a congoman in nollywood

picture updates always work too

2006-10-24T12:41:00.000-07:00

beauty and the beast ?

secrets of the trade:

Chinedu Ammah. The 3rd "lead".
rapper, reality tv star and wannabe actor who has an ego problem
but he's in the movie so whatever:

that's how we negotiate fees and stuff:

memories.. (stressful moments, son)

update

2006-10-24T10:02:00.000-07:00

so i dont have any news from my nigerian partners..

i lost my phone and uchenna's number and koko seem to go to sleep too early (or i call him too late). i was waiting for uchenna to send me some stuff in order for us to make important decisions. and i'm waiting waiting waiting..

basically you guys know there are scenes we have never done but not that many (if i'm not mistaken) and then there's the much more sensitive issue of the scenes we have to re-do. for artistical, technical or even story issues..
so like while any producer will totally agree on shooting what hasnt been done because after an uncomplete movie IS NOT A MOVIE, reshoots can be more problematic. they're never totally necessary, never totally useless. so the matter has to be discussed. plus while you don't make money from an unfinished movie, how much money you make from a movie that has flaws ?
well it depends on the flaws i guess..
i mean none of us actually expected to make millions out of this (then again..), but it'd be cool if we made SOME. and our names are on the line anyway..
i mean, this movie will be on our resumes, that's why we made it and if we wish to make more, it better be good enough.

so i'm waiting for him to tell me which scenes he wants to re-do. and then we'll get to arguing. because i know i'll disagree, lol.
i'm a bit cynical and in some instances, it's not that i'd disagree with wanting to reshoot a scene or another. nah. i probably won't be convinced we'll be able to do them right. because the reason why they're not as good as expected are still there..
nepa won't get better, bad actors won't become good, and even our issues arent exactly resolved.
i wish we had done a proper check out before i left. like a day talking about how it went. would have heated but whatever. we did have a few convos and yes we have learned from the experience but i feel like some stuff hasnt been discussed.

so yeah, here we are..
i'm waiting. it's not over (because even if we wanted it to be over, it couldn't be over).

update

2006-10-24T09:56:00.000-07:00

hmmmm

2006-10-24T09:51:00.000-07:00

so i've been torn between a lot of desires.
right now, i'm neither actually producing on the daily and i'm not in Nigeria, so like what's the point of BongoDoesHollywood ?
especially since i'm not as good as telling backstories as Uchenna can be.. for a bunch of reasons.. like the fact that i'm pretty much a "heat of the moment" kind of guy and topics that seemed interesting then are boring now.

so like what to do to keep this alive ?

well.. i could talk about MY life, but that's probably even more boring and i don't like mixing stuff. or post random thoughts on film and stuff..
so i may do that.
here, now

let's talk about african film and the language issue and authenticity in general.

The other day, in a car ride with my mom, someone on RFI was talking about Gabonese Cinema and they said "Movies from Gabon are surprisingly about modern topics".
interesting.
Are they really though ?
I don't know. What i'll say is that they are set in urban settings more often than movies from Burkina and Senegal.. Now how is it surprising ? Gabon the most urban country in Africa, more than 80% of the population lives between Libreville and Port-Gentil and Franceville. Congo-Brazzaville (my country) too is in the same case (there are probably others but they're microcountries like Djibouti or Equatorial Guinea).
So like what is suprising ?
People make movies about their lives and their lives are in the city. And there are a bunch of cities on this continent, son.
And that has been my oldest beef with the Fespaco school of african cinema. That tendency to sell an authenticity that totally ignores the reality of african modernity. And i'm not even talking about a contrived modernity in a "westernized" way. Nah, i'm talking about Kinshasa, which is not Jo'Burg or what Abidjan was 20 years ago. Kinshasa is an african urban monster. Their music is modern, removed from its traditionnal roots and totally modern, post colonial and yet african.
so yeah, that beef made me want to see what they're doing on the other side of the anglo/franco divide and get interested in Nollywood (i'll write about what i really think about Nollywood one day, not because my opinion matters but because Uchenna seems to not understand my beef with THAT industry.). And yes, Nigeria produces movies in urban settings, in rural settings, representing the diversity of african life to an extend.

what does all that have to do with the language issue ?

well, that's another tacky topic.
in which language do we shoot ?

people always talk about how great it is to watch movies in wolof. nice. i don't have anything against wolof. but while people talk about "then every senegalese can get the movie", they're silent about a few other issues.
1. Wolof is spoken and understood by 80% or so of the senegalese. Which language do they shoot in DRC that has 4 main languages and hundreds of others ? In Nigeria that has 3 main languages and even more others ? in Cameroon where the widest spoken one is spoken by less than 20 % or the population ?
2. Film Production is a business, an industry. It has always been, since day one. you need an audience to pay for your tickets to get your money back. so fine, senegalese villagers can watch the movie but had it been in french, urbanites from Mali, Guinea, Congo, Ivory Coast, Burkina, Cameroon could have to.. so like.. is it necessary ?

i don't know. plus it depends on a lot of things.. the setting and all that. In Douala, people will speak french more often than not, in Kinshasa they'll speak Lingala no matter where they're from and in Abidjan nouchi win
and in Nollywood they make movie in precolonial settings (that they ALL call "epics") in english. that's interesting. i mean even if i have a lot of issues with those movies (the recurrent christian undertones, the anachronisms, women wearing tshirt and bras and the absence of tits in general), you get people in calabar watching Ibo stories and Yorubas learning about Oron warriors.. Lingua Franca, son.

now, don't get me wrong. i'm the first one to get pissed at the father of african independances who (except in Tanzania) made the weak choice of the promotion of European languages.. we do have lingua francas and multilinguism all over the continent.
but sometimes you have to be pragmatical..

oh yeah, this rant was kinda related to the movie too..
there has been a lot of debates during the production with actors, partners, people around us about the use of pidgin.
"why this character talks like a white man ?"
well, being the foreigner on the set, the topic was particularly interesting..
because i undertstand SOME pidgin. because it's based on english and not that hard to learn and because i learned some in Cameroon..
but pidgin in Nigeria is a lot deeper than in Cameroon and i could get lost in some convos.
so like sometimes some were like "it'd be more authentic like this" and i responded "and un-understandable to non-nigerians".
we had to find the fine line, because pidgin is cool as hell but we didnt want to have to subtitle the whole thing.

some of it will be subtitled though..

rant over

peace

hmmmm

2006-10-24T09:44:00.000-07:00

and i decided to start blogging again..

