I did everything possible to mitigate possible lawsuits by having all those who appear in the documentary sign releases, making sure my music is legal, having no intentional slander and so forth, I still have to purchase an E&O policy in case something should arise down the road that could get me or the production company into legal hot water.

Music and FX. For global distribution, there may have to be some recutting, say, in Japan, to make the movie more palatable for a Japanese audience. Music, dialogue, sound FX: all these need to be delivered in a specific format so the editors over there can move things around, make changes, etc., to fit their audience.

Title Tracks. If the Slum Documentary gets shown in, say, Germany, all the subtitles, credits, even the Title, will have to be changed into the German language. There's a very specific way that all these titles have to be delivered to a third-party vendor to expedite that process.

There are a LOT more deliverables, but I'll just copy and paste a few from our notes so you get an idea of what goes on behind the scenes of every movie that actually makes it onto TV or the bigscreen or to your Netflix account:

(a) Original Picture Negative: The original first-class completely edited color 35 mm Film Stock Picture negative, fully timed and color corrected.

(b) Original Optical Soundtrack Negative: A first-class completely edited 35 MM Film Stock optical sound-track negative (including combined dialogue, sound effects and music made from the original magnetic print master described in Paragraph 5 below conforming to the original negative and answer print. The Sound track is to be in Stereo.

(c) 35mm Low Contrast Print: One (1) first class 35mm composite low contrast print fully timed and color corrected, manufactured from the original action negative and final sound track, fully titled, conformed and synchronized to the final edited version of the Picture(if available).

(d) Color Interpositive Protection Master: One (1) color corrected and complete interpositive Master of the Picture, conformed in all respects to the Answer Print for protection purposes without scratches or defects (if available).

(e) Color Internegative/Dupe Negative: One(1) 35 Internegative manufactured from the color interpositive protection Master conformed in all respects to the delivered and accepted Answer Print without scratches or defects (if available).

Get the idea? I'm becoming more and more convinced that trudging through the slums of the world is the easy part. The marketing and distribution is where it gets tough.

So that brings me back to Santa Monica. Our nine-week call sessions are ending with all of us here together at the Viceroy Hotel on the beach, discussing these issues, listening to experts in a variety of fields, and learning a lot. None of us want to join ranks with the countless filmmakers out there who have made a good movie, but then get hung up in this final stage of things.

Will this delay the release? Hopefully not … but better late than never.

Yes. It matters.

You’ve probably heard a variation of this very cheesy story: There’s a beach with tens of thousands of fish washed up onshore and they’re dying. An annual migration of sorts.

A boy is on the beach picking up fish, one at a time, and throwing then in the water.

A man tells the boy that he’s wasting his time, he can’t possibly save all the fish and it really doesn’t matter.

The boy stops and, looking at the fish in his hand, says, “it matters to this one.”

I’ve been rather astounded over the past few months as I’ve spoken to groups and individuals, of the number of people who are like that boy.

They hear the “one billion” but then they immediately want to know what they can do to help a person or a family. “How can we make a difference in the lives of the poorest of the poor?”

My own family is on an odyssey of sorts. Jovelyn is the 15-year-old daughter of Jose and Elvie Alquino, the family under the bridge in Manila. Jovelyn is a shy girl, bright-eyed and eager to learn.

Working with some very very fine people in Manila, we’re exploring the possibility of having Jovelyn come live with our family here in Iowa, finish her last year or two of high school in our small town, then go on to Dordt College where I teach.

It’s sort of like the kid on the beach. That kind of opportunity can matter—big time—to one family. And who knows what the ripple effect will be?

Many others want to know what they can do for the one billion.

I suspect there’s a way to create connections, but it needs to be done without reinventing programs and opportunities that other fine organizations are already involved with.

I’m delighted there are so many out there like that boy. I hope his attitude prevails, and that of the “it-really-doesn’t-matter guy” become a very small minority.

What's In A Name?

“The Slum Documentary Film Project.”

Not a real grabby title, is it.

Not like, “Warehousing the World’s Surplus Humanity,” or, “Zone of Silence” or a few other ideas I have for a title (in fairness, that first one about the “warehousing” comes straight from Planet of Slums by Mike Davis. I include it to make a point.)

So why the vanilla title?

As you may have read in a previous blog entry here, documentaries are definitely works in progress. They evolve. Heck, as of this writing, I’m still not 100% sure of the final direction this film is going to take. And I probably won’t know that ‘til I’m much further along in the shooting. To date, all I have is footage from Manila. Next month is Guatemala, and later this year, Africa. In between these will be interviews with a variety of experts.

As all this wonderful footage comes in, the ideas begin to gel, things come together, and yes, a title begins to emerge.

The title may come from something I read or a comment made during an interview. Some of the best titles come quite by accident in an off-handed remark made by someone, or the unusual juxtaposition of ideas when you see images cut together inside the Avid timeline.

What I’m saying is: “The Slum Documentary Film Project” isn’t the final title. It’s just a working title for a work in progress.

Eventually, something much better will reveal itself.

And then I’ll reveal it to you.

In the meantime, I’m wide open to ideas. If you suggest the title that ultimately gets used, be assured I’ll give you the credit when the credits roll on The Slum Documentary Film Project.

A Sense of Place

I went to Google Earth and found the very bridge where the Alquino family of Manila lives.

Diving around the planet on Google Earth is always a bit of a strange experience. Seeing places where you used to live, seeing places where you'd like to live, all from a bird's-eye view, makes the world seem like a very, very small place.

Going back to the bridge via Google Earth was rather strange in that, when we actually drove over the bridge--right there in Manila--it was so easy to forget, or never realize--that we were driving over an entire community and a family with a name. It was so easy for this unknown, unseen fragment of the one billion to just be completely anonymous.

Now, looking at the same bridge from the anonymity of a computer screen from thousands of miles away simply accentuates that "unseen" quality of this family.

Who would guess that beneath that bridge, on the Bay of Manila, an entire community is struggling to survive?