I have an intern, which is new and exciting. She's into the editing aspect of film and has been reviewing the footage I have already shot with an eye to how to cut together a thrilling trailer. She's smart and has a good eye. And she didn't bat an eyelash when I told her that we were going to cut a trailer now with the footage that I have so far and some footage of Nevada that hasn't been shot yet. And she has actual credentials in filmmaking. She graduated from Yale with a degree in film.

Other than that, a pretty uneventful week -- a little fundraising, which has been going pretty well, a little institutional capacity building and some planning for my trip back North to film the Nevada State Mining Championships.

Rather than bore you some more, I'm going to post a few pics.


The answer to the obvious question you are about to ask about the first picture is in the little blue bottle. CEIBO alchohol. The drink of choice for cooperativistas at carnaval... or any other time for that matter.

This is what Carnaval is basically about to me. The little bit of a rainbow over the rough edges of a hard life.


Lode Star Gold. Of course in Bolivia, this truck would be valued because it could get you home rather than because it's an antique. Doesn't have anything to do with the documentary, but it's a beautiful truck.

The Most Boring Post Ever

This post will be boring. This is the other half of filmmaking, and its much less appealing than crawling around on my hands and knees in the mud, in a dark, uncomfortable crack in the rock, a mile underground. But its as important as getting the footage.

This week, I started fundraising.

I hate asking my friends and family for money, but the film won't go forward if I don't. It's ugly. It's dirty. It's uncomfortable. But until I win the lottery, there's no way to make the film without it.

I need to go to Nevada to film the Nevada State Mining Championships over Memorial Day weekend. And I need to go back to Yerrington to film another interview with Hugh. These two shoots are key to the film, and the last two ingredients that I need in order to cut together a promotional trailer to bring to Foundations and other large-scale funders.

This is all going to cost a little less than $3,000. Which is about $3,200 more than I have right now.

So I sent a handful of emails out, and I will continue sending them out handful by handful. If you haven't had a note on the subject yet, don't worry. You will. Or you can head me off at the pass by sending a check to Wicked Delicate Films, at:

65 Old Harbor Street,
South Boston, MA 02127

Just make sure you put a note on it that it is for A Miner's Luck, and it will probably be a good idea to send me a note so that I can expect it. Those of you who would benefit from a tax deduction on donations, let me know that also. I can make arrangements for this donation to be made through a tax exempt fiscal sponsor.

And thanks to Ella, who was the first person to donate, in spite of the fact that I told her med students are exempt. She promised me a check for $25, and, maybe more important, wrote me some encourging words.

Another Trip to Siglo XX / Llallagua

Just spent another week in Siglo XX / Llallagua. In spite of everything going wrong while I was trying to leave -- I had lent my lights to a cameraman with a drinking problem -- this was a really productive trip. We got some very good footage of the working conditions of the cooperative miners. I think the folks I know in Nevada will be surprised to see men working in conditions more primative than what is celebrated at events like the mining championships.

We followed a miner named Jorge through a days work, from his house in the weak light of the early morning, in a trufi (a land rover packed with miners, and four hanging off the back), "picchando" coca and talking politics with his workmates, and working the vein with a hammer and steel bit. I think the footage we got will get the sense of how primitive, brutal and difficult this work really is.

Actually, the vein we filmed isn't the vein that Jorge normally works, but for the sake of safety and in order to have enough room to work and film at the same time, he volunteered to work on a smaller vein nearby. Even so, he said he got four or five pounds of tin, which is worth ten to twelve dollars once he has it ground and concentrated. Not a lot of money.

This is the footage I need to have in order show it next to the footage of the Nevada State Mining Championships, in the end of May. Now all I have to do is raise three thousand dollars by the end of May to be able to go film that.