2006-09-30T10:00:00.000-07:00

after, the adventure is not over and will not be over until "TOO MUCH BEAUTIFUL WOMAN" gets released (or until we get on another crazy project). so like.. what can i talk about ?

hmm.. let's see.. today the topic will be strictly artistic. well, centred around the artistic part.

i'm not only a trained producer, i'm also a trained director. well i haven't directed anything and didn't even WANT to direct anything since the screening of my film school short movie "explosion" in 2002.. i hated the movie, hated my work and i refused to ever see it again.. actually the 16mm film is with my sister in Paris, that's how much i hate it.
but i'm full of concepts and ideas.. i have my little own prejudices and my ideology.
i guess it can be explained by my influences. i never ever have even had a remote desire to make movies until i went to film school. my thing was Music Video and its bread-earning cousin, Commercials. i have a very unhealthy fascination for the Russian 1920's "Avant-Garde" in general and Sergeï Mikhaïlovich Ensenstein in particular. I watch "Soy Cuba" far too often and think Scorcese is better than Coppola. I like visuals, authors, despise dialogue (and Woody Allen) and traditionnal film-making. Wong-Kar Waï is my idol and i'd sell my soul for an internship at Johnny To's Milky Way Films or to work with Chris Doyla. I admire Gaspard Noe and Godard's early work.

and i was, in Nigeria, where nobody has or even wants to watch a movie that wasn't shot in english.. working with a director who after has been schooled by the american method..
so like we had a bunch of debates.. "Montage" vs "Editing".. and how the two words don't mean the same thing. the real reason why in the USA you make full coverage (i believe it's because it gives more room for the producers to take over the editing..).. radicality and shit.
so yeah, i'm radical. a shot, an angle is a choice. fuck having options. and uchenna is older and more realistic and wiser. that's why he's the director and why i probably will never direct.. after a while, we decided full coverage was a better option.. the movie was changing so fast that being orthodox about it was counter-productive. how can you have a clear and precise idea of how that scene is gonna be shot when you don't even know what the location look like ? huh ? how ?
so even if i have my prejudices i supported uchenna is making those choices..

and basicaly, i've learned A LOT.

like, i remember having a conversation with Koko towards the end where he said something like "MY movie will be shot a lot faster".. i was like "nah.. this thing IS hard" and yeah honestly i'm not looking foward the moment *I* will be the man. nope. or may be i am.
i don't know it's hard to explain.. it gave me the desire to direct one day. but i also have a better idea of the conditions i want to direct in. and honestly it sucks that uchenna and his most personnal project had to be the learning experience for us..
and like, personally i was involved. like i told him, out of the various project we have (yeah, son. we have a bunch of them), TOO MUCH BEAUTIFUL WOMAN, is the one i'm the most emotionnally attached to. yes more than that other one that is based on a idea (and desire) of mine, yeah more than ones i've spent hours discussing with uchenna. this one is the one that made me really want to make movies. this one is the one that made me say "ton pied mon pied" and decide not only i'll make movies but i'll make movies with HIM. an artistic crush, basically (*no homo*).

so i feel blessed.. i'm proud i worked with these guys. i'm proud i learned this much. i can't wait to use what i learned and i can't wait for you people to see what we've done. this thing is my baby too. after all, i cain't forget that during my "strike" (after the incident with the assholish actor i refused to go on set until he was done)), uchenna and koko were every morning telling me "are you coming today ? WE NEED YOU !" i couldn't because seeing that sucker fuck up something i cared so much about was driving me crazy but i was moved. i mean.. it's OUR movie. it's OUR dream. i will forever cherish those conversation at 2 am in a hotel suite parlor about angles and lights and i will forever cherish those moments where we were shooting ideas because we had an issue (a missing actor, lights blowing up, WHERE THE HELL IS THE MONEY STASH ? and stuff..) and the crew and the cast were looking at us and it was getting late.. i'm gratefull for seeing uchenna pulling out great ideas out of his brain in a second notice and therefore teaching me so much about storytelling.

it's really not over.

this is interesting..

2006-09-14T06:39:00.000-07:00

for weeks.. months, i've been complainning about not having enough time to blog.. blog= writing the entries + posting the entries.

and now time is all i have..
and i can't blog either..

may be it's because since i'm a congoman in congo now i wonder what is the point
may be it's because i keep comparing my blog to its twin blog and..well.. combrazor wins
may be it's because i want to think about something else
may be it's because i still want to figure out how i feel

but well.. give me a few days (if you guys are still reading).. i'll try

peace

things are getting more tense..

2006-08-23T03:07:00.000-07:00

short story:

i'm online right now while my partners are shooting because yesterday one of our actors and me exchanged some words..
Uchenna says i shouldn't name names so i won't but the guy is a shitty actor with an attitude and well.. you can't have both, can you ?

anyway, i won't talk about it too much so hmm.. laters !

a light in a darkness..

2006-08-08T06:08:00.000-07:00

(aka Denis is about to go postal)

As we're back in Lagos, trying hard to reorganize everything so that the rest of shooting would go more smoothly, some of the stuff that we thought was behind us suddenly came back, killing our rejuvenating spirits.. People dodging our calls, unfulfilled promises, the Weather Conspiracy, actors being in different cities and not realizing that it could be relevant for us to know it and annoying motherfuckers in general..

Let me get it straight right now... I HATE ACTORS. Since forever.. all of them.. on principle. Why ? because they're human tools. And because of the Oscars, because of the Actor's Studio, because of celebrity culture, they tend to believe that they're really that important while they're like any other tool.. they serve a vision.
plus they're bitchy in general..
anyway, because during the first days we mostly worked with Frank and Emma, I almost changed my mind on that whole sub-species of Homo Sapiens..
WRONG WRONG WRONG.
Frank is a light in the darkness.. he's dedicated, always willing to work, he LISTENS to the director, he almost never complains or asks for anything.. Basically he wants the movie to be great as much as we do... And on top of that, he's a fucking good actor.. And imagine dealing with motherfuckers who can't act and who on top of that complain about not having enough lines... or worse, people who can't take a flight on time, have a huge ego, think they're stars while their market value is almost negative in this case and hide their unability to memorize lines behind "improvisation".. in this case i have to admit, i've been fooled too.. we all have. but hey, this was a first time and the footage is actually, good, so why not..
Emma, who neverevereverever acted before this movie and actually never even THOUGHT about acting before we gently asked her to do so, too is definetly someone we want to work with again and again and again.. she's precise, she's fast, she's dedicated and available, she's ready to do things she doesn't really want to do.. basically she rocks..

weirdly enough both of them also spend their time singing ballads.. or listenning to ballads and singing along:

insert pic

i think here it was some Luther Vandross (some of you may remember that i rather listen to a farting contest between Omar Bongo and Olesegun Obasandjo than to a Champagne Soul ballad..) but I still love them, lol.

so yeah..

