Complete with a military marching band, folk dancers in costumes, and indigenous people from far away villages, the event seem to be off to a spectacular start.  As we waited for our star runner to arrive (Gato had to take a bus from work almost an hour away) I shot as much footage as I could to capture the excitement of the event.

Because of my official looking camera, I was pushed by a hoard of people to follow the press and then follow the man everyone was so excited to see and shake hands with.  I was only a few feet away capturing intimate images of this important politician listening to and then praying with a local priest.

Not long after being shuffled out of the building, Gato arrives.  Yay!  The president will get to meet this heroic runner, see him run on his prosthetic running blade, and then he’ll know first hand just how great and wonderful the work at the Prosthetics for Life Clinic is doing for it’s people and for Ecuador.  The excitement for all of us was overwhelming.

We find our contacts with the clinic, and then try to figure out our strategy and how exactly is the president going to watch Gato run on his prosthetic running blade.  Will he come outside amoungst the crowd of people and watch as Gato runs down the narrow driveway?  Is there a place inside the hospital where Gato can just run in a circle?  Or will we actually have to go to another location altogether where there might even be a race track?

Within 10 minutes, Bob, the prosthesist for the clinic, approaches us with our update.  The first thing out of his mouth in spanish is, “mala información”, which means, “bad information”.  Non of us were quite sure about what he was referring to, but his expression and then sudden laughter said it all.

It appeared, that the president, the man we had been admiring and following and then filming for the last half hour, was in fact, not the president, but in fact the head of social security here in Ecuador and was sent in place of the president.

I guess I should have looked at a photo.

To contribute to our project and help us and others out, please go to

http://www.indiegogo.com/Prosthetics-For-Life-Documentary

Thank you again to those who have given support. We could not have done what we’ve done so far without it.

Carrera para Protesis para la Vida

We are now very excited to announce that on March 3rd 2012, The Prosthetics For Life Foundation will be holding the first Ecuadorian 5k run featuring 2 Ecuadorian amputee runners using for the very first time, high tech running blades provided by Freedom Innovations.

I’ve seen these prothetics in action and it’s nothing short of amazing. The technology of carbon fiber running blades with the shear determination of these amputees, is moving and inspiring.

I was asked to produce two short TV commercials for the race – a 30 second spot and a 60 second spot. Both will be aired on national television throughout Ecuador and Columbia. See the 30 second ad here:

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

The runner featured in the ad is “Gato”, a woodworker amputee who lost his leg below the knee in a motorcycle accident. We understand that it wasn’t the accident that took his leg, but in fact the wait in the ambulance going to the hospital. There was a protest in which all the roads were blocked and closed for over 12 hours. This wait is what caused him to lose his leg.

Gato has been training and working hard at running with his new blade and told me he’s actually been wearing it at work because it makes him feel like he’s flying.

Stay tuned for more info on the race and the documentary.

__________________________________________________________________________________

Jaime Byrd is an award winning director, DP, and editor for Blind Lyle Films.  She studied Fine Arts and Music at California State University of Los Angeles. She is now producing a documentary in Ecuador for the Prosthetics For Life Foundation.

She has produced, directed, and/or edited multiple shorts, a TV pilot, several award winning commercials, an award winning web series, multiple documentaries, a cooking show, and music videos.

She helped produce the TV pilot show “Talker” (featuring Jay Thomas, Tim Matheson, and Sharon Lawrence), which won best actor, best director, and best comedy at the 2011 International TV awards in Los Angeles.

On our first real day off, we were invited by our friends Gato and Paul for a tour of the small town called Pimampiro and the surrounding country side, which is about an hour drive away from Ibarra.

Our tour started with us first driving for hours on a narrow mountainside in the country where one of our drivers, Gato, an amputee runner, drove over boulders, mud, and rocks clinging to the very edge of a huge mountain with drops 100′s of feet down into a raging river.  Amazing and beautiful, but also a bit unnerving.  One of the really amazing things is seeing Gato drive a stick shift with complete ease over these mountains with a prosthetic.

Our other driver, Paul, is a New Yorker who now spends most of his time here working at and running a foundation that helps with organic farming and gifted school children in Pimampiro.

 Gato wanted to show us his family farm which was tucked deeply into the mountain side filled with rich green pastures and views of the entire valley and mountain range.  His family no longer lives there, but now a small caretaker family occupies and works the land as farmers.

Our group that grew to 11, stopped and ate a lovely picnic on a mountain side of fresh cucumber, tomato, and red onion salad, toasted corn, queso fresco, avocados, fresh rolls, and juice.  We then toured more of the country side while getting a thrill of the crazy roads and precarious passes.  I decided with a couple of others in our car that perhaps a seatbelt is not the best thing to use in this situation in case you need to jump out and bale before the truck goes tumbling over the cliff. Fortunately we never had to consider this option.

