First day of filming, from 8 in the morning to 5 in the evening, most of the time standing up or walking briskly, in a knee-length black leather coat, in the sun. I think I got mildly dehydrated at one point, I was nauseous and dizzy until someone got me some water.

On the bright side: We looked badass. Also, I got to walk into a guy at full clip and knock him down.

Later, we did a scene walking along a crowded street. Since we’re bad guys, we were supposed to knock a couple of people over, so one guy and one girl from the crew were strategically placed, and the camera was in a location where it was not too obvious. The takes looked great, but people’s reactions were pretty impressive. When I hit the girl with my shoulder at good speed, spinning her around and making her fall over, people rushed in to help her, and apparently one guy wanted to run after me and beat me up. Ah, realism.

Call at 7 AM tomorrow, we’re doing interiors, which should be quite a bit more relaxed. Also, I have a sex scene, which is described in the script as “fucking like animals”. I’ve never actually done a sex scene before, so that should be interesting. As George C. Scott reputedly said to his co-star before doing one: “I apologize if I get an erection, and I apologize if I don’t”.

I just finished the character studies and story outline for my mexploitation script. I needed fewer characters than I thought to make it all fit together, and pretty much everything fell into place. I even got the required comic relief in there (although it’s only in a subplot, it should be good enough). I’ll need to reread and polish tomorrow, then I’m going to do a 10-minute pitch to Øyvind and a couple of other people, to see how it’s received.

Looks like we’re not going to be filming tomorrow, at least I assume now, since noone’s told us anything yet. I read the final version of the script, and it’s not changed much. Much to my chagrin, the face-farting scene has not been changed, although there’s a chance it might be changed during filming, given that bits of the script have things like “dialogue here, it’s about: “. I admire Alex’ balls (Chinese or otherwise) for starting filming with this.

We got the final version of the script, finally. I haven’t gotten around to reading it yet, though, and I probably should try to do that this weekend.

In case I haven’t mentioned it, the movie’s called Bolas Chinas, and is about two criminals who are obsessed with “balls”, both of the sex toy variety, and the ones you twirl around in your hand that make a bell sound. One is a pimp, the other is a rapist, and when a naive young boy starts stealing the balls from the pimp and selling them to the rapist, without knowing who they are, he unwittingly starts a gang war. Øyvind and I play the pimp’s bodyguards/thugs.

Did I mention we have superpowers? This is going to be great, I promise.

I apparently own the term “mexploitation” on Google. The only other contender is a porn movie of the same name – “They did it all for the American cream!” – and some talk about a book called Mexploitation Cinema: A Critical History Of Mexican Vampire, Wrestler, Ape-man And Similar Films, 1957-1977, which actually looks pretty interesting, so I’ve added it to my list of books to get the next time I order.

The definition of mexploitation, of course, is exploitation cinema from Mexico (as opposed to many other -sploitation cinema genres, where the prefix names that which is exploited). So we’re talking Mexican B-movies here. The all-time king of the genre is of course El Santo, the silver-masked Mexican wrestler who became the star first of comic books, then of a long series of movies. Sometimes alone, sometimes teamed up with other wrestlers like Blue Demon, he generally fought monsters and evil masterminds. Even though he died in 1984, he’s still a folk hero in Mexico, and his son now wrestles under the Santo name (he was known as Son of Santo for a long time before that, a name that in itself is very B-movie like).

An interesting thing to note here is that the Santo movies, (and other Mexican monster movies, like The Robot versus the Aztec Mummy) are the only real examples of horror in Mexican cinema. Santo versus the Vampire Women, in particular, is an honest attempt at gothic horror, at least in parts. Disregarding the fact that the horror of the antagonists is somewhat diminished by it being possible to defeat them by body-slamming, it’s obvious that the intent of especially the opening sequence in the crypt was to horrify. But apart from these movies, and especially after them, there have been very few attempts at working within the horror genre in Mexican cinema. The only exception I can think of off the top of my head is the work of Guillermo Del Toro, but only Cronos is really a Mexican movie (and a quite good one, definitely worth watching). His other work has been in American or Spanish productions.

That’s curious to me, since Spain has produced a fair amount of horror movies, especially lately, by Guillermo Del Toro (The Devil’s Backbone), Jaume Balagueró (Darkness), Alejandro Amenábar (Tesis, The Others), Álex de la Iglesia (The Day of the Beast), etc., and it would seem that Mexico has the same potential, if not more, for telling good horror stories. In fact, with the exception of The Devil’s Backbone, not many of the Spanish horror movies are typically Spanish. Mexico, on the other hand, has a rich mythology and a grim history, which should be perfect as a foundation for horror stories. Mexico even has La Llorona, a folk tale that has elements that seem straight out of J-horror (the ghost of a woman who killer her children, dressed all in white, walking around weeping, those who see her are marked for death, her eyes are empty sockets). It’s a waste that noone’s done anything good with that story. I actually sketched out a simple story outline around it about a year ago; if there’s no good Llorona horror movie by the time I finish up other projects, I might well try to write it.

