On Finding Fame and Fortune
1Monday 4 March 2013 by Renee
Ok Ok Ok. It's been a while. The start of 2013 has been a rather hectic one, so I must apologise. I now have rule of drafting one blog post or writing at least one email every night that I'm home, to keep on top of things. And that was going really well until this week when there was er, a case of consuming bad food. Or it may have been the public pool I swam in. Or some lovely combination of the two. Perhaps we'll never know....I should be happy that I've managed this long without such affliction....
ANYWAY...
We have so much to catch up on!
So I've been waiting a while to write about this one, but we had to wait for the er, final product to be ready. Also, since Kenya is going to the polls tomorrow, it seems appropriate for us to travel back to Ghana's elections in December last year. You may recall that there were issues with the biometric registration machines, which meant that voting had to be extended an additional day. Which meant another day for us to lay fairly low, moseying around in our compound, perhaps going for a walk down the street, you know, nothing too crazy. So there I was sitting on our balcony eating lunch, when a man I did not recognise came bouncing into our yard, yelling my name. And then I remembered....
Our house is owned and tended to by the same folk at the hotel across the road. The previous day, Prince, the hotel manager, had stopped us in the street to tell us that he had a musician friend who "needs some white people for his video clip" and was hoping we'd be up for the task. They were going to film in our compound. They needed a white lady in particular, and some other people as well. Prince is known for his tall stories so we giggled at the thought of being film stars in Ghana, said sure, we'll be in your mate's video clip, and headed on our way.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how Adam, and two of our housemates, and I, ended up starring in a Ghanaian music video clip. Within an hour or so, we had a film crew and a whole entourage in our backyard.
Needless to say filming just a four minute clip took a whole, long afternoon, including numerous takes, too many fits of inappropriate laughter, and since we're in Ghana, the car breaking down and needing to be pushed during filming of the car scene.
This guy had the right idea. If only I could have hidden in a pizza box.
Film and TV in Ghana is usually pretty low budget - if you're a professional actor, it's still just something you do on the weekend, say, when you're waiting for the voting to close. So in this instance, everyone had to chip in. Including Kofi the hotel security guard, starring as, the security guard, and Old Man Joe, the hotel caretaker, as the male lead. Who's relation to my character (love interest? father in-law? friend?) was never really made clear to me...
It was a long and tedious process, but how often do you get to star in a film clip? Finally, after the mandatory culmination in a dance scene, it was a wrap.
And now, all post-production editing has been finished, and the video is in our hands and tearing through youtube as we speak. So ladies and gentlemen, I present to you Nton Tom by Wallace.
Nton tom kika kika kika for those of you playing at home, means "the mosquito, it bites and bites" - sadly, for those of us who can't speak fluent Twi, we'll miss the subtle joke that the mosquito has bitten me somewhere, er, awkward...
ANYWAY...
We have so much to catch up on!
So I've been waiting a while to write about this one, but we had to wait for the er, final product to be ready. Also, since Kenya is going to the polls tomorrow, it seems appropriate for us to travel back to Ghana's elections in December last year. You may recall that there were issues with the biometric registration machines, which meant that voting had to be extended an additional day. Which meant another day for us to lay fairly low, moseying around in our compound, perhaps going for a walk down the street, you know, nothing too crazy. So there I was sitting on our balcony eating lunch, when a man I did not recognise came bouncing into our yard, yelling my name. And then I remembered....
Our house is owned and tended to by the same folk at the hotel across the road. The previous day, Prince, the hotel manager, had stopped us in the street to tell us that he had a musician friend who "needs some white people for his video clip" and was hoping we'd be up for the task. They were going to film in our compound. They needed a white lady in particular, and some other people as well. Prince is known for his tall stories so we giggled at the thought of being film stars in Ghana, said sure, we'll be in your mate's video clip, and headed on our way.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how Adam, and two of our housemates, and I, ended up starring in a Ghanaian music video clip. Within an hour or so, we had a film crew and a whole entourage in our backyard.
Now you may or may not know this about me, but I cannot act. Not even a little bit. I don't know how but for some reason I went through my entire schooling without a lesson in drama. So when I somehow became the female lead in the story I was faaaaairly apprehensive.
Needless to say filming just a four minute clip took a whole, long afternoon, including numerous takes, too many fits of inappropriate laughter, and since we're in Ghana, the car breaking down and needing to be pushed during filming of the car scene.
Film and TV in Ghana is usually pretty low budget - if you're a professional actor, it's still just something you do on the weekend, say, when you're waiting for the voting to close. So in this instance, everyone had to chip in. Including Kofi the hotel security guard, starring as, the security guard, and Old Man Joe, the hotel caretaker, as the male lead. Who's relation to my character (love interest? father in-law? friend?) was never really made clear to me...
It was a long and tedious process, but how often do you get to star in a film clip? Finally, after the mandatory culmination in a dance scene, it was a wrap.
Nton tom kika kika kika for those of you playing at home, means "the mosquito, it bites and bites" - sadly, for those of us who can't speak fluent Twi, we'll miss the subtle joke that the mosquito has bitten me somewhere, er, awkward...
What a great story Renee!
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