El Dragón Production and Behind the Scenes

As we continue to learn about production, one of the things that has stuck out to me the most is the process of how they shoot scenes. Specifically, it takes a village (not literally) to make these scenes work, and they aren't always in order. One of the things that is unique about El Dragón is that it was filmed in four different countries: Mexico City, Madrid, Miami, and Japan. Wikipedia says that up to three film units were used simultaneously. That is a lot of people! But, that would make sense if you are covering that much ground. This also must require good communication between that many people. 

We discussed in class how the telenovela is not necessarily always filmed in order, but often adjusted to fit the ease of transporting the actors and actresses. One of my main questions about El Dragón was, "How did they manage this with four different countries?" Did they film all of Miguel's scenes in Mexico City within a few months and then fly to Japan and do his scenes there?" I would assume so, but how would this work with the other actors?

Another observation that I had is that it must take extreme talent to be able to get in and out of character that quickly. Looking at the duration of the telenovela, the characters develop tremendously over the course of the season. They go through emotional distress, heartbreak, and overall character development. The ability to recognize this as an actor or actress, get into character for a scene that happens at the end of episode 38, and then emotionally readjust for a scene that happens at the beginning of episode 2 is fascinating to me. Some of these scenes require raw emotions. For instance, I assume that Sebastián Rulli (Miguel) filmed the scene of Asya's death before a lot of other scenes that he and Zuleyka Rivera filmed together. The consistency that these actors and actresses bring to the table really showcases their talent. I really underestimated it.

Learning about the different roles in production was particularly fascinating to me. One thing that stuck out to me most was the fact that the head writer writes an episode a day. Think about how many episodes consist within a Telenovela. They already consist of many more episodes than the average American television show. 

Lastly, I was interested in the behind the scenes of El Dragón, and I found this video! It showcases a few of the lead actors along with the head writer discussing their thoughts on the show. More importantly, it shows video footage of the production crew in the midst of filming. What I found interesting to watch was the way members of the production crew were interacting and instructing Sebastián with how to go about certain scenes. They critic him down to his hand movements. I would never have thought that an actors hand movements would make or break a scene!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=knsQ2dSC9dQ 

This is extra, but I found an interesting video showing the behind the scenes of a scene that is filmed in one take, but tries to appear as if it is several scenes over the course of a few hours!  I thought that it was so interesting and great to see this perspective. 

https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMeDN3FqY/