Have you ever wondered why there are no movies about land surveying?
Think about it, we are constantly in the field, sometimes in unexplored areas, by definition we are the first ones in preparing the ground for everyone else, once the map of the area is ready.
We are constantly encountering dangers related to the places we work, be the jungle, the highway or the overpass.
When I saw the Indiana Jones' movies I could not imagine a more boring profession than archeology. These guys spend their lives on their bellies scrubbing bones and using tiny brushes on dirt. Then came Spielberg and created Indiana Jones and Voila! Archeology is sexy and fun.
Well I'm embarked in a crusade to make land surveying popular and fun for the larger audiences unaware of our profession.
I just published a book about my adventures in the gold and diamonds' open pit mines deep in the Amazon jungle in the early 80s. About 200 miles south of Angel Falls in Venezuela. My assistants were all from the Yanomami tribe (see photo) and saved my life in more than one occasion, but once I returned the favor.
The title of the book is Red Diamonds, Grey Gold and is available in Amazon.com
I will begin working on the screenplay soon and my crusade will head West for Hollywood.
I hope you support the cause!!!
Thoughts
Nice Juan... i'm gonna pick up your book as well. I bet Justin would let you sell it straight through the site here too!
Impressive list of movies, but I guess the difference between showing a character with a transit in a fleeting scene or an entire movie about the tries and tribulations of a real surveyor is a huge difference.
In my book you will find the real dilemma of a young surveyor in the middle of a lawless land and between two owners and the land they both "claimed" had potentially millions of US$ in gold and diamonds.
I can safely say that no one prepared me for that level of contention. I'm just glad I survived; not all of us did....
Wow... great to know.. i'll pick up your book
Movies With or About Land Surveyors
George Lutz in Amityville Horror
Harrison Ford in Raiders of the Lost Ark
Brad Pitt in Seven Years in Tibet
Ralph Fiennes in The English Patient
Nigel Stock in The Great Escape
Charles Bronson in Death Wish
Hugh Grant in The Englishman who Went up a Hill but Came Down a Mountain
Val Kilmer in The Ghost in the Darkness
John Wayne in the Fighting Kentuckian
Close Encounters of the Third Kind
Naomi Nishida in My Secret Place
Robert Young in Western Union
Charlton Heston in the Ten Commandments
Wyatt Earp with Dennis Quad and Kevin Costner
The Color Purple with Danny Glover and Whoopi Goldberg
Patrick Bergin in Map of the Human Heart
Far and Away with Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
Oscar and Lucinda with Cate Blanchett and Ralph Fiennes
Cary Grant in The Howards of Virginia
Ever see The Surveyors (1972)