Finishing the revisions-"Lalo Izquierdo's doc"

I have pretty much finished revising the documentary "A Zest for Life:  Afro-Peruvian Rhythms, a Source of Latin Jazz."

Here are two versions of the first 39 seconds.  The first version is what I did today.  The second version is from last week.

In addition, I've made a number of other changes, including some inspired by very recent feedback from friends/family who agreed to watch the first 7 1/2 minutes and give me some comments.  Thanks to these friends (in alphabetical order):  Lucy Armentrout, Rossana Craig, Ross Franseen, Lisa Greenstein, Janet Jacobson, and Hershell West.  Thanks also to Vince Townsend who, along with Hershell, watched the whole thing right before I left town.

In the meantime, what have been the changes?  Well, I've added tiny glimpses of things shot on my Peru trip last December, including the various people who provided me with some fascinating information (especially but not exclusively Lalo Izquierdo), brief shots of some great percussionists performing, short clips of kids learning Afro-Peruvian rhythms and dances, and a very brief shot from a rehearsal of the "hatajos de negritos" in el Carmen.

rough draft of the new DVD cover

Changes I made specifically in response to the comments of the people listed above are 1) the opening 39 sec., 2) a new photo added plus an existing photo modified, c) a small modification to the titling, and d) a new order for the sequence where I tell who I met in Peru.  I'm including the first 7 1/2 minutes here, so you can see:

The rest of the documentary contains a little more of the material we shot in Peru this past December, but I'm reserving most of that material for a short I plan to create in the near future about Afro-Peruvian percussionists (specifically, Juan Medrano Cotito, Huevito Lobatón and Lalo Izquierdo) PLUS, if I can get funding, material I'll use in yet another, longer documentary about the evolution of tradition.

The revised "A Zest for Life" will see its world release in a film festival in Cannes, France, in late April.  This isn't THE Cannes film festival, but is still a good festival.  It's called the Festival Internacional du Film Pan-Africain.

BUT we won't release it to the general public until late summer.  This will give NETA (National Educational Television Assn. - which feeds programming to national PBS) time to look it over before the general release.  I also want to send it around to distributors, to see if I can get a good distribution contract.

SO in the meantime, you'll have to be satisfied with whatever I post on YouTube or Vimeo...but summer isn't that far away, so you'll be able to get the documentary pretty soon.

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Eve A. Ma, after passing a month in Peru and then some time with her family in California, is in Spain until the end of April.  Having completed the revised Afro-Peruvian documentary, she is now getting back to work on a documentary about flamenco.  Subscribe HERE to our monthly newsletter to keep up with her work.

My Peru diary - day 15 (all about the BIG SHOOT)

Peru diary (Dec. 19, 2014)

Well, yesterday was the BIG SHOOT, the reason that I scheduled my trip when I did, so that I could get all three great percussionists together:  Lalo Izquierdo, Juan Medrano Cotito, and Huevito Lobatón.

We filmed the conversation part in "my apartment."  l to r:  Cotito, Huevito Lobatón and Lalo Izquierdo.

And they were, well, great!

We started off by filming a conversation between the three of them, in which I presented three topics and asked them simply to talk about them.  The first topic was...how did they learn Afro-Peruvian rhythms.  Of course, I knew they had all learned as kids in their homes, watching parents, family, and friends but I wanted them to talk about this in front of the camera.

They did, indeed, talk.  After an hour on the topic, I had to raise my hand and ask them to stop since I was running out of film.  (I still shoot with videotape, although the other two camera people had video cards.)

Me with Huevito Lobatón.  We filmed the interviews in a park in Barranco (another district of Lima).

What they said as they talked was really fun and interesting.  I'm sure you'll enjoy it.

Because of the time factor, we had to skip topic two, and I had them move briefly through topic three (what they think is the future of Afro-Peruvian music, rhythms and dance).

Next, we filmed short interviews in which I asked each of them separately a very few questions.

Lalo Izquierdo and Juan Medrano Cotito in the park.

Finally, the big thing:  the performance part.  We filmed this in a cultural organization which has a stage and puts on performances.  It's called Casa Shenan.

They did four numbers:  one with just the three of them playing cajón and singing;  one with Lalo Izquierdo and Huevito Lobatón performing zapateo footwork (with a guitar accompanying them) and two with a guitar, a singer, and the three of them playing percussion - cajón and some quijada de burro.

In Casa Shenan, setting up for the performance part.

It was really great.  In fact, I've decided I'll use this material (supplemented by other things I shot in Peru) to make a documentary called Masters of Percussion...because they really are, and all three are fascinating people.

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I am in Peru for reasons related to our documentary, A Zest for Life, and other work about Afro-Peruvians.

(For more photos, go to the Facebook page of Palomino Productions, A Zest for Life Afro-Peruvian, and Eve A. Ma.)