The rest of them can really go to hell.. for real.

fighting temptation

2006-08-08T05:44:00.000-07:00

my mind has been a mess lately..
i got hit by a wave of inspiration, generated by a lot of different sources (from my sister'n'em's photoblog www.madeinponton.skyblog.com to watching uchenna's asian dvds collection to thinking about some of our cast to random thoughts )..
so like it's weird and difficult because:
- i can't talk about it with uchenna because i'm trying to keep his mind on THIS MOVIE
- i'm trying to keep MY mind on THIS MOVIE
- ideas are always more exciting than final product and like i said in my latest blog entry, i already the normal Production Down Syndrome and these fresh, uptaped, yet to even devellop new ideas are too damn exciting and may even too much for my mayonnaise (again) state of mind..
- i'm trying to also plan my life and that's even harder than producing a movie especially while you're doing so while producing a movie (get it ?)

so yeah pictures of my sister dressed as if in 2047 the center of fashion was Seoul inspire me.. just like our common conversations usually inspire the both of us. Like she's in architecture school and it's known by very few people i almost went into Urban Planning.. That's the map nerd in me and all that. Thank god i started an economics major instead that was so boring that i dropped out and went to film school (or was i just running away from a boring town ?) and we have those long mundane pluridisciplinarian conceptual conversations about everything.. our favorite one is about africa and organized chaos. how the non-sense makes sense.. and i can already promise you that the day i decide i'm mature enough to go behind the camera as a director, that concept will be fully explored (and that's probably the biggest reason why that day will never happen).. so yeah, the little devil unknowingly, in correlation with some other inputs sparkled something again. i won't tell you what though, hell, i won't tell her what.
then there's that weird desire of seeing Frank (our lead actor in Too Much Beautiful Woman) dressed in the same way as a character in a korean movie i watched yesterday night..
then there's that series of pictures Uchenna posted that reminded me of a short story set in Jamaica that would make a cool cool cool movie..
then there are songs here and there.. memories of books that come back to the surface..
yeah and that mess..

it will wait though.. wait until we're done with the shooting of this at least (or the total completion), wait until i can talk in detail about it with Uchenna since i can't write a story if my life depended on it, wait till those ideas get more mature, wait until we exactly know where we're going and hmmm.. where i'm personally going with all that..

ever tried to fight inspiration ?
like "you, great idea, GO AWAY ! NOW !"
i'd never thought i'd do it, i never thought i'd have to do it..

but hey, such is life.. and we're learning..

mayonnaise

2006-08-01T11:41:00.000-07:00

this thing is not easy, AT ALL. i mean i knew it.. i've been on sets before, i had hundreds of hours of conversations with producers, directors, people in the business, in france, in nigeria.. i read diaries, i watched documentaries.. and they were all full of horror stories..

from your huge budget production with very experienced people in the west to the students doing their film project, that's all we people talk about. planes suddenly messing up your best take, actors getting sick on the day of a fight scene, production managers on a cooking assignement because someone forgot to pay the catering people, composers going AWOL for months and found 2 days before the booked mixing dates.. all that mess..

so yeah, it's all about how much heart one has. keeping the motivation, finding solution and never stopping.. and then they're the Daylies watching.. and how you always end up getting disappointed.. the shot is NEVER what you imagine it to be.. you adapt.. and sometimes after the initial disappointment you realize the scene is actually BETTER than you imagined..
emotionnal rollercoaster, i'm telling you..

and honestly, i'm quite proud of myself so far. i mean there are things i could have improved like for instance being more protective of my director, no matter how much he resists it. but yeah, for someone who has quite a temper and a tendency to just walk away, i quite resisted my demons..

contrary to uchenna, i haven't done extensive watching of the footage we have so far.. partly because he does it all the time, partly because there are things i didnt want to see but mostly because well my abstract mind GUESSES it (yeah, very selfo).. anyway, i haven't that much and i probably will in the next days as we're supposed to strart working on it while prepping the last scenes we have to shoot. but i already know Too Much Beautiful Woman, the movie will end up being quite different from the one i had in mind while reading the script, hell, before the camera was rolling it was already different (expect stories about casting and locations). and at points, it was a bit difficult to explain to our lead actors who totally loved and understood the script and who were very subtely expressing concern about the little changes.. NEVERTHELESS, i'm also totally at peace.. the movie will be great and i'm already proud of it (and no, not because i'm part of it, there are a lot of things i did that i'm not proud of, that's probably why you haven't heard of them)..

this entry may be a bit confuding i reckon. i guess it's some kind of philosophical reflective moment on art, expectations, compromises, mayonnaise, results, hazard, adaptation, fate and how good i feel right now..

oh and some pictures about nottheactualshooting:

waiting and waiting and waiting...

...and waiting some more.. (there are interesting details in the background..)

- and ganging up on the director probably asking him why we're waiting..

...and then producers entertaining actors by wearing their costumes..(or was this a light test ? i can't remember)..

...and work.. yeah that is work..

PS:
you'll get to know more about mayonnaise in a future entry. why ? because it gives you a reason to come back to this blog, lol

my bad...

2006-07-29T12:01:00.000-07:00

hey people..

there was a mistake on yesterday's blog..
the paypal account is actually:

takestyle@hotmail.com

sorry..

meanwhile.. just one more pictures of palmwinedrinking, producerstressing, toomanymuchbeautifulwomenupmaking.. more were planned but the network is awful so i lost the past 2 hours of my life TRYING to put them on..
more later i promise..

on another note..

Uchenna ( www.combandrazor.blogspot.com ), my director has been trying to post like 4 entries but the network is dodgy so like just watch out, ok ?

more ? yeah more..

2006-07-28T09:02:00.000-07:00

HEY PEOPLE...

i promised i'll come back, here i am..

nah i don't have typed stories, after all i'm still recovering from my bronchitis and we're still busy planning the additionnal shooting we have to do.. so like.. while you're waiting for stories about Rock'n'Roll haircuts, Empty Palm Wine Bottles, Messy production offices, Machettes, Swords and Guns, Muscular Filmmaking, clothes, lightbulbs and costumiers... take a look at this:

and more to come tomorrow... or even later today may be...

and about those donations, good people...

if you want to use paypal..

takestyles@hotmail.com

for other ways, email

eemesih@hotmail.com
and/or
kuntual@mac.com

and in all cases, PLEASE EMAIL US your complete info so we can properly thank you (and give you your money back in 10 or 15 years may be ? j/k)

and again, THANK YOU ALL ALL ALL ALL A LOT LOT LOT LOT

hmmmm

2006-07-27T05:42:00.000-07:00

thursday 1:51 pm central african time
July 27th

------

Location:

Producers:
Calabar, Cross River State..