Later we went to another family home, this time an abandoned home since our friend Patricia still has too many memories of when her parents were alive and living there to ever live there herself again.  The property was filled with avocado, peach, and tomato trees.  Tree tomatoes are a very interesting fruit from this area.  Bitter and not very tasty, it grows everywhere and it’s said that with a lot a sugar, it makes good juice.  We haven’t figured that one out yet.

We ended the day with a dinner at a restaurant where we sat outside in a garden filled with fruit ready to eat right off the branches.  We had an amazing salad of greens, cucumbers, tomatoes, avocados, carrots, and broccoli and then a wonderful vegetable pizza.  Our first pizza here and it wasn’t too bad.  We were also served beautiful juice of strawberry and lime complete with fresh strawberries and mint flouting in each clear glass pitcher. The perfect end to a long, but fun day off.

Only 15 more days to make a pledge to contribute to our Prosthetics for Life documentary helping the clinic in Ibarra, Ecuador.  Please spread the word!

http://www.indiegogo.com/Prosthetics-For-Life-Documentary

http://igg.me/p/53421?a=2410

______________________________________________________________________________

Jaime Byrd is an award winning director, DP, and editor for Blind Lyle Films.  She studied Fine Arts and Music at California State University of Los Angeles. She is now producing a documentary in Ecuador for the Prosthetics For Life Foundation.

She has produced, directed, and/or edited multiple shorts, a TV pilot, several award winning commercials, an award winning web series, multiple documentaries, a cooking show, and music videos.

She helped produce the TV pilot show “Talker” (featuring Jay Thomas, Tim Matheson, and Sharon Lawrence), which won best actor, best director, and best comedy at the 2011 International TV awards in Los Angeles.

We were literally thrown right into the fire as soon as we got here and it’s been non stop ever since.

Our flight and travels were pretty easy and uneventful for the most part. Lost only one bag out of 15 checked bags, and it was a bag filled with over $7,000.00 worth of prosthetics. And more if you include the 2 electronic computerized legs that are worth about $15K each. Fortunately, the bag was traced, found, and arrived at the clinic 4 days after we did.

Our new home for the next 2 months is perched high above the city with an amazing 120 degree view of Ibarra and the mountain side. It’s a bit of a walk down into town, but it’s a great way to make sure we’re working off all the great food we’re eating.

We were introduced to the clinic the second day here and have had our lives changed from that moment on. We starting shooting footage right away and each day there has been more and more to cover.

A couple of days ago, a bus of children needing prosthetics or braces arrived from an area at least a 10 hour drive away. There were 15 patents who needed to be evaluated, and casted for either braces or prosthetic limbs.  One 4 year old boy, Maykel, is a 4 limb genetic amputee who was the life of the day for everyone. His mobility was like any other 4 year old and his attitude was that of someone I could only wish to acquire for myself some day. Maykel was an inspiration for us all. He reminded me that life really is wonderful and should be cherished. You just need to slow down, smile, and enjoy every moment.

After putting my camera away after lunch, I was thrown into assisting patients and quickly learned how to pronounce unusual names and to prepare plaster casts.

We have limited internet, but we can get and send basic emails without too much trouble so far. Photos and videos may be another issue all together. As soon as I can, I plan on going to an internet cafe to try uploading more fun visuals.

_____________________________________________________________________________________

Jaime Byrd is an award winning director, DP, and editor for Blind Lyle Films.  She studied Fine Arts and Music at California State University of Los Angeles. She is now producing a documentary in Ecuador for the Prosthetics For Life Foundation.

She has produced, directed, and/or edited multiple shorts, a TV pilot, several award winning commercials, an award winning web series, multiple documentaries, a cooking show, and music videos.

She helped produce the TV pilot show “Talker” (featuring Jay Thomas, Tim Matheson, and Sharon Lawrence), which won best actor, best director, and best comedy at the 2011 International TV awards in Los Angeles.

Thanks again for all the support and love.

We had some last minute issues with receiving defective video equipment, where we had to return the item yesterday and then wait to receive the next day shipping only a couple of hours before we had to leave the house.  Just a little bit of stress. = )

Then Adam spent 4 hours draining lines in the dishwasher, refrigerator, and plumbing, removing facets, vacuuming water from toilets, adding anti freeze, etc.  In other words – winterizing the house.  It takes a lot longer then I remember it, but it’s secure even if all power fails with freezing weather.

Overall, it’s been a bit of a challenge getting out in time, but we did it.  Now, our great friend, Mark, is picking us up and taking us to our next drop off point; one of our traveling companions, Rainer’s house.  From there, we will all be driving to the airport early Saturday morning flying to Quito.  Wish us luck!

I’ve posted a second 7 minute video below describing Ecuador.  Beautiful!

Happy Happy New Year to everyone and we’ll see you in Ecuador!!!

Love,

Jaime (and Adam)

We have 35 days left before our fundraising on Indiegogo ends. We still have a long way to go to reach our goal, nonetheless, we are working hard every day on spreading the word because we really want this project realized.

News of the Prosthetics For Life clinic and it’s amazing contributions to this community in Ibarra, Ecuador, have gotten us even more excited to take part and help out with this cause.

