BECA Travels: Production Teams and Their Projects

Production Teams and Their Projects

The group of ten students has been divided into two production groups.  The way we work, students request production roles for the spring class, and then re-request for the summer class.  Each group has a producer, a director, a camera person, an audio person, and an editor.  One person in each group is doing double duty as a writer – of treatments, scripts, and shot lists – and that person may also serve as the interviewer for the group.

Each of the two groups has a different project.  One group will focus on HardtHaven, the children’s home, with the goal of raising awareness internationally of what HardtHaven does.  This includes raising awareness about HIV and AIDS among adults and children in Ghana.  The other group is focused on United, the community organization that is the offshoot of HardtHaven, that is working on community organizing issues and health education. The goal of the video for United (Unifying Neighbors Through Education and Development) is to attract volunteers to the organization.

Both groups have begun work on their production.  This morning – probably too close to the middle of the day for comfort, given the heat of the sun - a group of us walked around Kpando to shoot B-roll (that video that placed over voiceovers and in between shots to give the video interest and depth).  It was market day in Kpando, so the main market streets were jammed with people.  We stopped in front of a girls’ school where children were outside playing, and we took lots of photos, as well as footage.  We shot quite a bit of interesting scenery to give a sense of Kpando. Enroute, a woman – clearly disturbed – stopped us and tried to put a curse on us.   At one point, a man – naked from the waist down to the pants hanging around his knees – followed us.  But the members of the group handled these situations well, and focused on the beautiful colors, the fruit stands, the stores of all kinds and with amazing combinations of goods for sale.

In general, the townspeople are friendly and welcoming, although we do create quite a spectacle walking through town.  The students have learned greetings in the Ewe language, spoken at home and among friends by people in this region.  At the same time, the formal language of Ghana is English, and almost everyone understands enough to communicate well.

This afternoon was the dress rehearsal for a play addressing environmental health, given by a teen group that is part of United.  Tomorrow, the teens will present the play at the school attended by one of the main characters. The United production group shot the rehearsal, and interviewed several of the teens about their feelings about their participation in the drama group.  Through their participation in the play, the drama club members become peer health educators.  This production touches on malaria and cholera prevention and the role of cleanliness in health.  The teens clearly seem proud of their work and enthusiastic about participating.  We got an extra treat while waiting for the teens to arrive at the rehearsal.  There are beautiful wooden drums at United, and several of the teens are quite good at playing them.  They played for nearly an hour as we waited for everyone to gather.  Then some of the BECA students tried to play. The sounds was different but the enthusiasm was the same.