2 male leads:
Lagos, Lagos

Director:
Aba, Abia

---------

so...
hmmm.. we shot as much as we could shoot so far.. some more bullshit happenned and we're not done.. and 2 days ago, the director, the lead actor and one of the producer (that's me) got sick. so like we're on a break.. for the whole weekend at least..

since i have to make this entry fun:
guess which one of those pictures is not part of a scene in the movie ?

yeah producers have fun too...

and yeah we'll still need donations.. we just need to figure out the best channel.. after all we're in Nigeria and ..well.. thanks to the 419ers, transactions aren't that easy..

and like we said before, just the fact that you guys are reading this blog is... moving. let alone, encouraging and helping us..

expect more pics and more stories in the next days..

LOVE Y'ALL

been a long time..

2006-07-22T06:22:00.000-07:00

well we're still shooting so give me a few more days...

and then i'll post a list of stories and you'll tell which ones you want to read, ok ?

(mostly) blurry pictures update

2006-06-22T13:35:00.000-07:00

once i'm done getting mad, i post pictures i guess.. and you seem to enjoy those..

you have blurry pic of meetings, you have pics of meetings and pics of me..

sometimes i wonder if a producer should be this vain..
but whatever, we're all for setting new standards, aren't we ?

casting and stuff..

2006-06-22T13:01:00.000-07:00

The Hard Life of a Mouvie Produceur..
(french accent here)

So your director missed his plane.. you got angry, you got sad, you went clubbing, got a lil'tipsy, slept and found a solution for your biggest issue.. the already set up and announced open audition..

you decide to do them yourself and tape them so you can shortlist the actors with him before he sees more..

so for 10 hours you're in an office listenning to the same parts over and over again, some good some average some horrible. Some bland "reading" , some "overacting".. from amateurs and pros.

see. casting has been an interesting issue for us since forever.

- we don't like the way nollywood acting style
- *I* personally don't believe in Good Acting, i believe in Good Direction
- we want the actors to look good (or at least interesting)

so we've had some lucky episodes on that part.. the 2 leads were found incredibly fast.. we had a first choice as far as the female lead that latter got complicated for many reasons..

at that point we just had to go to Calabar and just cast.

and we found.

well, first of all, we found the Guild and it's regulations that kinda make sense but could have been problematic in our case.
i.e. "they don't exactly have everything we want."

Thanks to the mediation of an official body, the misunderstanding got cleared, options were openned and cooperation became the rule.

i still feel quite weird about it. It sounds like the only thing the Guild care about is registration. a database ? some guidebook about the working conditions ?

so anyway..
on that bloody saturday we found almost all the female parts.
let me even admit that on a personnal level, at some point i was happy to talk to anything but a-beautiful-young-woman after a point..
then Uchenna came, we watched the tapes, he approved most of our shortlist (or at least the ones me and koko agreed on).
and then we went to have him meet the one we shortlisted for the lead female part..

she wasn't at the audition (we taped her the day before)
she never acted before
she didnt know if she "wanted" to act when we first talked to her

but she's a model, a very pro one. conscious of every inch of her body at any moment. perfect. Uchenna approved. I think he was also happy that his akward way to question people (well he quickly got better) didn't scare her off, lol.

so that was resolved, the other female parts are more and less set too (and when it's less, it's because we're still torn between 2 or more choices).

The male supporting cast..

First we had blantant luck.. people bringing someone who brings someone who brings someone..
found a dancer with a great diction, found a 7 feet guy with huge hands...
and we had another audition.. less hectic, no tape this time.. and we found pearls too.

so our cast ?

IT'S DONE.
(well there are 3 or 4 minor minor parts that are yet to be taken)

why aint i posting pictures ?
i let uchenna take care of that, lol

yeah this was written a few days ago..

one year ago...

2006-06-22T12:54:00.000-07:00

1 year ago...

a little more than one year or so ago i dropped out of film school.. 1 or 2 weeks before my finals.
overwhelmed by the production paperwork on a 8-minute documentary (that was part of my finals actually). i just couldn't do it anymore.. i was tired, annoyed by the futility of all that and kind of depressed.

and the main reason i haven't blogged in the last days is that i was thisclose to actually walk out again..

now the interesting thing is the reasons.

basically i was in the other position.. i felt there was an issue about our commitment, our speed, our rythm. Now don't get me wrong. We are commited, we are working.. but like.. this is moviemaking, not only that but this is independant, lowbudget moviemaking in a hostile environement (nepa alone makes nigeria hostile). So you cannot afford to just work "hard enough". We have to push beyond our limits on a calm day and go harder on the worse ones..

so i wasn't sure we were doing that so i was wondering if spending more money, spending more time away from my family and people i love (i love koko and uchenna, but i'm not that exclusive, you know ?), going through more anxiety-intensive periods would actually pay-off... i.e. will this ever get done ?

see, my little experience of moviemaking taught me one thing: Even The Best Prepared Shootings Are Miracles. your lead actor can get into a car accident, you have rain, civil wars, lightning, your film (or tapes) can disappear, your camera may stop working suddenly. And THIS WILL HAPPEN.
So whatever plans you make or have, will have to be changed.. you will run, adapt, get anxious, get desperate, feel like the world is plotting against you..
Now except for a few flat tires in this car (substory is that i intended to dedicate an entire blog entry to this swedish silent and hardworking employee of ours but i decided to scratch it off... momentum passed apparently) and the horrible Lagos traffic (NEVER SHOOT IN THAT PLACE UNLESS YOU HAVE HELICOPTER BUDGET, people), the "slow us down" events we experienced weren't that unavoidable. so yeah i got scared..
my other main belief is that nice people don't make movies.. they work in cubicles, sell cars, farm may be.. The Film Industry is made for assholes.. People who are able to put "that thing" they do on top of their priority list.. People who can spend weeks not talking to their friends because they don't have time. People who are able to mobilize any and all the ressources their entourage can provide in order to get it done.
and i know we're in Africa.. and i know that this is probably the main unafrican thing i do.. i get assholish..
example: some photocopy place a few nights ago in calabar: we drop a script to be photocopied and binded. we run to meeting and say we'll be back in an hour. AN HOUR AND HALF LATER, we come back. the binding is not done and that 50 years old woman tells me "come back tomorrow, my day's done".
i raised hell. mentionned that she should be fired. cursed a bit. asked to be paid back because we were already late since her lazy ass couldn't do it on a notice SHE AGREED ON.
later in the car, Uchenna was telling me i overreacted (may be) and that this was Africa... and that wishing that someone should be fired is horrible (because of the high unemployement rates)
NOW PAUSE. on our beautiful continent, crowds of young, energic, able people can't find a job and we're not making the connexion here ? so yeah let me say it again. "SHE SHOULD BE FIRED, as should be all the useless unproductive motherfuckers to make room for able people."
but i'm drifting here..

