It was going to be a complicated adventure: 36 hours of non-stop, sleepless filming to discover a city through cultural, social, gastronomic, artistic, nature and sporting subjects… This is the premise of The Weekender, a program to be broadcast on the North American network.
The premise is that Americans only have 10 vacation days a year, and that a good part of the population doesn’t even really take advantage of them, being totally absorbed by the workplace. So how do you discover a city and its many facets on the other side of the world in such a short space of time? Thus was born the concept of The Weekender. Dennis Clancey, the presenter behind the show, takes the concept to the extreme, showing that with a little organization, you can do an awful lot in a single weekend.
And that’s where Mediafixer’s hard work begins! 13 subjects to set over 36 hours non-stop! 13 different locations, with 10 characters specializing in a particular field, to help us discover and love their city of Medellín. The filming involved 4 cameras, a drone and a total crew of 9 people.
And while some subjects posed no real problems from the outset, others were a real headache! For example, setting up the exclusive interview with the mayor of Medellín, Federico Gutierez, to tell us about the incredible changes the city has undergone in the last 25 years, was no easy task. This was due to the mayor’s overloaded schedule, with requests from all over the place. But, and this is our great strength at Mediafixer, we always manage to find a solution. In fact, we’d like to take this opportunity to thank all the people who, thanks to their help and personal contacts, enabled us to overcome barriers that sometimes seemed insurmountable.
There were a lot of parameters to worry about when it came to the shoot itself: the constantly threatening rainy weather, road traffic, the availability of certain characters… but in the end, we were pleasantly surprised! There was not the slightest hitch all weekend… the sequences went perfectly together, whereas 24 hours earlier we were still suffering from cancellations.
And so it was that we were able to film the following people for 36 hours, with extremely precise timing, and whom we’d like to thank in particular for their friendly and truly fascinating participation:
– Federico Gutierez, Mayor of Medellin
– Juan Manuel Barrientos, young Colombian culinary prodigy and head of a gastronomic miniempire
– Juancho Valencia, singer-songwriter and producer, winner of a Latin Grammy Award and 6 others for his productions with Merlin Productions. Juancho is the founder of the group Puerto Candelaria.
– Fabian, passionate owner of Finca Leona, which produces Cereza a Envigado coffee.
– Chris, passionate about the national sport Tejo
– Juliana and Santiago from the Habitante 13 association, which helps young people in Comuna 13.
– Angelica, excellent salsa teacher
– Pablo, Medellin’s connoisseur of discovery and history
– Son Havana and Tibiri, 2 of Medellín’s best places for listening to and dancing salsa.
– La Gloria de Gloria for its excellent chicharones.
– The administration of the Péñol rock, who exceptionally opened the doors of the site especially for us at 5am.
We would also like to thank Pablo Maran, Daniel Carvalho and Mickael Hyla for their help on certain subjects.
