I felt both a little tired and expectant while watching the sunrise over the Al Azhar Masjid in District Six. Four thirty AM is an early start by any standards, and even more so since I had spent the previous evening at a friend’s pre-wedding party. Still I felt excited about the day ahead.
It is as a result of this friend’s wedding that Jeff and I found ourselves in Cape Town for a week from 4 – 10 January. It was set up to be a busy week with me being a brides maid and all kinds of planned pre-wedding activities but still Jeff and I felt this is the perfect opportunity for us to get the footage we want for the promotional video for our upcoming film “A Narrow Path”.
A Narrow Path is our brain child dreamt up in 2014. We intend to start shooting the film looking at Christian/Muslim interactions full time in March. In order to build some momentum and garner interest in our project we wanted to create an interesting and exciting promotional piece.
January 6 is the day that Jeff and I set aside to shoot some additional shots for the promotional video. These shots were to supplement the content shot in studio on January 7. We had done our foot work. A script was written and the scene plans were written. However, after the effort of getting the sunrise shot over the mosque things fell apart.
We were tired, struggling to find appropriate locations and things just did not feel right. With emotions running high and frustration starting to emerge we eventually decided to call it quits and try again when fresh.
The studio was next. We arrived there the next morning with fresh energy and a new game plan. After spending an hour rescripting and planning the shoot we were ready to start. With fresh ideas and a much simpler script we were feeling inspired and energised. I have never been in a studio before. It was much fun taking photographs, playing around with different ideas and finally filming the interviews with each other.
I still feel a little uncomfortable in front of the camera but spending this time in a relaxed atmosphere with Jeff went a long way to settle my nerves. We left the studio feeling very satisfied with our morning and without the need of shooting any more content. All in all very satisfying. Cannot wait to see the edit… Jeff?
