Location: Distrito Federal, Mexico & Tegucigalpa, Honduras

And now [cue drum roll]

The leads of Sin Nombre…

Paulina Gaitan (16) & Edgar Flores (18)

I feel like a truck's been lifted off my shoulders now that that's done.

One of the things I stressed most about this film was the cast. We have some 80 speaking roles of people hailing from all regions of Mexico and Central America. But more important than anything, the leads, the damned leads.

For the last 4 weeks I've been sweatin it — watching the clock tick closer to 0 hour (down to 22 days). And now it's suddenly done, I can finally focus on other things, like how to actually shoot the film, here to shoot it and making tattoo guns. Yes, I made a tattoo gun yesterday — it's a great stress reliever, end result feels like a less intensive form of yoga, letting my mind focus on something small and intricate for a few hours really was like a vacation from the stress of the film prep.

I will place instructions:

Combine the following ingredients in a sauce pan:

CD player servo

Shirt button

Toothbrush

2 AA Batteries

Bic Pen

Guitar String

Lots of Electric tape

Add water

Et voilá! I tattoo for free. Email for schedule.

Funny how it all goes down, this casting thing. One thing I firmly believe is that casting makes the film (that can be said for many steps of the film process so I'll probably say that about something else at some point, but for now, believe me, casting makes or breaks). The actors are the fabric of your film, they are the colors you paint with and I want them to be dope.

So I hunted up and down central and north America for a Honduran Sayra and a Mexican Willy, almost one year of casting, at least 500 girls out of Honduras for Sayra and countless numbers here in Mexico for Willy… and for all that, I now have a Mexican Sayra and a Honduran Willy. And they are going to be dope. It's just funny how that ended up happening. You go looking for something and you find exactly what you need where you weren't looking. I will apply this strategy to all things in life now.

As for realism, although I did not succeed in finding Sayra in Honduras, I found an awesome Honduran girl named Erika Mendoza (16) to be a part of the film. She was in the runnings for the role, but ultimately I gave it to an actress who was the part. Erika however got a consolation prize, she will be flying up from Honduras to play the role of Sayra's friend and then take over as the defacto Honduran dialogue coach. Neither Erika nor Edgar have ever left Honduras before, nor have either of them been on an airplane. That will be an interesting flight.

It all came down to 4 final girls about a week and a medium sized aneurysm ago — when if we were going to go with a Honduran girl, passports and visa's would need to be drawn up immediately in order to get them to Mexico in time for the shoot.

Now, me, Mr. Decisive here, couldn't pick who was right based on the 3 inch compressed Quicktime files I had for review. My previous trips to Honduras were inconclusive, I had two other options, both amazing actresses, one from Chile and one from Mexico but I really wanted a Honduran for the role. So, 10 hours later, Amy and I were on an unplanned flight to Honduras — once again looking for our Sayra. This in the midst of our compressed pre-production schedule already stacked with special effects, safety, train, train safety, production design, production design safety, costume design, extras casting, locations, location safety, cinematography, and safe cinematography meetings.

Results, a damned difficult 4 day casting sessions all with real potential for a Sayra, but ultimately, a huge risk to put on a completely unexperienced actress. Each girl had something amazing to offer, but each offer was one piece of a more complex "whole" that I needed for the Sayra character. Paulina, however lacking in the authenticity of a Honduran Sayra, had all the other components, the naïveté, stubborness, innocence, sadness, and acting experience. It was a damned damned difficult choice and I'm sure I lost brain cells over it. But when I reasoned to myself that we are just making a movie, not saving the world, I swiped those brain cells back.

Regarding this 16 year old Erika. First of all, she's a smart and witty girl with natural talent as an actress. I knew she had to be part of this film from the moment I met her. Problem, she's only 16 and can't technically leave the country with out her parents.

So, up to date, one of the most bizarre and odd pleasures in this film adventure took place. I got to watch my producer, Amy Kaufman, sit down in Erika's cyan-lit dining room and in a calm, matter of fact Spanish, ask Erika's mother for her daughter.

Now you could imagine, the mother didn't go for it at first, I mean, how often would you let a room full of foreign strangers barge into your home, ask you to send your 16 year old daughter alone to a foreign country with promise of work and be all cool with it? Sounds like something out of an Amnesty International human rights report. But Amy somehow convinced her. Perhaps aided by Erika, who, stood behind all of us with her eyes fixed like lasers on her mother (unflinching for the 20 minute negotiation) as her mother weighed the facts.

Her father admitted he did what ever his wife told him, so it came down to the jefa. In the end, she's coming to Mexico and now Amy has a new flat mate and we have our Honduran girl to represent properly.

Amy, middle right, making an offer you can't refuse.

So here we are now, 22 days away from a shooting, 80% casted, 70% location scouted, and shot listing for hours and hours. Rehearsels and Edgar's arrival on Monday. Scouts in Veracruz and more testing of film stocks, blood, sweat, sun burns, chapped lips, tattoos, and colors, lots of colors. I can see the swell coming.

Update: Besides the Mexican consulate in Honduras doing all that they could to make Erika's visa problematic (and ultimately delaying her arrival by a month so that she missed her part in the film, Edgar got to Mexico with out a hitch… except for walking out of the airport in Mexico City, past the man holding a sign with his name on it and into a taxi that took him to a seedy motel near the airport and charged him $150. We eventually found him, shaken but not stirred.

