Hetaerae is coming along well. This is the upcoming Jump-Start performance written by Laurie Dietrich, and co-directed by Sandy Dunn and myself. Laurie will star as the narrator. There will be three other women in the cast. Yesterday, we received commitment from our final cast member, one of my favorite people and an amazing performer. Next week Sandy and I will meet with our cast in an informal gathering. Then we all jump into the work of character-building, rehearsals, and whatever else one does when putting on a play. I’m glad I’m surrounded by seasoned professionals.
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I haven’t been biking much lately, so when the temperature got up into the 80s back on Tuesday, I had no excuse. I hoped on my bike and headed south to Mission Espada. The wind was coming in strong from the south, so I had to fight it all the way. At least it meant that the return trip would be fun and fast with a strong tail wind.
The construction on the river redevelopment is still plodding along throughout that section between Military and Mission Espada. Construction crews are completely chewing up the area around Mission San Juan. The old, abandoned bridge over the canal is being dismantled. Sad. I shot a couple of films on it. It was handy because if you set up the shots right, you could give the illusion of shooting on a two-lane blacktop bridge without having to deal with traffic.
On the return trip, I fell afoul to a blustering northern cold front. I hate when the wind changes, creating head winds both coming and going. These were some feisty gusts, and I found myself constantly down-shifting, even on level ground. I noticed a fellow cyclist pull over. I’m not sure if he was exhausted fighting the wind, or just wanted to use his phone to photograph the whitecaps the wind was raising on the river.
I took a break under a pavilion near the Roosevelt Street bridge, to watch the clouds and see if the wind would die down. As I was trying to post this picture to Instagram —
— I got a call from Gustavo. He needed to shoot some more on the Wappo vs. the World film. CineFestival wants their sponsors mentioned in the film. We’d already done a few, but needed to included more. Would I be able to help out Wednesday afternoon. I said sure, hung up, and fought the winds all the way home.
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Wednesday I met up with Gustavo, Jim, Robb, and Yvonne. We headed over to la Casa del Alebrije, at 1601 Guadalupe. It’s an old house on the westside which, in March, will open as a place providing snacks, art shows, backyard performances, and so on. Gustavo put on his mask and, in character of Wappo, did a short commercial for the business which will be placed at the end of one of the Wappo webisodes which will begin to air online next week.
Next, we drove out to Lisa’s Mexican Restaurant, way out on Bandera Road. They treated us very cordially. We shot a Wappo spot for Indo beer in the bar. And then we shifted over to the restaurant side to do the plug for Lisa’s. Finally, we broke for a late lunch.
Not a bad day’s work. I just need to figure out how to get paid for this sort of stuff (with something other than enchilada plates).
Here’s Wappo with some Indio Beer.
And here we have Yvonne Montoya (Program Director at the Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center) and Jim Rodriguez (DP on this project), they’re standing beside the cool metal beaded curtain separating the bar from the restaurant at Lisa’s.
