| The Making of 'God is African' |
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Extracts from the diary of a film maker GOD IS AFRICAN is Akin Omotoso's first feature film, shot on a budget of R60,000.00 over 24 days with cast, crew and equipment costs and payments deferred. GOD IS AFRICAN is a coming of age story set on a ficticious South African University in Johannesburg. 11th OCT 2000 7.20A.M Yesterday was Ken Saro-Wiwa's birthday. Yesterday was Peace's birthday. I don't know how Uncle Ken celebrated his with the big band in the sky but I do know that Peace seemed to have forgotten his birthday. With MCC serving us with an R18,000.00 bill for insurance and consumables-I forgot what year it was! They don't seem to buy the fact that we want to stagger the payment. Well after I spoke to Goran they can actually go and jump. Their position is: they helped us last year, so they feel justified in demanding money this year. Thanks a lot guys. I can only recall a few weeks ago when Tink was saying MCC should have a change of policy and start helping out local projects. Hah! When I arrived home last night I received a note from Aaron. No camera. It's in East London. We are going to have to shoot on DVCam and hope more for a broadcast deal. The music for the day is Bongo Maffin "IV", Keith Murray "Enigma", The "Shaft Soundtrack", DMX "..And Then There was X" and of course Craig David "Born To Do It". Just about to walk out the door, by the time I return something will be in the can. So much for music of the day! I had to drive Bernadet's car, so the only music for the day was the tapping of my fingers on the steering wheel. At 12 this afternoon we didn't have a camera. What we did have were lights-then I discovered that we didn't have a soundman so that means we'll have to drop a scene. At 12.15 after waiting an hour for the CEO of TVAfrica I was ushered into his office. I almost left in annoyance. I mean the meeting was scheduled for 11 and here I was at 12.15 going in. Hakeem had come and gone. We had argued again over the wardrobe but it's all good. The CEO, Lemmy took me through to a viewing room and called in two other guys-one of them was the founder of the company and the other was another heavyweight. They watched the promo. Half way through they offered to buy the worldwide rights. I guess waiting an hour wasn't so bad. A meeting will be scheduled soon. That was cool but we still had no camera. Word came through that MCC's bill had gone down to 6 something. That should be easier to swing. Goran was talking about tomorrow(for the camera) and I was like no way! Got to Magus and Paulos hooked us up! Relief! Now we can shoot! Rain fell, so we had to drop 2 scenes, plus Colin wasn't there. Raps and Sonia worked well together and on the whole the production pulled through as well. Save for a hiccup with transport, for a first day it was cool. 30TH OCTOBER 2000 It's been a while. I thought I could fill in the diary everyday! Hah! What with finishing at 4 a.m and having to be at work at 8 a.m-forget it! It's been an interesting couple of days. We have been shooting for 16 days. It has been tense. In the last couple of days Mpho was replaced with Dada and Gabriella with Dada. Gabriella's case was the most annoying. Her hair had to be done for the movie, but she got a job doing a corporate video or stage show and they wanted her to change it. Fine. Change it. It will cost us about R700 to do it again but hey. Then I hear from Shireen that she doesn't want to do it again because it took 10 hours the last time. Then Bruce (her agent) starts telling me that she can't get work (because of what we did to her hair) and I'm like pleeze-she just got the hair done. He then asked how much we were paying her and for the first time I felt like saying for fuck's sake it's not always about money! And how about some fucking support! Moon said to Essie, I am stupid for doing the film now. Gabi was replaced with Dada and quite frankly, Dada's brought a lot of stuff to the table including an impromtu rap at the end of one of the scenes. Things happen for a reason, especially since the first time I met Dada, I was just about to start writing the first draft of the script. Mpho's case was different. She ducked over to France. She told me she was going for a week. 2 weeks later no word-gats to recast. Dudu was brought in. Different quality but essentially something fresh. Everyone was pleased with her casting. The first night she(Dudu) came through, Selamatunzi was there and we did an interview. She was thrown into the spotlight immediately! Lemmy came on set and was impressed, he pledged to help and so far he has got someone to put in R100,000.00 in the new year and he'll try other alternatives. Everyone is pulling through in the right way. The Mannheim book arrived and we are in there! We are keeping our fingers crossed for the festival. Things are still a bit haphazard in relation to production-people arrive on set not knowing what scenes we are shooting. We have to try and tighten our production side. Themba has been a life saver. Moving equipment up and down in his combi-he's been great! The radio station graffiti is off the hook. Nuff said. The climax scene with Ade (Sami Sabiti), Femi (Hakeem kae Kazim) and Dada (the name was changed from River to Dada Kotyana-so she played herself!) was brilliant! Maynard, Aaron, Jerry, Jomo, Jomo (he had to hold down the polyboard graffiti when the scene was going on), Marius all came through. We had three cameras to shoot the scene. Lo and behold I agonized over this scene and in the end it was brilliant! I told Sami, Hakeem and Dada-they are my new best friends! Allenby Campus has given us grief. Elna was transferred and a new person came on. Nevermind that that campus was the one place I had locked down from September. I thought we'd get grief at the Student Village or the SABC-no. Those guys have been great! Allenby has been a pain. Bernae started complaining that the hours were bad an so on, and then there was the issue of security. Never mind the fact that I had explained that the hours won't be the best. I just said-fuck it-phoned Fikile and organised Metro-good thing I didn't cancel that contact. We had a bit of a problem with the equipment. I should have arranged a storage space for it with Cuthbert but I didn't, so Peace and Hassan had to sleep at the SABC! Then they had to move the equipment up to the top level and then they had to wait. By the time we arrived to shoot the next night-Hassan had been in the radio station for 24hrs! Other than that hiccup things have been relatively smooth. As I write this, our money has expired. We are waiting for a cheque to clear. David Jacobs, our executive producer (and I use the term loosely) hasn't pulled through with the 5 grand. Guess I am going to have to borrow it from somewhere! |
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