In Three Days:
We are now part of a crew of 7 people flying to Ecuador this Saturday morning on New Years Eve.

Along with Bob and Kit Frank, the founders of the clinic, we’ll also be traveling with John Swart, our companion we traveled to Mexico with last year. John’s been around the world a few times and he really knows how to throw down an amazing vegan meal. We will also be joined by Rainer Doost, another videographer and photographer friend of ours, and Meredith Rolley, a friend of John’s also from the Asheville area.

Each one of us is checking in 2 bags, each weighing as close to the 50 pound limit as we can get, filled with prosthetic legs, arms, feet, socks, joints, and all kinds of miscellaneous parts. That’s nearly 700 pounds of donated prosthetics!

OUR VIDEO UPDATE ” The Perfect Travel Shoe”
Adam shares his love for his perfect travel shoe. Another great tip for those traveling for long periods and don’t want to carry multiple pairs of shoes.

We look forward to more updates and keeping you posted on our future events!
Thank you again for your support!

http://www.indiegogo.com/Prosthetics-For-Life-Documentary?c=activity

To contribute and receive perks, go to http://igg.me/p/53421?a=2410

_____________________________________________________________________________________

Jaime Byrd is an award winning director, DP, and editor for Blind Lyle Films.  She studied Fine Arts and Music at California State University of Los Angeles.

She has produced, directed, and/or edited multiple shorts, a TV pilot, several award winning commercials, an award winning web series, multiple documentaries, a cooking show, and music videos.

She helped produce the TV pilot show “Talker” (featuring Jay Thomas, Tim Matheson, and Sharon Lawrence), which won best actor, best director, and best comedy at the 2011 International TV awards in Los Angeles.

Follow us and our video posts as we embark on our adventures to Ecuador to make a documentary film for the “Prosthetics For Life Foundation”.
Help us make this film a possibility.

Thanks for all your support!

My new Cinebag CB-25B Revolution Backpack arrived and it appears to be everything I needed and wanted.

My intention for the next several years, is to produce more movies out of the USA and do a lot more international travel, which includes my recent documentary shoot that is taking me to Ecuador for 2 months.

I have, for the last 4 years, regularly traveled to Mexico with all my gear, but I was in my car and had no real concern of how to get everything into one bag and fly on an airplane.  Things have changed and I’m glad that they have.  I’m ready to fly again.

This idea of “living on location” seems easy enough, but figuring out how to carry all your camera gear in one bag can be daunting.  Of course, I’m certainly not the first to do this, so I took a lot of advise from others before me who figured out some of the growing pains for me along this quest.

The CB-25B is a big bag.  But that’s what I need at this point in time.

I am carrying a Panasonic HVX200 and therefore need a lot more room then someone with a DSLR and a couple of lenses.  I’ve been able to pack the following in this bag and could easily fit a lot more if I wanted to carry so much weight.

Panasonic HVX200
4 Batteries
3 P2 cards
Battery charger
headphones
Double shoe mount
Sennheiser 416
10′ mic cables
Sennheiser wireless system
Tram lav mic in case
15″ Macbook Pro (it will hold a 17″ laptop)
4 each 1.5 TB small seagate hard drives
Cables and power cord for hard drives
Small tripod attached to the outside

There is still plenty of room for other things, including 2 LED lights with batteries and chargers that I plan to add, along with personal things.  I think I could even get my Merlin Steadicam in there if I wanted to along with a Zoom recorder, and a short slider.  It also has a waist belt which is a big plus for such a big bag and an improvement from my Kata bag – which I was in love with for my smaller camera set up.

The bag is made of a waterproof material, but also has a built-in rain cover – this made me happy.  I’ve found myself in the middle of downpours before and keeping everything dry can be very stressful.  It also comes with several padded panels for any kind of customized interior space.  This means, I can also use it as a DSLR bag along with 5 or 6 lenses when I need to in the future.

CineBags recently introduced a smaller version backpack, the CB-23 DSLR/ HD Backpack, which holds cameras, accessories, and laptops up to 15″.  This may be another great alternative to the larger CB25 bag.

If you’re interested in following our trip or  want to help contribute to our project, see our IndieGoGo page for video updates.
http://www.indiegogo.com/Prosthetics-For-Life-Documentary

_____________________________________________________________________________________

Jaime Byrd is an award winning director, DP, and editor for Blind Lyle Films.  She studied Fine Arts and Music at California State University of Los Angeles.

She has produced, directed, and/or edited multiple shorts, a TV pilot, several award winning commercials, an award winning web series, multiple documentaries, a cooking show, and music videos.

She helped produce the TV pilot show “Talker” (featuring Jay Thomas, Tim Matheson, and Sharon Lawrence), which won best actor, best director, and best comedy at the 2011 International TV awards in Los Angeles.

We will be producing a film for Prosthetics for Life in order to further help their clinic become more sustainable.

You can help us and learn more about this exciting project through our Indie Go Go campaign and by contributing to help us make this film and make a difference in many peoples’ lives.