This January I spent three weeks on the Mexican border working to commit to 16mm film director Erika Cohn's vision of writer Becky Bohanan's "La Guerrera." The story follows a young girl struggling to pursue her passion for soccer in a Mexican town that considers sports a man's place. The search for semi-urban Mexico on a tight budget lead the production to San Ysidro, within half a mile from the border to Tijuana. Originally designed as a Utopian community, San Ysidro's land was initially split among a few owners who were to tailor their holdings to fit the needs of the town's people; our location owner was an inheritor of one such land holding, & provided for all of production's wide variety of needs so that although we had planned to build & shoot interiors closer to Los Angeles we ended up placing all three weeks of photography on location.
As a story about an active young girl fighting her restrictive family & culture, "La Guerrera" demanded a particular attention to camera movement. In discussing with Camera Operator Michael Nie the idea of a dichotomous world developed: as lead Lula (Crystal Guel) was divided emotionally between the excitement of her sport & the restriction of her home life, our camera movement would be so divided, capturing her life outside entirely handheld & her life at home with a locked camera. This separation would be accented by the use of long lenses & a thin shutter on the exteriors against wider shots which would use doorframes & other obstructions to cage the compositions in the interiors. The distinction seemed effective; the change in the tempo of work among the below the line crew also established a different set culture between the exterior & interior work, which helped to frame the different moods for the talent.
The only interior scene photographed handheld was one of the most difficult scenes of the film: when Lula asks the local boy's soccer team for a pair of their new cleats the captain of the team, Andres, (Jovanie Falcon) leads her to a storage container where he rapes her. The scene directly follows a scene of Lula practicing on the field & carries much of the adrenaline & heightened emotion as Lula tests her tenuous trust of Andres, a family friend. The assault happens quickly at the height of her anticipation so the maintenance of camera movement, which is an extension of Lula's emotional state, was critical; foreboding was instead established by a stark change in color & light. The scene was established with only a single bare lightbulb as a source in the scene; gaffer Chris Richmond worked with Key Grip Melissa Fisher to build a soft source into the ceiling above the practical & a second source to boost levels in a deep pocket of the storage space. Eyelights seemed to find their way into the scene without any extra work, & only a minimum of bouncefill was necessary to gain the deep ratio I was looking for. Chris manned a set of dimmers outside the container, & through the take I signaled cues via radio to match the switching on & off of the practical.
A couple unconventional tricks made their way into this scene: first, a short stretch of darkness between the closing of the door & the switching on of the practical allowed 1st Assistant Camera Katy Echols to pull the 85 filter & keep correct color for both the sunlight & tungsten light. Next, on our master shot Chris Richmond suggested an expressionist trick to draw attention & quietly alarm the audience: as Lula is lead from the deeper pocket in the container back toward the practical where she will be thrown against the wall by Andres, Chris brought down the booster light in the back pocket to complete darkness. The effect is indiscernible without prior notification, but manipulates a sense of fear which compliments the scene nicely.
After a one-light scan at Matchframe, the project is now in the hands of editor Brock Carter; I'm eagerly anticipating the picture lock & a chance to see the footage through color correction.1:1.85Arriflex Super 16mm SRII Plus from Ultravision & Arriflex Super 16mm SRIIZeiss Super Speed PrimesPhotographed on Kodak Vision2 7217, Vision2 7218, Vision3 7219Rentals from Ultravision Inc., Otto Nemenz International, Mole Richardson, Wooden Nickel LightingDir Erika CohnCam Op Michael Nie1st AC Katy EcholsGaffer Christopher RichmondKey Grip Melissa FisherProduction Designer Rhiannon GutierrezMakeup Artist Jenny Hou
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