short and sweet

Very quick update - since it's been a week.

Last Sunday we went far behind the scenes to meet the families of the three main characters in the film. We met the wife and three adorable kids of Chris, Geofrey's street family of lifelong friends, and Wilson's aging grandmother.

Early this week I digitized all the footage I've shot so far (over 20 hours). Now I have a better idea of the structure of the story I'm hoping to tell and what footage I need in order to complete the film. I've decided to extend my stay so that I can capture the rest of the story.

I must admit that making this film has been much much tougher than I imagined. I'm facing all the usual challenges of making a documentary plus an extremely limited budget and a schedule that I can't define because it is dependent on the feature film. The feature itself has double the normal challenges of an indie film because over half the crew are trainees that have never worked on a film before and they are the first Kenyan crew to shoot on the RED camera. So they've had lots of surprises and troubles with scheduling as well. But somehow both the feature and doc are getting made...and I think both films will be a success.

Finally, I have not mentioned my role as mentor yet and just wanted to say that I've been enjoying working with the feature film's "behind-the-scenes" crew who are three youth from Kibera: Wilfred and Victor on camera and Julius editing.

I promise a longer post soon.