SCRIPT WRITING
May/June 2004 – Final copy of the script completed after few re-writes and reviews.
April 2004 – First Draft of the script completed. Writing the script was not a very tedious process because I had the story in mind for a while. Writing is a discipline and without it you have no story to tell. Living in Minnesota, I do my writing in winter because days are very short and very cold, an incentive to stay indoors and write. The story of Tusamehe is not very complicated and so it was not very difficult to write. There were few turns in the plot and the message was straight forward. Of course the viewers of the movie will be the ultimate judges of that.

 

SCREEN TESTS
July/August 2004 – Screen tests were held in Minneapolis and 90% of the crew and cast was acquired at that time. Unlike our first project, there was a very good turn out. One interesting point is that we even had people from Tanzania who were willing to come for auditions but of course due to logistical and cost factors this was impossible. As a writer of the script, this phase is very interesting because the characters start coming to life as you imagined them while conceiving the story.


THE SHOOT
July 2004 – This is when we started shooting the film. There is a lot to be said about the first days of the shoot because everyone is nervous and everybody wants to show their best. The people who were doing this for the first time did well under the circumstances. For most of us, this was now familiar – we knew what we wanted and what to tell the new actors.

Depending on the role that you play, being on the set can be very challenging. As a director I have to make sure that all the pieces are in place. I have to be able to answer all the questions including what is for snack, what is for lunch, why is this character standing at the window and where is the make-up. Of course it is not like this all the time since we have people who are designated to take if such matters but even then such questions are always arise. The majority of work is done by the crew who supports the whole production process to assure that everything is done properly.


BEING ON THE SET
I have learned to be patient, I have learned to go with the flow and I have learned from a lot of people. In my opinion to be able to complete a day of a shoot, need to be a good listener and be able to differentiate between hearing people versus listening to them. Your emotional intelligence is called to task when dealing with each and every person on the set. The key once again is to listen, then hear, then ask questions – good questions – then make a decision quickly. You only have certain hours to shoot.

There are many challenges in production, but the most challenging issue or us was scheduling for the cast calls. After we decide on the day we want to shoot, the next step is to find out what to shoot, after that you have to find out who can make it on the on the selected date.

This process is repeated for both the cast and crew. It is not uncommon to find that 5 of the six people for the scenes can make it only to find out that the key person can’t. This of course sends you back to the drawing board. This will be repeated for all 100 scenes of the movie.

Once you have who can be there for a shoot, it is time to look for a location. Locations are very difficult because you have to literally have a complete yes from the house owner or office and they should understand all your intentions. I have been in situations where people have changed their minds after I let them know how long we will be or how much equipment we will be bringing.

In this project, we did not have a location scout so it fell on the director’s shoulders. I remember once we found a location to shoot one scene and on the morning of the shoot I was informed that the restaurant we wanted to shoot in was condemned by the state authorities the night before. Without alarming the cast and crew, we all gathered at the same location and changed to scene to be outside the restaurant instead of being inside.

Once all these hoops have been jumped, we then start shooting the movie. Of course there are other challenges over and above these but these are the ones that stand out.

POST PRODUCTION
This is another period that is filled with surprises. First of all this is when you find out how good is your footage. Did we have everything we need, did we catch everything, how is the acting and so forth. It is true footage can look good by itself but when put in a sequence with all the clips, you may run into issues. Also it has been said that during this phase, it is like making another movie only this time you are directing the clips. We were once again lucky here where the director of photography, is the same person who actually shot the movie.
In the post production phase, attention to details is even more crucial. Here you have to be in tune with what is going on. You can hear it all and see it all. Timing, lighting, sound, movement and dialog – all factors have to gel well. Another important aspect of this was addition of a score and this was important due to the emotion involved in the story line. As I mentioned before the story is straight forward and we needed the addition of other aspects like music to add to the story.


THE SOUNDTRACK
Music is the key to the success of any movie. It sets up the mood and lets the viewer know a little bit of what is going to happen or what has just happened. This being a Swahili oriented movie, it is very crucial that we incorporate not only the Swahili songs, but Swahili songs that are relevant to the subject matter. This was a challenge by itself but we started by asking individual artists and detailing to them what are our goals and asking them to come up with various songs. We were successful and we have a good number of artists in our soundtrack. On this project we have D-Mack, a Twin Cities Rap artist, Mpambala, a veteran musician from Uganda now making Minnesota his home.

From Tanzania we have various veteran musicians contributing to the soundtrack like Mukama Morandi and Innocent, Fadhil Nkurlu and Martin Ubwe, Lucy Nombo, Sven Kibira and Valerian Rugalabamu.

You may have heard about the glamour associated with making movies, all I can say is to succeed one has to face and overcome many challenges, have a good sense of vision and discipline and be true to the vision no matter what. I have yet to see where the glamour is in this.