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Raisedon Baya
THE past two weeks have been hectic in the true sense of the word. It has been a week in which one has been literally running all over the place. Well, the picture of one running all over the place doesn’t give a good picture, especially about one’s organisational abilities but that is exactly what was happening as we canned the first episode our a proposed drama series, Insuku Zokucina, under the Broadcasting Authority of Zimbabwe’s (BAZ) digitalisation project. A few months ago it was meetings and discussions that half of us thought were mere politicking by the Ministry of Information.
When the Permanent Secretary George Charamba and his team descended on Bulawayo and talked about digitalisation and the ministry’s desire to change the fortunes of the film and television sector in this country little did we think they meant business. Some of us thought we had heard the same talk and promises before and therefore took every word that came out of the subsequent meetings with a pinch of salt.
But when BAZ started calling for concepts and asking people to come and pitch their ideas we suddenly sat up as we began to feel the change that was coming. Suddenly, there was excitement in the air.
Weeks after pitching a few projects were selected into the first phase. In Bulawayo only four projects were selected for this trial run. We were lucky to find our project among the four that were to immediately do a pilot. So we immediately called for auditions. Of course there were no fancy adverts in newspapers, radio or television. All we did was send a WhatsApp message and the response we got was amazing. For a few days after sending the WhatsApp message our phones were abuzz with questions about the auditions from interested actors and potential actors. On the day of the auditions we had over 200 people coming to try their luck. Veteran actors who have featured in many of our local television productions and new faces were just hopeful to land a role.
We spent the whole day auditioning. One good thing about auditions is that if you know what you are looking for everything becomes as easy as ABC. Some characters you just see them coming in, even before they open their mouths to speak you already see them on the small screen. Others you just dismiss them there and there. Show business has always like that. There are moments when it is just brutal. After auditioning we immediately went into rehearsals.
This was one of the exciting times in the whole process. At this juncture everyone is still dreaming, visualising the film itself.
After rehearsals it was time to go on set and scream the famous words; Lights, camera, action! How we wish it was that simple. Those are never magic words.
Film making can sometimes be boring, too repetitious. But honestly speaking the two days were unforgettable.
Moving from one set to another, one house to another and invading people’s spaces. Bringing in cast and crew, complete strangers into people’s houses is not a walk in the park — it is more like walking on eggshells. Spending the whole day on one’s feet.
The jokes between takes and scene changes made the two days most memorable. We have just finished shooting and are now into post production and it is our sincere hope that our project, Insuku Zokucina, will be hitting the screens once Zimbabwean television is digitalised.
Bongani Ndlovu