Why Mariano Avellaneda Always Triple Checks

Mariano Avellaneda has been working in the film industry for more than 30 years and has teamed up with the most demanding international directors, agencies and clients.

He has travelled and shot on five continents and at locations posing unique challenges. Locations include Latin America, USA, Europe, South Africa, India, the Falkland Islands, and even Antarctica.

His deep knowledge of photography lends a creative eye to the production process while helping producers and directors to find the best result in the most cost-effective way.

Mariano recently sat down with LBB to reflect on spending two months getting an old town ready to host a 100+ crew and seven weeks of filming…

Back then in the early ‘90s, when going to a big theatre with a big screen to watch a movie you could buy the ticket at the box office from a real person and it was the best part of the weekend. I was in the first years of my career, doing a lot of advertising, working nonstop, but it felt like I finally was doing what I loved.

Working my ass off in advertising, led me to have a chance of working in my first feature film in 1997, ‘The Secret of the Andes’, in the location department (tiny one, I was the only one location assistant of the location manager). The main locations were scouted and found before I joined the team. As you can guess, it is no secret that the hero location was in the middle of the Andes, a really tiny, beautiful, quiet town called Molinos, located in Salta Province at the northwest of Argentina, not too far from the Chilean border.

Dirt roads, mud houses, traditional Spanish architecture from the 17th century, it was a very special historic point where a lot of serious things had happened along its history, but nothing like having a film production bugging their ears for six weeks and waking them up at five in the morning at their front door.

The film was an Argentine-American co-production with around 100+ people including tech crew and talent. A mix of international and local cast.

Since I was the only one almost all the time in the field during prep time (I was there two months before shooting started) while the production base was in Buenos Aires (1,500 km away from Molinos) I was dealing with all kinds of things in between three different provinces.

Prepping other locations, handling a lot of different tasks with different priorities and different deadlines, besides helping other departments to find in Molinos and surroundings what they could not find or bring from Buenos Aires, like farm animals, llamas, pigs, old shitty cars, you name it… I was having a lot of stressful fun!

One of my biggest challenges was to set up and prepare a 17th century old town in a studio back lot ready to support 100+ people living and working there for the next seven weeks. There was only one decent hotel in Molinos with just a few rooms and it was also one of the main locations to be shot in the film, so we were basically taking over the entire town for a few months.

We had to rent private houses (with no hot water), local municipal barracks, nuns' quarters at the church, and a local club. Any room with a bed - booked!

We were shooting during the winter in the mountains with dry weather close to the Tropic of Capricorn so it meant hot during the day and cold at night, high thermal amplitude, thank God it does not snow in Molinos!

But we had to heat up all the rooming facilities and add hot water devices, all electric, no alternative energy, no easy access to solar panels back in those days. I had to buy all home supplies to dress all the houses and rooms, to make shanty town housing to look and feel like a decent cozy place to live during the shoot and not encourage the crew to leave before wrapping, running away going back home.

The agreement was to leave everything we bought to the local villagers.

Pumping up the electric devices in a lot of houses and room facilities required us to get a bigger electricity transformer at the local power plant.It was more like a wide concrete column with the transformer on top.

I was in contact with the local mayor and people from the local state government who promised the arrival and installation of a bigger generator prior to all crew arrival, this was taking longer than expected and the local authorities were saying, “yeah, yeah, everything will be fine”.

In the meantime I was rushing and buying a lot of stuff going up and down from Molinos to the capital city of Salta to get ready and set up all the lodging on time before the crew showed up asking me ‘Where do I sleep?’ ‘How can I take a shower?’.

Everything had to be ready and tested prior to their arrival. Days were passing by and the generator was not there and the local mayor was like “yeah, yeah, everything will be fine”.

Well, the local producer arrived just a couple of days before the main crew. He was (still is) one of the top best producers in Argentina with a lot of international production background. I met him before but it was the first time that we were working together in a film production. I was literally installing the last few devices and placing all the heaters and hot water facilities in each home that day finishing at night.

So, one of the first questions he asked me was: ‘Have you checked and tested all electrical devices turned on at the same time in all the houses and rooms?’ And I was like, ‘Well… not ALL TOGETHER at the same time’, so he told me: ‘Let’s think about the moment when all the crew wrapped, finished their shoot day, tired, all they want is to go to their rooms and have a hot shower, heat their rooms, sleep in a warm bed, we almost all wrap at the same time… let’s try all electronic devices turned on at the same time!’

So I ran along the entire town switching all the heaters and showers and lights in all the houses and rooms and suddenly boom! The power generator exploded due to an overload.

80% of Molinos was in total darkness, just a few houses remained with power, the main hotel and production base at the moment. I was shocked, thinking I was going to lose my job at any second. I ran to the production office and I saw the producer laughing and he said: ‘I told you’. He was right…

Instead of firing me, he asked me to join and witness the most iconic phone call I have ever heard, he picked up the phone and called one of the most important government contacts he had in Salta and instead of apologising for leaving the town like a black hole in the Andes, he was claiming for the breach and neglect of the local government and private vendors of non-fulfilment to supply the film production and the town with the new and bigger generator that was promised.

This led to an international bad press issue among the foreign producers and a total embarrassment for our country due to the bureaucracy around sending electrical supplies on time, among other things that I rather prefer not to mention.

The next morning a truck arrived to deliver and install the new generator and power supply, everything was working well. I kept my job and learnt my biggest lesson, always triple check and also push and push to the limit before it is too late.

All the crew arrived later and no one knew what happened and had a hot shower.

His name is Raul Outeda, I respect him and I have learnt a lot from him. He told me once: “A producer is a runner for all departments.”

Film production is full team work, we depend on each other sorting out problems and getting things done in time, but as a producer you must trust and check and follow up on every department anyway, otherwise a little problem may become a huge one.

Always better to triple check and keep things running and flowing smoothly!