A Dam Relief - some quick projects

I have been working with a Project based in Jinja, on the River Nile, that is fairly hard to define, but in summary the idea is to promote positive stories from Uganda (because the mainstream media generally only deals with the usual negative stories of Africa). This idea kind of ran parallel with the personal stories I make anyway, so it was an easy fit.

There are a number of people involved with the project, and huge amounts of footage was filmed. I am currently assisting with the editing of this large project.

I also filmed a number of smaller stories, and started editing them when I find the time. I have finished 5 small episodes (probably I have about another 10 of these to finish before I move onto the large part of the project).

The background is that a Dam was built on the River Nile to provide much needed electricity for Uganda (before the Dam was finished we had 'load-shedding' whereby electricity was portioned around the country, so maybe we would have electricity for 2 days, and then no electricity for 1 day, and so on). It was a nightmare, especially for industry. So the country needed the Dam, but obviously there were negative impacts from it, to people directly affected by the rising waters, and it also flooded a famous tourist landmark.

There was a lot of negative press, and a documentary was made about the problems (focussing as ever on the negatives). The founder of the Dam Relief project wanted to counter that and see if there were any positives; hence the 'Dam Relief' title. The project has expanded beyond those goals since then.

Here are the 5 videos I did; originally I was hired to come in and film a lot of stories in a short amount of time, and there was no set idea about how they would fit together. So stylistically they are all very different, but in the end it was decided that there should be no 1 set formula for the videos - they should all be fairly independent of each other.

Just a bit of background: when people mention BEL they are talking about 'Bujagali Energy LTD' - the entity that operates the Hydro Electric Dam on the Nile.

Thanks for sharing, Simon.

Love the mission. Negative media needs to be countered. Or as the Monty Python song goes... "Always look on the bright side of life..."

However, I'm going to have to remark on a couple of negatives here... sorry buddy.

Video 1

Great sound again, the water, the vocals, pristine audio. Of course the shots of the natives working, the nets, ponds, everything great. Not sure how much color treatment you applied but it seems a little desaturated rather than lush or tropical. Also maybe a lower thirds title for this guy, or maybe even to explain BEL. Would love to have seen some of the actual fish. Maybe some insert shots like close up of hands on nets, or hands feeding fish, etc. Also would have preferred more of the natives shown, with his audio as a voice over, instead of featuring him so predominantly. He's not that photogenic, nor does he appear very happy. But the biggest advantage of this technique would be that you could cut out every time he says "Ummm..." (after every phrase). We just started a college style drinking game where you take a swallow every time he says Ummm. Now 90% of my team are raging alcoholics.



On to Video 2

The music adds so much here. Plus you've got some amazing shots, opening shot of table & river, the 360 time lapse around the boat is great, as is the heightened vibrancy in the colors, not only the filters you added on the shots of the rapids, but the golden sun over the boat at the end & his bright shirt. Though I'm not overjoyed with the downwards angle we have on him, especially the first shot. A couple of shots onboard are a bit dark, & when he's talking about the sunset & we're on top deck, it would be lovely to have that golden magic hour light on those tourist's faces. Even if we have to fake it. Enjoyed this one more than the first, I think it conveyed your message of adapting & moving on & prospering after the dam in a more accessible way.


On to Video 3 (I'll have to get into it later today or tomorrow, off to a meeting now)

However, I'm going to have to remark on a couple of negatives here... sorry buddy.

Thats cool man; best sort of advice is the honest advice!


Great sound again, the water, the vocals, pristine audio. Of course the shots of the natives working, the nets, ponds, everything great. Not sure how much color treatment you applied but it seems a little desaturated rather than lush or tropical.

I actually think (given the time constraints on this) that I did no color correction in post at all. I pretty much set up a look in the camera, and used that straight out of the box. I'm not happy with vimeo at the moment though; all of my videos look soft and washed out - but not so with the original files.

Also maybe a lower thirds title for this guy, or maybe even to explain BEL.

Yeah, thats a bit of a problem (not knowing who BEL is). I think that most of the people watching these videos will be coming through the Dam Relief page, so it might be negated from that angle a bit. I was going to do a Lower Thirds for him, but it seemed redundant when I had him introduce himself on camera.