Producers raise hell, that's what they do. they raise hell because NOTHING in this world is more important than the PRODUCTION. And the only reason they even sleep or eat is because dying may slow down the PRODUCTION.
and if your movie has any inherent difficulty, you should do even more.
i don't care how un-african of me it may seem to be (fuck lowered standards, i feel insulted by that idea). i will raise hell, starve, kill people if that's what it takes to deliver TOO MUCH BEAUTIFUL WOMAN to you, dear moviewatchers.

and i'm just glad this is fully understood in the Production camp.. and i wouldn't have given up anyway, no Producer would give up on such a beautiful project.. so now i can get back to blogging about sunset or i may have even more bitchy entries about how i want all Producer on the set..

July 3rd is the date, people..

someone talked too fast..

2006-06-08T06:22:00.000-07:00

what do you do when around 10pm you get a text message from your director/partner saying he missed his flight ?

- you call him back
- you argue for 30 minutes with your other partner
- you brainstorm for 40 minutes with that same guy
- you come up with a possible solution
- you type a letter to local authorities for 1 hour
- you get dressed
- you get in a car and blast some Ghetto Tech OUT LOUD
- you hit a club
- you drink
- you get home and call your flight-missing partner and for the first time ASK about what happenned (priority is to find solutions)
- you wake up with a fresh fresh mind and get back to work

peace

2006-06-08T06:20:00.000-07:00

this movie (TOO MUCH BEAUTIFUL WOMAN) got me, got me, working day and night...

now really.. i can't wait for the rest i'll get when this is all over.

(sad truth is that i have like 2 other ones planned and about 5 or 6 diverse ideas and my partners probably have as many.. so rest ? lol)

and since y'all seemed to have loved the pictures i posted:

just don't ask me what are those for.

clarification

2006-06-01T10:57:00.000-07:00

so in case you didnt get.. and and apparently some haven't..
i AM a producer and working with a writer/director and a third partner who doesnt have a blog (yeah such dinosaurs exist).. and i am in Nigeria, RIGHT NOW, producing (meaning budgetting, casting, scouting, crying, getting grey hair and other funny activities) a movie named TOO MUCH BEAUTIFUL WOMAN.
Peep the continious present tense..

and.. well.. we're kinda broke and our budget is rather tight and it's hard and we're young, black and african.. so like.. let's make it clear:

Grants, Donations, International Aid, Prayers, Ebos, Saaras, Food Aid, Technical or Medical Assistance, Clothes (thanks bu), Walmart Coupons, Volunteering (actors ?), Petrol Jerrycans and many more ARE ALL ACCEPTED and WELCOME and NEEDED...

and we can promise you that the help will indeed reach those who need it and no one will ask for your bank details..

and we're serious...

a day in the life

2006-06-01T10:09:00.000-07:00

yeah sometimes i get to talk to very very good-looking people (hell some even look better than me, lol).. yeah i have one of the coolest jobs on earth (i'm talking about being the producer of TOO MUCH BEAUTIFUL WOMAN, not producing in general), yeah it's fun and intense and cool and all that

but..

the truth is most of time i'm sitting behind a comp

or we're stuck in traffic:

and then sometimes i eat

and koko takes funny pics out of boredom when i'm online usually posting my blog entries

but then i get bored when he drives and i take funnier pics

peep the distortion..

so.. yeah a producer's life always that exciting..
and actually if it was would we have the chance to catch moments like this ?

there's nothing like ....

2006-05-29T06:13:00.000-07:00

.....minutes after doing the postman part of the producer's job (i.e. driving to the other side of town to deliver a script), running into an actor who has been having said script for two days and hearing him say "THIS IS JUST BEAUTIFUL" about it with the bright spontanneous smile to match and an empahsis on beautiful..
now the cynics (and i am one) may comment on the fact that dude ACTS for a living and they may have a point. i'd still enjoy it though..

In other news, i think i'm tired of Magnesio's voice and Kuduro beats in general.. my new musical temporary addiction is La India's voice singing about Yemaya, Ochun, Love, Happiness and her first rumba...

Also, after very complicated calculation (and excell and appleworks files for info extraction, i love this word), i realized that we need to shoot a little over 7 minutes of usefull material a day on average..
now of course this means sometimes less but also sometimes MORE..
in school, i've been taught that the average in europe, on professional sets was 3 minutes... but we're not in europe (we can be faster) and we're new (we can be slower or faster depending on an infinite number of circumstances)..
that didn't stop koko from thinking that was extremely low..
debate followed (as always).
solution was found (sorta).

so between the western 3 minutes a day and the nollywood 30 minutes a day averages there is a middle ground, right ?
that's what we're aiming for..

what's the average in HK, btw ?

can't stop won't stop

2006-05-27T12:01:00.000-07:00

As i'm sitting in front of my laptop (yes it's an ibook) ,alone (koko is with his children at some children's day celebration) i realized how much i enjoy this breaking down the script thing.
See, to succeed the production of a movie, you need INFORMATION. Not only having it ALL but also being able to give very specific ones on a very short notice ("by the way, how many time does Character appear in Location during Nightime ?and Producer, it will be nice if i also knew if it requires live sound and what he wears" said Other Producer just before looking at his watch and adding "ASAP").

So you take all the information you have from the script, from your dear writter, from our dear director and put it in an ubiquious appleworks file and then think hard, very hard about what may be asked at ANY POINT and how to properly and quickly extract the required info ANYTIME...
And of course, it should be comprehensible to me but also to anyone else...

Ahh "work as conversation" as Tom Peters defined it in "Crazy Times Call For Crazy Management" (yes, people, sometimes i take breaks from african litterature, semi historical latin american novels, atlases and russian artsy filmmakers memoirs)..

So yeah, that's the only way to properly prepare the shooting of a movie when your director is 6 times zones away.. But then again, the script, past (saved and classified) conversations and ongoing email exchanges aren't fast enough for me to get the info in the first place.. so trust me, if there is a "next project" (and i believe there will be), i already plan to spend the equivalent of the budget of TOO MUCH BEAUTIFULL WOMEN on transcontinental plane tickets, accomodation for emmergency production meetings in random places (Praia is equidistant between Boston and Lagos, isn't ?).