Welcome to the big city, Edgar.

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This blog began as an experiment on Facebook in early September 2007, as I was heading into the production of my first feature film, Sin Nombre. It's sporadic, un-thematic, and quickly written, but then again, I was in the middle of making a movie so prose wasn't a priority If anything, it's a good place to procrastinate. I hope you enjoy it...

Right, subject says it all. This is my attempt to be disciplined about describing the process of making a feature, mostly to myself so I understand what it is I'm supposed to be doing down here. So, expect the next blog six months from now.

No drama so far, we're pretty much crewed up, just looking for an editor, and possibly a costume designer (if the one that we originally wanted feels like taking a vacation with her boyfriend) and basically our entire cast. We finally have our money and are going on a scout in Veracruz the rest of the week. Then Friday I'm flying to post-hurricane Honduras, via Costa Rica-Guatemala-El Salvador, to continue my Central American casting.

Meanwhile, I'm staying at a hotel called La Casona until I find an apartment in Coyoacan. It's an old, Spanish-style villa in La Condesa that looks at least 150 years old, so, naturally, it's got some history. I'd stayed here before (in July while making painful but necessary cuts to my script — as in going from 115 pages to 97) and enjoyed the privacy of the place. Up until then, I'd been crashing at friends' apartments and had gotten used to sleeping crookedly on couches. La Casona meant a real bed, a desk and a lot of privacy to do the literary chopping. Now, several weeks later, I'm back again, only this time I've had a much less private experience.

Being a Spanish-style building, the hallway wraps around the building with the center opening into a restaurant/terrace. The rooms are built off the hallway, with respective interior and exterior rooms either facing street or restaurant. I happen to be staying in a first-floor room, on the exterior of the building. On my first night, just before turning my lights out, I had the distinct feeling that there was something odd about the room, but I was tired from the flight and didn't think more of it, quickly falling asleep. Around 3:00 AM, I awoke to what sounded like an old record player, like a hissing, scratching, popping sound of a Victrola — and then as I became more aware, I distinguished the screeching howls of a baby. There was no doubt, it was clearly screaming in my room, but somehow, the sound came as if it were a recording on the Victrola rather than a baby laying next to me. Before I could even get up to check where the sound was coming from the hair rose on the back of my neck and an ice cold streak of fear running down my back. I just knew it — I was in the presence of a ghost. My heart began pumping adrenaline to every point in my body and I literally froze.

Now, this is not my first experience with the paranormal. I've had ghost vibes before, although I've never technically seen one. The last time was also in Mexico about a year before, while staying in Guadalajara in another old Spanish-style home. There, a ghost held me down in bed my first night in the guest bedroom. I told the owners, who didn't believe me, but their cousin told me a man hung himself from the tree in the backyard several decades before. In Spanish they say, "Se me subio el muerto," when you awake to such terror and are unable to move, either due to the power of the spirit — or as skeptics say, due to the fact that you are actually sleeping and having a nightmare and therefore are not in full control of your motor skills. I can't prove it, but I'm pretty damned sure what I experienced in Guadalajara and what I was now experiencing in La Casona is real.

Back to the event, where I realized the popping, scratching, hissing noise was not a Victrola, but a fire, and was sure that if I were to turn over I'd probably see the blackened corpse of a baby or worse, the baby and the burnt mother standing over me. Now as I stated before, I've never technically seen a ghost, but if I were to choose my preferred ghost image, it wouldn't include burnt corpses. So, in order to save this visual experience for later I decided it was wise not to look. Instead I blocked the sound (and mental image) as best as I could and attempted to fall asleep again. Believe me, this takes a while when you think you're being watched by a burnt corpse.

Two mornings later, I was having breakfast in the restaurant, which sits in what would have been the terrace of the old house. Sipping my tea, I flagged down one of the hotel concierges and asked him about ghosts in the hotel. He smiled and laughed at my question, then told me that there were none. Funny, I said, because last night, I think I experienced one. He humored me and asked what happened and I told him how I had this strange feeling, and not wanting to sound like a lunatic, described it as "some story with a baby."

Ahhh, he replied, "The screaming baby? Yeah, well actually the entire first floor is haunted, and sometimes a woman appears in the restaurant at night." He spun around and disappeared before I could ask him more.

Right, well, I'm changing rooms tonight. Needless to say, I slept last night with all the lights on and my iTunes blasting. I did pretty much the same in Guadalajara... the only solution I know to handle poltergeists. More to come later... maybe.

Update, September 6, 2007: Ghost story mildly substantiated. I just spoke with one of the owners of the hotel. Apparently about 50 years ago, the building was abandoned and inhabited by transients. A fire took place on the first floor and a family, including a three-year-old boy, perished. Until now though, he cannot remember a guest complaining about the cries of a baby, but other strange things have occurred, including lights going on and off and stereos playing on their own. No visions of charred babies... yet.

Update, September 14, 2007: FYI, for all others experiencing a poltergeist at home or on the road my friend Naje reports that good porn played on loop "usually helps keep ghosts away."

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