Would love to have seen some of the actual fish. Maybe some insert shots like close up of hands on nets, or hands feeding fish, etc.

I think there were a few at the end. The thing is that all of those fish were too small to sell in the market, so they just kind of put on a demonstration for me. But all of those fish were put back in the water before they got hurt, they were only out for a very short time. Slippery things too!

Also would have preferred more of the natives shown, with his audio as a voice over, instead of featuring him so predominantly. He's not that photogenic, nor does he appear very happy.

Oooohhh - you Bitch! :ohmy: I have to say though, normally before I interview someone I coach them a bit (and with my own projects we usually have met a few times before filming and will have done a few informal interviews without a camera). With this project I think we filmed something like 20 individual little stories in the space of 3 days. It was very hectic. Basically we drove from location to location, jumped out of the car at a place we've never been to before, set up, grab the person to interview (and shake their hand and say hi), do it, jump back in the car and lean out the window shouting 'thanks!' as we zoom off to the next location. It was very hectic. So basically, Michael didn't necessarily know that we were coming, we'd never talked to the guy, and knew nothing about the project. Nothing was preprepared, and within a minute or two of us arriving we had him out in the sun doing the interview. Under the circumstances I think he did a good job. But if we'd had more time it would have been better.

I have a lot of respect for guys like him too, they live out there in the middle of nowhere, genuinely volunteering to help people make a better life for themselves.

But the biggest advantage of this technique would be that you could cut out every time he says "Ummm..." (after every phrase). We just started a college style drinking game where you take a swallow every time he says Ummm. Now 90% of my team are raging alcoholics.

I had actually thought about cutting out some of the pauses, but in the end I left them in because thats who he is, and thats how many people talk under pressure. Documentary footage, Trix, thats the way I roll; warts-and-all!


But yeah, I probably could have cut out a number of the off-screen ones...being lazy here.... :whistle:

Hmm... yellow. I love it! Never even considered using yellow here, it looks great.

If I start critiquing people's videos with the negatives in red, they'll probably never come back...

Thanks for being a good sport, Simon. I'm looking forward to seeing the rest of your vids later today or tomorrow. Despite the time constraints, yours are consistently quality films.

On to Video 2

The music adds so much here. Plus you've got some amazing shots, opening shot of table & river, the 360 time lapse around the boat is great, as is the heightened vibrancy in the colors, not only the filters you added on the shots of the rapids, but the golden sun over the boat at the end & his bright shirt. Though I'm not overjoyed with the downwards angle we have on him, especially the first shot. A couple of shots onboard are a bit dark, & when he's talking about the sunset & we're on top deck, it would be lovely to have that golden magic hour light on those tourist's faces. Even if we have to fake it. Enjoyed this one more than the first, I think it conveyed your message of adapting & moving on & prospering after the dam in a more accessible way.

Yes, this tends to be the favorite of the current crop of the short Dam Reliefs I've done; its the 'crowd-pleaser'...

Trance, beers, chicks, speed-boats - whats not to like?! I have to say the rest are all a little bit more boring in comparison, so its all downhill from here....

Anyway, the timelapse was actually just video I speeded up - normally not something I would do but I felt I could getaway with it as it matched the music.

The retro looking frame filters are from Skippor plug-ins - very cool little company that makes very cool (and inexpensive) plug-ins. I bought that plug-in specifically for that scene, but I hope to have an excuse to use it more. The footage from thats scene (the rafting /kayaking scene) was footage I had shot about 3 years ago when the rapids were still there. I managed to find the old HDV tape they were on and imported it into the project. Its very cool to find old footage that has relevance to a new project. Those rapids are now gone, and in fact the sunset cruise takes place over them (now its a calm lake).

Other than that, the only other bit of grading I did was the very end scene with boat (I made it more golden colored, and added a light leak over it). The rest of the scenes were as they were from the camera. Incidentally, that last scene was actually the same footage from the beginning 'timelapse'.