Of course, Mexico also has the Day of the Dead (not the movie), a whole holiday dedicated to dead people. That in turn has its roots in prehispanic festivals celebrating the dead. Of course, the history of the conquistadors, the war of independence, the revolution, and the more-or-less dictatorship of the 20th century is also steeped in blood. This whole country is flush with the macabre. But yet, not a single serious or semi-serious filmmaker has seen fit to make a horror movie in Mexico in the last 10-15 years.

I don’t know why that’s so, but if I get my way, I’m going to try to change it.

I was woken up by a call this morning, from a production person, who told me we had a call tomorrow at 19:30 for a sequence in a nightclub. I confirmed and went back to sleep. Later, I was woken again by a call telling me that the sequence was cancelled, and that it might not be filmed until mid-December. An email even later told me that she’d be in touch to keep me updated on call times for next week.

I was supposed to get the finished script on Monday, and I haven’t seen it yet. I’m worried about that, since I need time to mentally prepare, find my character’s center and motivation, and so on. They should be happy I’m not a method actor, or I’d have to spend two months like some idiot thug on the streets of Mexico City to “get into character”.

Writing’s going well, character studies are done, and I’m pretty happy with them, treatment is about 50% done, with all turning points and climax nailed down, mostly a matter of filling in the blanks, setting up a couple of auxiliary characters, etc. It should be done this week. My girlfriend’s going away for a few days on Friday morning, that should give me the time to finish up the treatment.

We got mail yesterday from the art/costume department (department, in this case, is one guy). There was a need for measurements, and so, Øyvind and I messed around for a while measuring our manly physiques. I think they’re probably going to have some difficulties in finding black suit jackets in our sizes here, but that’s not really our problem.

Actually, the sort of dressy, all-black look they want for us would make us look cool, if it wasn’t for the fact that our characters are bumbling fools who can’t tell the difference between a mannequin and a guy with a fake mustache and a wig. But, we have superpowers, at least. Øyvind can smell where someone is in all of Mexico City, and I, well, I’m very strong or something. And our eyes glow in the dark!

Well, the reading went well. We went to Alex’ house, and he cooked us lunch. We did a quick read-through of all our scenes, and made comments. It turns I wasn’t the only one who found the farting scene disgusting, so Alex might change it. He seemed to like it a lot himself, but, hey, kill your darlings.

We also watched location and casting footage, which was quite fun. The junkyard that’s going to be the setting for the climax looks suitably grim. In the casting footage, we were surprised to see Zamia, an old friend of ours, dancing sexily for the camera. After that, there was a girl who danced and was not afraid to take her clothes off, which was probably the reason why Alex had filmed her stripping not once, but twice. There must have been 20 minutes of footage just of her there.

In general, the casting looks good. Tomás, who played the bad guy in Comando Zorras, and is an experienced actor, both from telenovelas (Mexican soap operas) and direct to video productions, is playing the Mexican bad guy. I’m very happy about that, since he looks pretty evil, and loves to ham it up. His bad guys are always very entertaining to watch. Also, he’s a great guy to work with.

We’re supposed to get the call schedule and the shooting script on Monday. I think I need to go to the gym this coming week, so I’m not totally flabby and out of shape for this thing. It calls for a fair bit of physical action.

I’m up late, or early, perhaps, reading the script. I have a reading tomorrow afternoon at 2, and Alex wanted “feedback and ideas”, especially from me. It’s two thirty in the morning, I’m tired, I feel uninspired, and I have fuck all in the way of ideas and feedback, except for “your dialogue should be less expository”, and “maybe I could do something else instead of farting this guy in the face”. For some reason, I don’t think that’s what he’s looking for. I’ll have to reread this fucking thing one more time and try to pick out a few things that I want to suggest changes to, and ignore the rest, I think, it’s the only way I’m going to have something useful.

On a more positive note, yesterday night I wrote seven pages of notes/treatment for my other horror idea. It’s becoming quite substantial, and I feel like I’m starting to know the characters and the setting well. I also have the beginnings of a treatment, at least in terms of inciting incident, major turning points, etc. The ending is what’s most open at the moment, and I expect I’ll have to rework a lot of other stuff after the ending falls into place. But all in all, it’s looking good, I think.

Today in the afternoon I wrote three pages of notes and character study for my mexploitation screenplay. It feels good to get going with it again, and it feels like it’s going to work, too. In general, actually doing several pages of writing per day makes me feel immensely good. After weeks of thinking/procrastination, things are starting to flow.

Now, for another rereading.

I just got a mail that we’re apparently doing a reading of the script at Alex’ house on Saturday. This should be interesting, it’s also the opportunity to present comments and suggestions for the script. I should re-read it and take notes, I suppose.

I got mail yesterday that the dates for shooting have been set. We start on November 21st, and wrap on December 4th. That’s 14 days of shooting, which is insane. I’m doubtful we’ll make it, but we’ll see. I’ll work 4 of those 14 days, it seems. This slight delay means I might have a chance to go to the gym for a week or two before we start too. I could use that.

Also, I sent off my contact lens specifications to the producer. I get a fondue fork stuck in my eye late in the second act, and I’ll need an effect lens for the rest of my scenes. Presumably one of those white ones that made Tor Johnson near blind and walking into walls in Plan 9 From Outer Space.