Ninja vs Penguin

Penguin May 30th, 2010

Pray for:
- Shooting a quick and dirty documentary about Filamujuani
- Looking for a small group

What happened:
- met Ken at Adam’s Arcade
- went to Nairobi Chapel for church
- went shopping with Eva. she bought a new wallet, talked down from 950 to 500. bought a scarf, talked down from 250 to 200. bought a pair of boots, talked down from 2500 to 1200.
- went to Steve’s thanksgiving. his daughter, Siva had been sick. her intestines and tubes hadn’t fully developed, so she couldn’t pee or poop. now, she’s ok, and it was a thanksgiving for her. i took pictures for Ken.
- went to Prestige to meet with Gwatila and Ken to talk about Zuki
- dinner: beef briani
- went home

In this review: Normalcy, Seeing, Missing

Normalcy
==
As I settle into my second week in Nairobi, I settle into a sense of normalcy. I wake up, go to work, have lunch, and then go home, waiting for the cycle to repeat. It definitely helped that I started right away.

Normalcy and rythm is actually a very good thing. It sounds dull, and in some ways it is. Thus, my decision to stop blogging daily updates. Though I’m still blogging daily thus far.

What makes it a good thing is it allows you to plan the future. It allows you to make decisions about what’s to come. Decisions about your life.

I’m starting to get familiar with the lay of the land. Prestige, Adam’s, Junction, Nairobi Chapel, all along the same road.

Seeing
==
After Gwatila’s shoot, we sat around and got to the topic of the power of seeing.

Often times, we take for granted what we have seen, experienced, and learned and how that changes not only our perspective, but also our ability to project and envision.

Sometimes, people need to be shown exactly what’s going on for them to understand. That is the power of video. It enables people to see things that they wouldn’t necessarily be able to see.

So, this week, we’re going to shoot a quick and dirty documentary about Filamujuani and what’s going on here and the change that it is bringing to Kibera. We’re hoping that it’ll be shot and edited over the next 2 weeks.

Missing
==
Being here for 2 weeks, the thing I’ve missed most is the people that I left in the states. Family, friends, people I care about and care about me. The physical and temporal difference has really started getting to me.

I knew that I was going to miss people, but I didn’t realize I would miss them this much and so quickly.

It’s been nice receiving emails, even if they’re breif. It’s also been nice being able to text M, even if they’re within very narrow windows of her being awake. It’s an 11 hour time difference between the two of us.

• Kenya: Day 12 (0)
• Kenya: Day 9 (0)
• Kenya: Day 8 (1)
• Kenya: Day 7 (0)
• Kenya: Day 6 – Week 1 in review (1)

Tags: Kenya 2010, Missions, Trips, Zuki

• Missions
• Comments

Penguin May 27th, 2010

Pray for:
- a vision that transforms the community
- wisdom of how to implement that vision

What happened:
- went to prestige. did my devos. waited for ken, who didn’t show up.
- met with Gwatila to talk about Zuki. plotted out episodes 3-4 and started talking about ep 1.
- went to Kibra Academy, taught pre-production: location lists, character lists, stripboards, prop lists, storyboarding, and shot lists. tom also came out and did an exercise with the kids, had 2 actors try to both get what they want
- Tom dropped me off at Adam’s Arcade, walked home w/ my headlamp lighting the way
- had first power outage

Today, Tom came out to class. Most of it was pretty uneventful, but as we approached the end, it was time to say goodbye. Tom is moving to Rwanda after spending a year in Kenya. He’s spent quite some time with the kids, teaching and helping them work on Zuki.

Zuki started out as a soap opera written, shot, acted, and produced by the kids. The goal was to produce this and sell it to local TV stations as a way to bring money into the community. But as the project went along, many of those goals got put on the back burner.

One of the problems, was that the kids aren’t very experienced with writing or production. In fact, they don’t have any experience. As much as we like to believe in gold coming out of the most unlikely places, the reality is that screenwriting, video production, and video editing are difficult. Each one is a craft that needs to be refined in its own right through failure, trial and error, and critical feedback from peers and audiences.

In the mean time, writing duties for Zuki have been mostly taken over by Gwatila and Ken.

Another problem is the lack of resources.

A few months ago, a small group of women pooled their resources and bought the school 8 laptops. Then, one day, they were stolen. This is Kibera. It’s still a slum with all the things that come with slums: theft, murder, rape… lawlessness.

So what to do?

My recommendation to Ken was to set up a production company. He could start with 2 or 3 laptops, a consumer HD camera, and some Flip HD cameras. The Flips would be used for training and even shooting some low level programming. The consumer camera could be rented out so that they can shoot weddings, documentaries, or whatever other projects. The laptops could be taken in to Kibera as lesson platforms, but more often then not, it would stay at the office for work.

What this does, is it sets up a goal for the students. After they finish school, they have a place where they can actually envision themselves working. Even if they don’t work at the production company, they can rent gear or time on the laptops to produce material and bring money into the community.

So, what then of Zuki? Our goal this summer is to write, shoot, and finish the first 42 minute episode and use it as a platform to sell the rest of the 4 part mini-series, potentially leading to a full 13 episode TV series.

I still need to have conversations about SlumTV.

• Kenya: Day 15 – Week 2 in review (1)
• Kenya: Day 9 (0)
• Kenya: Day 8 (1)
• Kenya: Day 7 (0)
• Kenya: Day 6 – Week 1 in review (1)

Tags: Kenya 2010, Missions, Trips, Zuki

• Missions
• Comments