The lack of any sunset was one of those things; it went down behind the clouds and there was nothing to see. I didn't go back on the boat so there was no second chance (at least it didn't rain!). I actually bought the Pixel Film plug-in ProLumetric to help create some sunlight effects for this reason; but unfortunately the plug-in did not work with the 10.0.5 version of FCPX that I was running, so I just had to make do.

Yeah, the angle of the interview was of a bit off - I was handholding (standing) and he was sitting down. The sun was fierce that day and we were all uncomfortable (you can see he's really sweating by the end) - and the back of my legs and neck were toasting out there. Basically, I just wasn't paying attention to the framing as much as I should have been.

Some of the shots are very dark; but you know what, I'm kind of in love with silhouettes at the moment, and I seem to be seeking them out everywhere I go with a camera these days. On the equator the sun is so all encompassing, and everything is so bright and colorful, so when I find these shots that mix the bright and dark I have to get them to mix it up a bit. (My favorite shot in 'Boda2' is the shot where the tourists are walking into the torture chambers silhouetted against the small rectangle of light, and likewise my favorite shot in 'The Source' was when the kayaker was silhouetted against the raging river and plotting his route.)

Its interesting for me to see that you find them too dark; the thing is I had so many bright interior shots that I passed on when editing!

This was a fun little edit. Originally I was going to use some traditional African drum music, but I couldn't get anything to click. In the end I found that Trance number, and everything fell into place for me.

ahhhh so that how the experts do it, awesome stuff

Haha, well that how I do it, but I don't consider myself any kind of expert! Its all just opinion at the end of the day, and there no real right or wrong way to go about anything. Thats the beauty of editing; hand 5 editors the same footage and the same outline, and you'll get five different films...

Silhouettes are great, I love them, & there was one definite silhouette in Video 2, but the scenes that weren't quite silhouettes were the ones I though a tad dark. There's one in particular where I see the bright sun out back & we're inside the boat, there's really too much boat for a clean silhouette of much, & it's not really dark enough to be a clean silhouette, somewhere in the middle of light & dark a kind of silhouette limbo.

I'll occasionally use the term TimeLapse to describe any section that's been sped up to fit more time into less time, or my other favorite, SlowMotion. Just seems a little less unwieldy than SeedRamping & clarifies the direction of the ramp.

The golden shot looks beautiful, hadn't realized you'd added a flare, overlooked perhaps as I was watching on a small screen so... perhaps some of the darkness was crunched down a bit in the earlier scenes.

All fans of silhouettes are in good company, Spielberg's lensman loves them ( Janusz Kaminski ).

Video 3

Wow, Simon, now that's film making!

This is my favorite in the series so far. Here's why; you've taken the client's mission & fleshed it out. By that I mean, you've transformed a corporate interest into a down to earth instantly relatable human experience. Masterfully done. That the lives of her family have been so dramatically transformed for the better by this form of progress is very moving. The beauty of her simple story almost made me weep. In the West, we could never think of a cow in such an endearing way, yet this message is cross-cultural, it's universal. Fading out with her lovingly appreciating the cow was perfect.

Perhaps she was a bit shy at first, looking off to the side wasn't as engaging. Some of the subtitles were slightly camouflaged by the colors they overlayed, there are some subs with borders which might help in similar instances.

Loved your insert shots here too.

Really great piece. Thanks

TrixTrax9000

Wow, Simon, now that's film making!

This is my favorite in the series so far. Here's why; you've taken the client's mission & fleshed it out. By that I mean, you've transformed a corporate interest into a down to earth instantly relatable human experience. Masterfully done. That the lives of her family have been so dramatically transformed for the better by this form of progress is very moving. The beauty of her simple story almost made me weep. In the West, we could never think of a cow in such an endearing way, yet this message is cross-cultural, it's universal. Fading out with her lovingly appreciating the cow was perfect.

Perhaps she was a bit shy at first, looking off to the side wasn't as engaging. Some of the subtitles were slightly camouflaged by the colors they overlayed, there are some subs with borders which might help in similar instances.

Loved your insert shots here too.

Really great piece. Thanks

Thanks Trix! Glad you liked it; this one is the one thats most overlooked (as people are often turned off by subtitles).

I'm always amazed that you pick up on subtle nuances in your critiques; you have a good eye for detail.