But for now i'm back to my on-task.. and somehow thinking about the last time i did it for a feature film (or rather script).. it was quite early in the process so it was the "All Out" one, you know, no second-guessing, the script said "large view of greenland's icy immensities", you put "helicopter or plane" in one of the boxes. Only god knows how much fun i had doing that, and how much i wanted to be there, in greenland, iceland or wherever sitting in front of a laptop and doing "stuff" that would have helped the beautiful script i read and re-read and re-read again become an actual movie.. sadly, the process of production (especially pre-production) takes a helluva long time in the very formal European Union.. so... hmm... my (very modest) participation ended up a while ago... the rest of this particular story will be told latter.
now what i wanted to say is that, even if the actual production of TOO MUCH BEAUTIFUL WOMEN may seem a little rushed, i'm actually happy we decided to "just do it" (or some may have forced that decision on others, lol).
I didn't want to have another tale about a missed opportunity.

No Shaking

2006-05-27T11:57:00.001-07:00

So the few entries below, though posted on the same day, have been written over a cut-down-from-the-innanets week..

Some of them are glommy, huh ?

Well, for those who want to know I FEEL VERY GOOD. I'm not hospitalized (as apparently an automatic response from my email suggested). And i'm still in constant excitement..

so few facts:

- during the champion's league final my brain was divided, half analyzing the disposition Wenger choose to (try to) stop the usual Riijkard tactics, half organizing, calculating, reorganizing, listing information about this production.. oh yeah .. about TOO MUCH BEAUTIFUL WOMEN. Now people who know me know that when Barça plays, my brain can't think about anything else past noon. Trust me, what happenned that day was even more surprising to me.

- we met a few actors. Not all since everybody but the leads will be casted in Calabar.
Interesting encounters. And it's nice to start to put faces on characters. I can't wait to hear the feedback on the script they're probably reading right now.
oh yeah:

being able to introduce myself as "a producer" to actors and see them being semi impressed (or may be it was something else) by my silence ?

priceless.

*ego parenthese closed*

the simple fact that they didnt laugh at us was priceless.. lol

- i wonder how long Koko will hold on until i convert him to the "producers can freely talk about how good a potential MALE actor looks and not feel akward" school of thought... héhé

- Calabar is a few days away and that will determine a lot.. may Allah/God/TheGreatArchitect/YamanjaOshunEshuSango'n'em/Nzambi/Krishna/alltheBuddahs/AndTheRestOfThem be with us.

- i have more entries planned already.. (day by day diaries are boring)
so soon

and thanks for the support.

No Shaking

2006-05-27T11:57:00.000-07:00

lagos.. again

2006-05-27T11:54:00.000-07:00

"It was as i feared, a descent into imagined hell. All semblance of community had vanished. The noise, the frenzy, the disorder! This was a mere labyrinth of clogged alleys and overburdened streets, dark mounts of indeterminate sludge, tinsel imports on sales racks or inpedestrian motion, festering carrion, abused and abusive humanity that called itself a city"

From "You Must Set Forth At Dawn" by the great Wole Soyinka

Funny I read that part during breakfast (eggs and coffee if you want to know) while i typed a first draft of this entry last night...

so...

when i first got here Uchenna kept asking me if Lagos was as chaotic as i imagined..
back then i confessed to be a little disapointed..
now after 3 weeks ?
hell yeah it is.

not because of nepa, not because it feels unsafe, not because nigerians are the loudest africans (and they're not), not because they're all crooks (419=Feymania ?) or whatever..

Lagos is an assault on my senses. eyes, nose, ears...
Constant.
The Soyinka quote could be about any african city if it was written by a non-african.. But these words, by someone who lived/lives (?) in Ibadan or MY feelings are a strong indication of the amplitude of Lagos's monstriousity. Lagos's residential areas have the density of Brazzaville's "busy" areas and the size of .. Brazzaville. and when i tried to do what i always do when i get to a new city: getting a mental picture of its general structure, well my brain failed me. Except for Lagos and Victoria Islands, there is no indication that you leave an area and get in another. And there's a serious lack of "orientation points".. you know, remarkable buildings, monuments, squares, parks.. And the crowds.. oh my the crowds.. May be i'm develloping my own version of my mom's fear of crowds (the thought of india or china makes her nauseous). And the lights.. too many lights, not too much, TOO MANY. And the contrast with the absence of street lights...

I was suffocating..
yet excited...

So yeah, i know that as soon as i get back to my dear and calm home country, i'll start complainning about its boring tranquility and dullness again but somewhere deep inside, a side of me will breathe and appreciate the calm days and nights.

i'm frustrated..

2006-05-27T11:49:00.000-07:00

I'm frustrated because i still think uchenna should be already, i'm frustrated because sometimes koko takes naps, i'm frustrated because i'm far too dependant on that source of information and mean of communication that the internet is AND my access is limited, i'm frustrated because i'm not independant, i'm frustrated because i miss you, i'm frustrated because i don't blog enough, because we don't go fast enough, because there are only 24 hours in a day, because i'm obsessed to by worst case scenarios, because it's my job to be obsessed with worst case scenarios, i'm frustrated because i feel than we're so close to greatness and yet close to failure, i'm frustrated because i'm anxious of seeing the result, i'm frustrated because i need to work even harder.

now i hope writing this and having a good night of sleep will allow me not to be overtaken by my frustration.

2006-05-27T11:46:00.000-07:00

Have you checked my co-conspirator's blog ?

Well i hope you have.. if not, well, here's the link:

Uchenna

interesting, isn't ? great music, great pics and stuff.. it somehow puts you in the mood of "TOO MUCH BEAUTIFUL WOMEN" (hé i'm doing my part too)..

Well THIS is what I (yeah the oh so grand me) have been listenning to while i work.. Add to that the strong fix of 80's funk i'm getting from Koko during our oh-so-long car rides and you get an idea..

Which reminds me that i've been thinking about making an entry about the different personalities in this troika..
Which would be corny..

basically we are 3 nerds. and each representing three different sides of African Nerdism (i should register that .com).

overload

2006-05-27T11:41:00.000-07:00

Have you ever worked on a film budget ?

It's an interesting thing, really.. You sit in front of an Excel file and try to fit every single one of your expenses in pre-determined categories. So yeah you have to know what your expenses are, you gotta know where to put them in, both can be quite hard.. i mean where do you put your main actor whiskey addiction ? (well that one is easy, it's harder when the addiction is not legal*, lol).
So yeah hours of typing, configurating and all the blah blah.. boring
But also any producer in the world can picture the movie being done in his head while doing it..
It's funny because things get really more REAL in front of an excell file.

Now what hit me this morning as i was working on it was the amount of work left to be done..

