Community documentary making.

After a pretty much sleepless 24 hours travelling (with an 8 hour stop-over in Dubai) we finally arrived in Nairobi at about 9pm on Sunday evening (local time). Just in time to get to Upper Hill Campsite,,,,,drop of our bags and grab a beer and a bite to eat during the European Championships final, after which everyone was ready.

Everyone slept really well, despite the barking of the security dogs. Next morning we were up at 6.00 and headed of to the FOCUS Youth Initiative in Ruiru. Traffic was heavy for part of the way but we arrived hungry (missed breakfast) at what we thought was their offices only to find they’d moved a mile or so down the road. We eventually found the new offices and introduced/reacquainted ourselves with a round the table ice breaker and a expectations based brain storming session.

This resulted in a number of possible documentary subjects, which were whittled down to a final 3 –  gender-based-violence; heroes of cultural diversity & inter-tribal cohesion; and HIV awareness raising, Participants got into their groups and spent an hour or so  discussing their visions and planning the processes  for the forth-coming shoot.

This was not as easy as it sounds…..not only because we were all very tired but also because we were encouraging the participants to be pro-active in driving the planning stages whilst teaching them new skills and trying to capture the process for our own research processes. These afternoon sessions became very interactive as our partners gained in confidence, found their voices and started to have fun. We’ll post video clips as and when we can but this might have to wait until we return due to connectivity issues. The students are being stars and have jumped straight in and are engaging extremely well. I think they’re having fun also.

At the moment they’re story-boarding and learning the mechanics of the tripods and cameras. One group has left to start shooting and putting what they’ve learned about interview techniques; the rule of threes and shot types into practice. Tomorrow we’ll continue the shoot in the morning. Focus on editing in the afternoon and show the finished community documentaries the following morning, where we celebrate what they’ve produced. A  few weeks afterwards the group will reconvene and analyse the technical aspects of their videos whilst reflecting on what they’ve learned and how they can use this knowledge effectively. They have agreed to recorded this and send us the video of this reflective session.