The reason I say this is that we did get some corporate sponsorship for part of this project, and so we were involved in a couple of PR exercises for a few of the stories (although the sponsors were totally hands off, and told us we could interview who we want and present their stories in a truthful way without any 'spin'). In fairness to we found very little negativity with the people we interviewed and overall people seemed happy with the outcomes. So yeah, PR can be boring, so we tried to focus on personal stories.

We actually filmed Mama Hamida twice. The first interview (where she seems shy) was by the side of the hut, and we were focusing on the tangible things she had received from BEL after being relocated (she got new land, animals, and most importantly education in various courses of their choosing (she got veterinary training). However the interview was awkward because she did not really speak English, only her native Lusoga, and my audio engineer (Shantos) only spoke Luganda (its a similar language so he was able to understand most of it and vice-versa). So I would ask the question to Shantos, he would relay the question to her, and once she finished he would translate the response to me, and I would ask the next question until I got all the info I thought we needed. Thats why she is looking off to the distance (she was talking to Shantos - when we were originally standing close together she kept looking at each of us back and forth and it looked to odd on camera). So we focussed on the story we originally came for; which was the tangible benefits she received from the project. When we finished the interview I quickly got some cutaway shots around the farm, while Shantos talked to Mama Hamida, and then we bust on to the next location and interview. In the car driving to the next location Shantos mentioned to me that she had said to him, offhandedly, that the cow had put her daughter through school.

I kind of ruminated (haha) on that thought that night, and then we arranged to meet her on the last day to quickly talk to her about the cow. The second interview is the one where she is leaning against the fence, and we just focussed on the cow Sahara (which was certainly not he original intention of interviewing her), and so the human interest story emerged from that, and we ended of focussing on the cow story.

So the point being that you have to keep your eyes and ears open to the possibility that the real story is behind the task at hand, and be willing to just throw the 'script' out the window and change it.

Ahh.. nice save. You see, Simon, you have the bug too. You couldn't let it rest, you had to go back & finish it properly, to do the story justice. I love it.

When I mentioned the cutaways, there is a shot that is so beautiful, of the girl smiling in the doorway. I've seen that kind of smile while traveling in 3rd world countries. People dirt poor, yet wonderfully joyous, while Western millionaires have furrowed brows & ulcers from bilious animosity.

And there she is framed perfectly by reddish walls on either side... which appear to be of mud, what a marvelous texture. Lovely shot.

When I have time I might watch this one again. It's understandable what you say about subtitles, people are lazy to read, & also we want to be able to look at the faces as they speak. Every now & again I see a set of subtitles that are more readable, they're usually a point or 2 larger & have a border of some color. I keep meaning to make a note or take a snap to remember the formatting, but haven't had the direct need.

As an afterthought... if you had the time, desire & resources (which would include an emotive female voice), you could 86 the titles & after a second of so of Mama Hamida talking you could drop her levels a notch & drop in a voiceover. The best voice would be an African woman with great English a slight ethnic accent & a powerful acting instrument. Then, you'd have some real heart touching stuff here.

I guess, next I'm up for Video 4 - these dam videos! hehe...

Yeah, that technique of having a voiceover translate what the person is saying seems to be very popular with news stories and certain documentaries. It would certainly help keep the persons focus on the screen so they can still watch the visuals. I might experiment with that next time around.

Video 4 The Nile Star

Earlier you used the word "boring" to describe these, or perhaps how others had in relation to the favorite one with the music. I'm not sure I would use that word, but I feel this film fails to engage the viewer properly or deliver its message effectively. It's a great message; the dam which many protested against, has serendipitously opened up a wonderful new avenue of enterprise by suddenly revealing these previously undiscovered caves. The allure of the caves provides a livelihood for these people. Yet somehow, that succinct message is kind of lost or somewhat suppressed.

