Cathy Healy

Cathy Healy works with K-12 classrooms worldwide as they make a difference in the world.

Cathy Healy

Advocate for K-12 Global Collaborations

Five Hot Tips for Shooting Buenos Aires

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When you travel independently, you need to have a quest. So I decided to take on video during my visit to Buenos Aires.

“You must record this again,” Alex insisted. “You sound like a documentary.” I tried again, and again. I tried to pretend that I had a National Public Radio voice–knowledgeable but not a droning teacher, light but not too ‘lite,’ full of feeling but not overwrought. Creating videos is complicated work, but it’s great fun.

One of the best travel quests I’ve ever dreamed up was hiring a recent Argentine film school graduate to tutor me. Off and on for ten days, Alex Mazar Barnett and I created a video showing how to shoot his hometown, Buenos Aires, using Traveler’s March 2010 feature on Buenos Aires as our guide.

We started by drafting a script because as Alex insisted: “Always know what you’re looking for before you go out to shoot.” We ended online, editing and shipping drafts from Buenos Aires to D.C., where I live.

A quest is essential when you travel, especially if you journey alone. Quests give you a reason to talk to people and once you start talking with people, they introduce you to friends…and sometimes, you end up with lifelong friends.

Alex’s father is one. He was the best friend of the first Argentine I had a conversation with, and 30 years ago, he advised me on where to go when I dared myself to ski every area in the Andes. This time Alex coached me on how to handle my new camera and how to edit like a pro.

We panned, zoomed, and pan-zoomed on raindrops. We knelt down to record tango feet and got very, very close-in to shoot the jazz saxophonist’s fingers at El Ateneo bookstore. We dashed from my favorite steakhouse downtown to the very private yacht club at the port to the tree-lined, cobblestone streets of “my neighborhood,” Palermo Hollywood.

Alex and I laughed a lot and learned even more. The wrap-up of our video ended with the kind of emotional release that I had craved when I flew south for a vacation. After ten days looking carefully, lingering and learning, I returned home relaxed, exhilarated, and content.

I decided I’m going to try a video tutoring project again, in another place, with a local film student. To find a tutor,  I’ll start with the national cinematographer guild and/or with the national tourism board. Video has become a universal language, even on cell phones. Someone, wherever I’ll go, will know enough video to teach me how to see their world.

Plan to Cross the Andes

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LAN still isn’t flying to Santiago, but there are plenty of buses, I’m assured here in Mendoza. It’s a seven hour trip – one hour of which is spent at the border. I may go over a day early. I may not.

I’m in BA — Missed the Quake in Chile

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 I am in Buenos Aires right now, so I missed the earthquake in Chile. I know what the rest of the world knows about the quake — which is to say was almost nothing in the beginning and more as the days go along. I had a “we’re ok” email from my friends who live in a skyscraper in Santiago.  I still can’t reach them by phone.

This morning I had an email from the iEARN coordinator for Chile saying that he and his family are okay. They live in Temuco, in the south, somewhat near Concepción, which was near the epicenter.

I am assuming that my presentations will go on as scheduled, at least in Arica and Antofogasta, which are in the north and away from the destruction. They are scheduled for March 8-11. My final lecture will be in Santiago on March 15. By then, I assume electricity and transportation will be somewhat working again.

 But of course, I’m just guessing,  The answer about whether or not the presentations will continue is probably still up in the air. (Pun) Today is the first day since the quake that is a workday.  I read the airport has a lot of damage to the terminal. I don’t know when flights will begin to land there. My assumption is that flights will resume quickly because the Chileans are very efficient.

In the meantime, I leave this morning for Mendoza, Argentina, which is directly over the Andes from Santiago, and has been destroyed five times by quakes (mostly recently 1862.) Yesterday the BA Herald said that hotels in Mendoza evacuated during the strong tremors. I have a tour into the Andes scheduled. I wonder if that will be cancelled. Aftershocks in Santiago were near 7 on Saturday. That’s very strong.