Msanii - Screening

What: Msanii - Screening
When: 12.30pm, Wednesday, 19th November (this Wednesday)
Where: Erskine College, 31 Avon St, Island Bay, Wellington
Who: Students, tutors, friends, family, sponsors, anyone.
How much: Free to all.

Please come along if you're interested in art, volunteering, Africa or just interested in a great story.

Branch Out Media Website Up

I have recently been putting together a website for my company Branch Out Media Limited, it is coming together slowly but is now a working site. If anyone has any CSS or HTML tips for me (after they look at my hideous code) please feel free to share. It's growing all the time, and will be get more interactive as I learn more about web design. Feel free to check it out.

Kudra

Kudra, an artist and chicken farmer talks with me about his business plan which involves selling artworks and using the profits to purchase young chickens to then sell in order to maintain a sustainable business

In the video Kudra makes an application for sponsorship to a potential business partner, to aide in building his business, so it can become self-sustainable and reach out to help other artists in the area. Kudra can be contacted at zillyman@yahoo.com or you can organise support through me

First Step

So in a mad rush to make festival deadlines I've completed an offline final cut. Nat and I are frantically working on all the peripheral paraphernalia, press-kit, website, labels, cases, production stills and numerous other unforeseen obstacles, but it's nothing that a few late nights won't solve.

The film is called MSANII: ARTISTS OF BAGAMOYO and has, through the edit, moulded itself into a multi-plot doco following the stories of five different artists amongst other fleeting and interesting characters. Throughout the edit I have become even more enamored by the people and impressed by the depths of their stories, their openness and their talent.

Chado (Pangea Day Entry)

Above is a short documentary piece, cut together from the documentary, about Chado, one of my students in Bagamoyo.

Day 97 Kibera

This entry begins a few hours before I leave Tanzania for Kenya with a fellow volunteer Amy, who spent 6 months volunteering in Kibera at the beginning of the year.

Day 95 Christmas Wishes from Kibera

The shift from Bagamoyo, Tanzania to Nairobi, Kenya 5 days ago has been considerable, quite apart from the 18 hour bus ride across the border. Nairobi is a City of extremes, Three out of our last four days have been spent walking into Kibera, the second largest slum in Africa, which holds over a million people.


This is the view from the School of Hope: an NGO School 25 minutes walk into Kibera. The teacher at the school, Gabby, is responsible for teaching over 88 students, and providing them with one meal every day, and even though we are visiting well into the “holiday” season, Gabby is still looking after close to 40 students. I am interviewing him this week in order to make a promotional video for the school to gain much needed financial support for this literally life saving project.

On the other side of the coin I also had my first real Matatu ride the other night. Now in theory a Matatu in Kenya is the same as a Dala Dala in Tanzania, a broken down minivan that holds up to about 30 people. But oh no, this Matatu was red and black with underlighting, mags, a spoiler, red interior lights and a black light that made my white shirt glow, not to mention two flat screen TVs playing music videos in synch with pumping hip hop through a pair of 8 inch subs - all for the grand fee of 25ksh or 50c (NZD) Weaving through scattered and disorganised cars into the city centre in the middle of the night was one of the highlights of my trip so far, my naki roots involuntarily showing through here.

As for departing Tanzania, I felt it was a good time to leave, with the year drawing to a close it felt like a natural break. And it was nice to think that some of the students will go on to become teachers in the new year. We spent the last week or so working on a large painting project together which reflected the perogative of the studio, about the plight of street children and practice of child labour, and the importance of education in breaking the cycle. We worked through every stage beginning with drawing the setting out at one of the villages markets called Magu Meni, which caught the interest of many of the children there, and was something I wished we had done from the start. We went right through to enlarging and finishing.


All the students got involved, and I felt it was a good end to the year and could potentially make for a good end to the documentary aswell. You can see the painting in progress in the previous vlog.

So Merry Christmas and I hope you are all well, I am looking forward to seeing you all again soon, only one week to go now.

Day 89 Final Project

Above is a timelapse of a collaborative project with the students at AMAP. The painting is 11x3 feet and will be used to promote the school and bid for sponsorship at the student's exhibition early next year.

Day 82 Serious Manizzle

So I've managed to complete the music video with a few days to go until I leave for Kenya. If you are interested in contacting the band you can visit the studio's website at www.baobabstudio.net



They are planning to release an album in the new year and I will be continuing to work with them to help get their music for sale over the net, if you're interested purchasing the album I'll continue to post details about the progress made and how you can get a copy.

Day 72 Iringa

Travelling to Iringa to visit an arts program for people with diabilities called "Neema Crafts"

Day 65 Kondoa

Day 50

The Serious Manizzle pulled together a blinding performance for the shoot the weekend before last when we shot their first music video. Unfortunately, lacking the ability to be in two places at once, I was unable to shoot both the video and the “making of” the video which could have been quite a fun doco in itself. Though with some quick “to camera” sections, some outtakes and a sneak peak at the edit in progress you might get an idea of what it was like to shoot a music video in Africa. With no occupational safety and health authority to speak of, the serious men performed from a converted motorbike taxi for about 4 hours, don’t ask me how they managed to stay on… oh wait…

I'll be sure to post the completed video when it is finished, and hopefully try to get it screened in New Zealand!