Maybe our first obstacle is this young man's cadence & pronunciation, there's a kind of slow ambling style to his patois. Yes it's nice to see him talking, but with this vocal track I think if we used him as a voice over instead of synced to the visuals we could have more freedom to work with it. This leeway could facilitate slowing & speeding certain sections, bringing up volume on dropped words, excising some all together (like the multitude of superfluous "like's"). This fine tuning might go a long way in making this more relatable. The video's slow pace might also benefit from some background music. The shots from outside the fringe boat canopy work well, but our first time shooting out from under it, the blurred fringe intruding briefly into the top of the frame is a distraction. Earlier you'd mentioned you hadn't much time for colorizing, that could have been a benefit here too.

It's certainly interesting to meet all these characters in your films, Simon. Also a kind of philosophical exercise to ruminate on the various different blessings that came to the people of this region thru the dam building event. Almost like the overused Chinese axiom that inside their word for calamity is contained the word opportunity.

Hi Trix,
Yes this one (and the next one 'The Bujagali Tree Project) are the least effective ones (though the next one has a straightforward message, but its not too engaging).

Frankly this one was very rushed, and we had rented the boat to get from point A to point B, and they mentioned the caves, so I got them to divert and we set up the film on the fly. But in reality, the cave is a bit of an anticlimax, its quite small so you cant go in very deep, and there is a large cobra living in there (it feeds on the bats) so people are reticent to spend too much time inside.

The guide is not really a guide in a traditional sense of the word, but I did want to capture some of the grass-roots level of entrepreneurship that the guys have to try and make a buck by whatever means available.

So I kind of tried to have a lot of very shallow DOF shots in the boat to pad it out a bit, and had to put in the title card in the beginning to have it make some sense (I generally try to never have any narration (other than VO from interviews) or tittle cards in my movies, but I had to make an exception for this one and the next one.

I had tried to find a tune for this film, but couldn't get one to fit, so I had to abandon it after the time ran out. The next one has music that works fairly well though.

Interesting extra details about the bat eating cobra.

I'll see the next one now... thanks

Video 5 Planting Trees

This film is very enjoyable, lots of lush vegetation, the colors are rich & full, the music is perfect, & we have an abundance of action. Even the men sitting talking on the chairs works well. The shot as they all walk past the camera is interesting. African people often wear colorful clothes, unlike a lot of Westerners who can dress in drab grays. The shots of them working, or hands in the soil, all beautiful. Lovely little pig just sitting there too. Or the woman walking by to go work, yet carrying a little baby, delightful. Different logo at the end, with yellow & red, or perhaps just the first time I noticed it. Reminiscent of the Kodak logo.

Wouldn't mind Alex4D's effect of the very slow almost imperceptible zoom applied to the static shots. Still have to concentrate to understand all they're saying, the first guy, not Moses, the one with 2 minute name, about 30% of what he says I miss, but I get the gist of it. Same with the Chairman fellow riverside. Still I enjoy the ethnicity of it all, they're endearing people. The music here is so apropos. If you had similar indigenous sounding audio for the other vids I think they would fly. It can't be too hard to fake that kind of music in GarageBand, just import an aboriginal instrument pack.

Great stuff, Simon, thanks for sharing.

Thanks for watching them all Trix; tough work that!

Yeah the music worked well enough in this one, but I just couldn't get anything to fit on the others.

I will have to investigate the Aboriginal instrument pack for Garage Band - though hopefully this year they'll bring out Logic X (its been a long wait)!

I most likely wont be filming anything for a good while now; I will be taking a bit of a hiatus to focus on photography, though I still have a lot of editing ahead of me with the Dam Relief Project.

When, may I ask, will we be seeing something from you? How is your DSLR working out (it was a T3i or T4i wasn't it)?

Yes, it was a T3i & after shooting a bit of test footage I wasn't that impressed by the image quality. Will probably need to go the prime lens route. Would also be interested in a full frame camera, I was hoping the BlackMagic new release would have been that within the pocket model. Alas.

So I haven't even opened FCPX in months, haven't had time. Though I hope to share something one day, I've just been too busy with other projects.

Well, definitely look at the Rokinon/Samyang 35mm Cine-Prime lens. That lens and the APS sized sensor is a very good match; its a wide lens and a fast lens, and also most surprisingly an affordable lens (an unusual combination in this price range).

Throw in a variable ND filter and a simple LCD loupe, and you have a killer combination for most tasks.