After spending a week getting to know my way around Bogotá and meeting the two theatre groups my documentary focuses on, I finally started filming last night.

I met Rosario and Rubén Dario around 5 p.m. near my hostel. We got into the back of a van and climbed up the mountain to Barrio Girardot. That is where La Casa Cultural Leonardo Gómez, Luz de Luna’s headquarters, is located. The cultural centre is named after Leonardo Gómez, a young local artist and activist who disappeared due to the armed conflict a couple of years ago. For Luz de Luna’s members, naming a building after Leonardo was a way to make sure he wouldn’t be forgotten.

Upon our arrival and while sipping the mandatory ”tinto” (coffee), I grabbed some landscape images of the city at dusk. I can’t wait to see the footage on an actual HD screen…

I then interview Rubén Dario Herrera, one of Luz de Luna’s co-founders. The cultural centre is lit by only a few old overhead fluorescent lights. Also, as I am travelling alone and had a limit on the number of bags I could check-in for my flight, I did not bring studio lights with me. I therefore had to work with the ambient light and a small battery-powered LED camera light, and set the gain to 12dB.

Despite a manual white balance and the additional light source, the overall interview looks ”putrid” and grainy. I will see what can be done in post-production (I generally prefer to get it right when I’m filming than relying on post-prod, but sometimes, that’s all there is to do…) As Rubén Dario is a really important character for my piece, I think I will do a second interview with him in more favourable conditions.

Here is a still of the interview:

Before leaving, I got the opportunity to observe the group rehearse and gartered some footage of them in action.

Our next meeting is Friday evening for an event further up the mountain.