Location scouting, smaller parts casting, actually shooting, accomodating all the people, handling the schedule, recording the voiceovers, organizing this and that and then... pre-editing, raising money from more investors, clearing the music, the additionnal shooting, working on a soundtrack (if anyone is interesed...), editing, post-producing (picture equalizing and such), sound mixing, mastering, converting to 35mm or other, pre-marketing, negotiating/signing with theater distributors, video distributors, tv channels, defending the movie.. and then hopefully getting paid.. (and that means more headache about paying the investors back).

so yeah there is a huge amount of work.
and weirdly enough i'm excited...

oh yeah: TOO MUCH BEAUTIFUL WOMEN is the title, lol

Mes que un Club

2006-05-17T09:03:00.000-07:00

(now i hope no one thinks this was spanish, and i'm serious too)

Today, around 6:45 pm UT, the Champion's League final will start in Paris (well, St Denis but y'all don't know where it is, do you ?). And for the first time since 94 (and a severe 0-4 defeat against the great Milan AC) my team, the great, the invicible, the oh-so-glorious FC BARCELONA will have a chance to win it. Thierry "King" Henry is the only obstacle left (and the funny thing is that he may join Barça this summer) and Ronaldinho and Samuel Eto'o are surely hella motivated.

So yeah Great Evenning.

But this reminded me of something. I'll watch that game surrounded by strangers and a friend who doesnt like football much.. So i'll probably emo for a second and have a thought for my friends who are away and probably as excited as i'll be.

so.. shoot out to Greg, Muriel, Jeff, Philippe, Remi, Mohamadou, Samantha..

now i know some of you are for Arsenal but whatever. My Juju's stronger than yours. Let's just have fun.

So this starts to make sense...

2006-05-17T08:57:00.000-07:00

Yesterday after working for hours on the contuinity and the itemization and other logistical issues, i said to Koko "it is doable".. he looked at me and said "if this wasn't doable, would you be here ?" then i replied "i thought it was doable but didn't know HOW".. Now i do know it is .. and how to do it.

So yeah it seems like this isnt as crazy as i thought i'd be. which doesnt mean we're the sanest people in the world either.

But yeah, I have a better vision of everything and the team just works great.

Me and Koko perfectly get along and perfectly communicate.
Even when we're not on the same page the lines stay open and we quickly find a compromise.
And our dear director shouldn't feel left out because he is the Soul and Spirit of all this.. WE CANT WAIT TILL YOU GET HERE, SON.

Now a few people have read the script and the feedback is interesting. Mostly positive with a few very relevant suggestions on the weak points.

We still have a lot of work to do though..

Lagos is burning..

2006-05-12T11:41:00.000-07:00

Well not exactly. But still.
Yesterday as we were in the car, a special radio report was talking about riots in Aja (i think..). Quite scary news if i was in a smaller city but this is Lagos. Plus the reason behind those riots (some conflict between the chieftancy and the land owners) is so specific that the violence cannot spread outside that part of town. *EXHALES IN RELIEF*..
But today we could see this:

from one of the bridges. impressive huh ? That was totally unrelated to the riots.just some fire on a pipeline.. cusualities tho ? 100 deads and still counting.. Let their souls rest in peace.

in other news, hmm.. I finally could read the latest finalized version of the script. Great ending, son if you're reading this.. Now all I can do is thinking about the work that has to be done and of course work.. lol.

I also went to Ibadan a few days ago.. I didnt expect to it to look this way from the Wole Soyinka novel "Ibadan, the pelicumess years", but i wasn't disapointed neither. The red dirt and the hills reminded me of Yaoundé.. I was suprised to see that many mosques there, but oh well..

what else can i talk about ?
hmm.. i drink too much coke. lol. those who have been knowing me for years know that i used to be a big coca-cola addict.. like 2 or 3 litters a day easily. and i stopped when back in november.. so i drank like 3 bottles in 6 months and now.. i'm not back to my former standard but close, too close.

now gotta go and work.. more equipment rental places to visit, more tailors to meet for the costumes, more script breaking down, more traffic to be stuck in...

Why do i post in english ?

2006-05-09T11:43:00.001-07:00

One of the reasons my blog aint that very intersting in my opinion is because i write in a foreign language.

Why would one do that ?

Well, just of practical reasons.. My Francophone friends have at least basic english understanding skills, my Anglophone friends can't read anything but english for the most part. Plus i don't give a single damn about french as a language so why would i do it differently ?

Speaking about that, I felt lost a couple of times since this is my first journey to a completly foreign language country.. yeah South Africa for one week with my mom and sister when i was 15 doestn count. For many reasons..

so yeah, i get lost and feel dumb sometimes but i still follow, give me 1 month and even heavy pidgin wont be that hard to understand.

Now weirdly enough, it's the money i have the most trouble with. 1 Naira = 4 CFA Francs, that's WAAAAY easier than converting from French Francs to Euro (yeah i was there during the currency switch) or from CFA Francs to Hrivnas.. Still i get lost.. May be because the values is actually a little close and because I'm not sure I had the time to totally adjust to CFA.. And Nigeria's cheap so I have trouble to control my personnal budget.. you know how during the sales you end up spending more just because well.. it was on sale..

I'm also fascinated by the Nigerian pride. When they say "african", they mean "nigerian". Seriously. And they're proud of Big Brother Nigeria having after a weeks having generated more phonecalls/textmessages and rating than Big Brother South Africa has after it ended. Now really, there are "around" 140 millions of you, what do you expect ? so it's amusing and interesting. Big direct-to-video market in volume, huh ? Well I wonder if some people don't actually stick to video just because of that.
Anyway, I know i come from a small insignifiant country, I shouldn't be talking.

now i need to meditate on why do i use caps after some of my dots and why I don't in other cases.

.

2006-05-09T11:40:00.000-07:00

Fuck Geography, this isnt a travel blog.. Who cares about all those nerdy details ? This is about moviemaking.. well particularly about one movie, called TOO MUCH BEAUTIFUL WOMEN written and directed by the most talented guy I know..
yeah that's for the promotion.

So anyway, the whole point is that TOO MUCH BEAUTIFUL WOMEN is supposed an ambitious, artsy and yet interesting and quite commercially viable movie, with better "quality" than Nollywood movies BUT WITH THE SAME BUDGET. And i'm one of the producers.

So this will probably be about cutting plenty of corners. As a matter of fact we started. Hell, we started a long time ago.. But I wont reveal how..... for now, dear reader(s)..

So what have i been doing since i got here ?

Itemizing... contacting people here and there.. translating my pre-prepared documents (i went to film school, yo) to english and stuff.. And saturday we spent the afternoon talking with a producer and an actor/director that are quite established in Nollywood.

Funny how most of their advice was about how we should be arrogant know-it-alls since they saw quite a few guys come here and be like "we'll show you how it's done" and those guys ... hmmm.. failed. They were quite realistic about the how and the why too. Basically the whole thing about the not-so-great technical quality for instance is just that the market doesnt reward it.
Well it actually does, but not enough financially for the distributors/financers to invest more (time, money, energy) in doing better movies.
I can understand that.

