About Production

Our experience

• This project was promoted with the collaboration of several people, administrations, and audiovisual production ministries: El Asno Parlante, the Baja California Association, the Northeast Association, and the Monterrey Association.

• After the delay in the premiere of Los Jornaleros, we felt it was essential to release a new project for the summer. The timing was perfect to begin planning, and with filming expected for June, we began preparing the next story, which will take us to Monterrey, summer, and a youth-oriented theme: soccer.

• We brainstormed several ideas, and in the end, we concluded that we were interested in talking about arrogance or self-centeredness, which is a palpable problem among today's youth. We wanted to show that despite having all the talent in the world, you will always need God. And that's how we came up with an idea that seemed interesting to us.

• At first, the story would be about a boy who receives the opportunity to apply for a scholarship that could change his future, but we believed a sports aspect might be more appealing to the audience.

• The team consisted of just three people: a director/producer, a director/director of photography, and an art director. Between the three of us, we managed to mobilize the entire foundation for the feature film, and eventually, a part-time producer joined us.

• The project idea was presented in March, and we began full development in early April. Filming began at the end of May and wrapped two weeks later. Post-production began in mid-June.

• The Talking Donkey had the opportunity to appear at a communications program event at Montemorelos University to talk about filmmaking in the Adventist Church. Taking advantage of this platform, students were invited to participate in supporting roles in the production of Tardes de Fútbol. Thanks to this presentation, many were encouraged, and a production team of approximately 18 people was formed.

• One challenge we had to overcome regarding casting was that the actors were excellent at portraying their characters, but they weren't very good soccer players, so we had to rely heavily on photography and angles to help them look like good players.

• We wanted to request some public fields from the municipality to film on, but due to the recent response from the managers, we had to look for new fields that didn't look as good as we had hoped. In the end, we were able to accommodate and get a good view of the provided space.

• During the filming days, we were able to recruit more people who contributed to the project, all of them voluntarily (see the Crew segment). This was a group of young people willing to provide their support in any way they could. They were all young, no one over 26 years old.

• Provision was made for students from Montemorelos to stay in the homes of the four permanent crew members.

• During filming, a new challenge arose. Several members of the crew began to fall ill, including our lead actor, so we were forced to cancel a few days of filming. This not only reflected a delay in the filming schedule, but also in the logistics of the volunteers, as they would only be present for a specific time. In addition, food, transportation, and housing were budgeted for the scheduled dates, and missing these days forced us to incur greater expenses to retain the volunteers or to film the remaining scenes among the four base crew members we had been there from the beginning. Our budget wasn't very large, so we had to opt for the latter.

• As the days went by, and the actors and crew members improved, we were able to work according to the established schedule and even pushed to get more than what was scheduled to be able to move forward.

• On Sunday, when the match scenes were being filmed, we faced another challenge. We had to divide the crew into two parts: one to film the on-field portion and the other to film the extras who came as spectators. Here we learned that action scenes must be choreographed in advance and in conjunction with audio and cameras so everyone is on the same page. That, in addition to learning how to coordinate so many people on set. There were approximately 30 actors, plus 18 crew members involved.

• At the end of the second week of filming, the production team finished their commitment and returned home, leaving only the four core members to finish filming the remaining scenes. We were to film in a park, the Nuevo Repueblo church, the soccer fields, and some scenes with the parents.

• After finishing editing the project, the directors, dissatisfied with their introduction, decided to create a new beginning, which required hiring new actors for those scenes.

• The editing took a month and a half, with the directors themselves putting together the entire project, taking breaks in between.