After 27 hours, 160 gallons of fuel, eight pounds of fast food, and a jumbo bucket of David’s sunflower seeds, Eric Machiela got the Gorilla van to the Tex/Mex border …

– and met up with Mexican superstar Joel Vallie who guided him over the Rio Grande. We drove a nice three + hours through the mountains, across untouched terrain, on down to Saltillo, Coahuila. (Click below for the lowest quality video of all time.)

Drive to Saltillo — In Video Form!

Why embark on such an adventure? Well, for the next 6 weeks, Gorilla — in partnership with Joel Vallie … and basically the whole town of Saltillo — is going to be heading up perhaps the most all intensive film production that we have ever undertaken. We love the work that we’ve been blessed with over the past few years (and we will continue to partner with clients in our life long goal of world domination), but as filmmakers, we’ve always wanted to produce and be a part of feature films, that is, long-form narrative storytelling.

As life goes, a few years back, we met a missionary/speaker/drug rehab leader/filmmaker, Joel Vallie, living in Mexico who had already directed a feature film, Corazon de Campeon. It was (how to be nice here…?) a quality effort but was limited by low production value in what it could do. In where it could go. Joel told Gorilla about another script he was developing and we jumped at the chance to partner with him, to make this film come alive.

Eric Machiela is first to arrive, laying the tracks for the other guys when they arrive. The other guys being Eric Johnson, Chad Terpstra, Derek Street, Gabe Berghuis, Ben Chamberlain, and Michael Amman. Everyone who is a part of this production is giving so much time and effort, working for tacos, and sacrificing a lot so let’s give them a digital round of applause!

More photos and info will be showing up here on this blog as the production goes along. And just cause she’s adorable, a picture of our makeup lady:

Amongst the cold, wintery weather that Grand Rapids is best known for, Gorilla Pictures continues its run at world domination. West Michigan film production tends to slow down in these blustery, frost bitten months but our company of fellows is staying busy. Eric Johnson has (finally) begun post-production on “All We Have”, a music video we shot back in the early days of September. (Remember the fall? We had sun then!) The musician is Erin Austin and we produced a video for her great, upcoming album OK Sweetheart. NOTE TO READER: The video on the website is not Gorilla’s work – but you can audibly sample her delightful tones, digest them, and find nourishment. We will be posting our music video to the Gorilla website in the upcoming weeks!

In other news, Eric Machiela continues to learn about the wonder of story and strives for his 10,000 hours (thank you, Malcolm Gladwell) of writing and reading, whilst listening – and then tearing up – to Bruce Springsteen sing about “all things America”. Aaron Smith toils away his hours by getting Gorilla ready for this year’s ADDY Awards, taking place in Grand Rapids. Our production company won a handful of ADDY awards last year (which we’ve neatly framed, I might point out) and our hope is to walk away with two handfuls of awards this year. We need them; our walls are bare. And finally, Scott Brookens creativity has begun spinning around a new, exciting concept, which all of Gorilla will be developing this spring. More on that in the upcoming months.

Also, I want to mention “The Lost & Found Shop”, an upcoming short film written and to be directed by Caleb Alexander Slain. (Three names always does sound more professional, doesn’t it?) Gorilla is serving as the production company and will be facilitating with RED Cameras, ARRI Master Primes, and our understanding of production know-how. We will be filming in and around Grand Rapids, Michigan starting mid-January. It needs to be done by February 1 for entry into the Doorpost Film Festival so post-production will be done in tasteful haste. I believe the West Michigan film community — nay, the world’s film community is in for a treat.

And lastly, we hope you’re getting out to the theater and checking out some films this Holiday Season. We recommend “The Twilight Saga: New Moon.” It will affirm your belief in cinema. (Just in case you can’t sense the sarcasm, I’ll let you know that was a joke. The movie is horrible and deserves to be banned from any country not run by a dictator. Sorry, Zimbabwe.)