Economics rule over everything, people.

Now the thing is, we're not coming to teach anything to anyone. We're coming to do TOO MUCH BEAUTIFUL WOMEN using all the ressources, the inventivity, the tricks we can find, be they from film school or from nollywood veterants (condoms on mics, HOLLA). So don't expect arrogance and naivety (spelling?) from any of us.
As a matter of fact, i wished our director was more naive. so yo, if you read this, WE ARE SUPPOSED TO TELL YOU WHAT CAN BE OR CANNOT BE DONE.
And Koko, the other member of the troika ? well, let's say that Koko probably stands for Cost Killer / Cost Killer. lol (i hope this was funy).
So like yeah, we're moving on, and while i enjoy the time i spend watching the city while we're on traffic, i'm not here for tourism.

You heard about Guerilla Filmmaking ? Well this is Mau Mau Filmmaking..

EVEN CRAZIER.

ps: i juts decided i wont shave before this is done. i know someone who's probably happy about this.

blah blah

2006-05-08T10:41:00.000-07:00

i'll be back...

time goes so fast..

shit, yo

2006-05-08T10:39:00.000-07:00

shit, yo, i haven't been blogging like i should have right ? Well, hmmmm, i really feel bad about letting my baby (who spent hours htmlizing this blog) and my readers down (funny thing is that they're probably the same person).
So anyway..

Nigeria.
I don't even know where to start.. the trip may be ?
Hmmm.. during my night in Brazzaville i watched a few episodes of a series made by Les Guignols d'Abidjan. A super famous ivorean crew of comedians.. And as always, while the story or the acting weren't that bad, the visuals and the general rythm sucked. I mean when a character says "ok we're out", do we need to see them getting in a car one by one (the guy was holding the doors for the ladies, so tresvanty) and then turning the engine on and everything ? what are those 2 minutes for ? Do they matter in the story in any way ? and that didnt happen once.. So yeah that was motivating..

While i was waiting for my plane (that was OF COURSE late) i had an interesting convo with a friend of my dad's. We talked about the craziness of this whole project, some of my fears and everything and he basically was super supportive, saying that being resonable is boring and that success or failure is relative.. Ah. Quite predictable you'd say ? well, you'd be suprised to know that THIS in the mouth of one of my parents' friends is NOT COMMON AT ALL..

So then i get on the plane, first deception, I thought the flight was via Kinshasa and Douala and i was excited at the idea of at least looking at the neighbourg giant through my little plane window.. but no, the plane was coming from Kin. Hmmm.. That was soon compensated by the fact that i got a drink that reminded me of my childhood, funny thing is that i can't remember its name now. Shit, that's another thing that sucks about Pointe-Noire, too far from Kin. Hmm..

So i openned a book, boring flight and then DOUALA. I've lived in Douala, Cameroon for 2 years. the last two years of high school. And while I've lived longer in Paris for instance, Douala has left a bigger mark on me. So i was a little moved just by looking at it through the window.. So many memories... And just looking at that city made go up on my "city to move to" list. So one other thing about flying through Douala is the view on Mount Cameroon. That 3,000 meter volcano just standing there near the ocean ALONE. It's actually part of a chain that is mostly submarine (if you look at a map just see where Sao Tome e Principe are, then Malabo and then Douala and you'll have an idea).. So ok, the geography nerd i was looking at what was down there and trying to recognize places, Bonaberi, Buea (speling?), Limbe, and a bunch of fishermen villages. Those were funny because they were sometimes very close to the city but you could see there were no roads linking them to it. Where the people there visiting Douala from time to time ? Just the fishermen or all the families ? those were the random questions is my head..

And then after 15 minutes i could guess we weren't in Cameroon anymore.. how ? well because i'm a nerd and also because the flight wasnt quiet anymore. Turbulences, fasten you seatbelt.. lol, quite a symbol. I was living the slow and quiet central africa.. no more bantu languages, no more french, less mining, more trade..

And then Lagos..
I wonder if my observations from the window are really interesting to my dear readers, but i actually don't care. IT IS TO ME.
So i expected a pulp, a giant and that's what i got.. i could see the end of the city while i was still starting the landing process.. In Brazzaville from almost every part of the city you can see the surrounding still empty hills (well almost empty, BZV too is growing)..

so yeah, here i was, Giant of Africa and all that, all excited because that meant it's on...

i guess i'll stop now..

.

2006-04-25T09:29:00.000-07:00

as i re-read the few lines i wrote yesterday, i was already wondering if my nigerian brothers and sisters would get offended.

i mean it wasn't very very positive.

plus i'm congolese and well.. we have most of that too, smaller, quieter but still.

so no, i'm excited. excited tabout visit THE african metropolis, excited about finally making a movie (funny that a 24 years old producer says "finally"), excited about making this movie with those guys.

plus i'm a firm believer in chaos.
chaos is good for creativity
chaos makes you test your limits
chaos make your brain function

and as much as i'll probably complain about all that in the next days, weeks, the chaotic aspects about this adventure are fucking turning me on.

complain #1: i really really wanted to flight through cotonou. because it's a direct flight, because it's cheaper, because i want to visit cotonou, because i love road trips.
allas, it'd be a tiring pointe-noire-brazzaville-kinshasa-lagos trip and the road trip will not involve any border passing
complain #2: contrary to my girl, i'm a bad writer and an even worse blog writer. but she'll kill me if i stop after the work she's done to make this one pretty.

it's on

2006-04-25T09:27:00.000-07:00

so here we are... I booked my flight. may 4th.
Point of non-return ?

yeah probably..

Ok, may be I should introduce myself to the people who may read it without knowing me (one can dream right ?).

so ok, i'm 24, congolese, multilingual, smart and the shit. and i'm about to go co-produce a movie in nigeria, the country of monthly religious riots, oil worker kidnappings, census agents lynching, and 5-weeks-between-first-treatment-writing-and-dvd-release film making.

exciting huh ?

What about Go Slows, NEPA, muscular unions, between 13and20 million inhabitant metropolises and corrupt cops ?

So yeah.. I have two partner in this adventure. Well actually this guy http://combandrazor.blogspot.com/ has two partners. he wrote the script, he'll direct it, only he knows the ending right now, he wrote the musical theme and i'll let him have the actresses... JOKES, people, JOKES.

The other one is his childhood friend. I have yet to meet him in person. interesting isnt it ?

Oh I bet you want to know what the movie is about ? well.. hmm.. you'll have to bookmark this page and come back because it would be too easy, people.
*gets add contract for page*

I think it's all for now.
Day 2 aint that far.

and so it begins

2006-04-23T09:02:00.000-07:00

stay tuned

.