South Africa Adventure - Part 1

This is the first post about my recent documentary film trip to the beautiful Western Cape of South Africa. The picture above is the view of Pinnacle Point from a cliff face. Awesome isn't it?

The doc is about archeology and upon returning I have over 100 hours of footage and 12,000 still pictures. Make sure you click on the links in the upper right portion of my blog to see my ever evolving SA galleries on MobileMe.

South Africa is an amazing country. First off it's the most developed and advanced on the continent of Africa, secondly the people are so friendly. I stayed in Rheebok which is a suburb of Mosselbaai (Mossel Bay) and was there nearly a month. I was in the southern hemisphere once again in my life but this time I was farther down under than Australia! In fact, the damn South Pole was about 3,000 km away. Wow.

I worked 7 days a week and did all of the shooting by myself! I had some help but I prefer to focus on the positive . . . I shot this on a Panasonic HVX 200 I borrowed from a friend. I wanted to shoot on the new JVC GY-HM700 but JVC wouldn't step up to the plate and play ball like Bogen Imaging did. No matter as the HVX shoots time lapse and is easier to carry, not

like the JVC.

I was very excited about this project and to actually go to South Africa. I began to formulate all kinds of pre-production plans but it was difficult since I didn't know what to expect when I got there.

I knew I had to pin down the project director and obtain unrestricted access all while battling the elements and oh yeah, I had to carry all the equipment everywhere!

After a long ass flight from Phoenix to Atlanta direct to Johannesburg I was ready to tour the locations. Problem was that I didn't know where anything was and the directions given were I'm sad to say, crappy. I also had to drive everywhere and even though it's on the left hand side of the road I mastered it in only a couple of days. Problem was that when there are road signs they are English going one way and the other they were in Afrikaans. That contributed to my confusion ( That and always turning the wipers on instead of the turn signals! Hey I can't help it that everything was backwards.)

The Pinnacle Point site was at the same time remote and not remote. On top of the caves on the beach where the site is located sits a multi-million dollar golf resort.

Yes, that's right a frakkin golf resort. In order to get down to the caves we had to park near the main leasing office across from the casino (I'm so not joking), take a shuttle to the clubhouse and then trek down, I shit you not a mile of stairs winding down the mountain to the beach and then hike across rocks and up the trail. Needless to say it was VERY painful. Anything for the art, right? After getting totally lost the first day I spent the next few days familiarizing myself with roads, people and locations. I had to get a game plan together quickly. The first two days of shooting were very successful as I shot Stone Tool Knapping segments and was introduced to the slogan "Four seasons in a day at Mossel Bay" especially in the winter time. It was sunny one moment, rainy the next. Constantly. Continuity all shot to hell. I managed to get great stuff even if the wind was whipping through which didn't help my audio . . .

Stay tuned to part 2 coming up in the next few days.

-- Janaki Cedanna