Recently the Binger Filmlab based in Amsterdam started a new Doclab. A 18 month period where filmmakers from around the world are invited to develop their projects in the Lab. The 18 month period is aimed at development, production an post production for feature length documentary film.

I am happy to be in this group of eight wonderful filmmakers. People fly in from New Zealand, Mexico, The USA, Canada, India and Belgium so I feel privileged to participate. The first ten days are behind us now and I love the projects and the people. During the workshop we worked with Jennifer Fox and John Appel. Binger is an eye opener for me, what a great place to develop!

The project is a two month shooting period in east Africa, during this time we will be visiting five countries; Tanzania, Rwanda, Uganda, Kenya and Malawi. We will be making 13 episodes for Dutch television about Dutch traders, aid workers and foundations in these countries fulfilling an important economic and social role. Each broadcast we will portrait one of these businesses through the eyes of our reporter Leon van der Zanden. It is a road movie where the crew plays a major role during this trip. The program is made possible to date by COS Brabant, Cordaid, Liliane Fund and Mundial Productions.

My responsibilities are twofold,  I am the director and cameraman, so I am preparing on a contextual and technical level. Since this is blog is mainly about production gear  I will give you a rundown on what we are packing and how we plan to use it. It’s quite a challenge to be packing a very minimal kit since we will be doing a lot of travel.

At first i was planning to shoot on the P+S Technik mini35c but after giving it some thought I figured it would be the wrong tool for the job, it’s fragile compared to a broadcast lens and it would be a lot of work pulling focus myself on the run and gun style job. So I was stuck with the kit lens provided with the HPX300. A Th17x5BRM made by Fujinon, an ok lens but it won’t win you any prizes… The main problem with this lens is the angle and MOD being 5mm and 0.9 metres. So shooting in a car is no option.  I decided to by  a Th13x3.5BRMU, this lens has an angle of 3.5mm and the MOD is 0.4 metres. This seems like the proper lens for the job more in this post.

Having a good P2 workflow is crucial, so I have done a lot of research in this area and came up with the following workflow. We will be shooting on 4 32GB P2 cards, providing us with 2 days worth of shooting. These cards will be backed up on two G-tech mini drives via a Macbook Pro running Shotput Pro. After both disk are full one will stay with the production team and the other will be sent to the broadcaster in The Netherlands.  After some calculating and guesswork I decided to bring a whopping 10 500GB drives with me.

Here is a list of gear that I will be hauling around Africa for two months;

If you have any suggestions about this kit or the workflow please feel free to let me know.

It was hard work with temperatures reaching 40 celcius but we enjoyed it very much. It was the first challenged production I have ever shot on the Sony EX1. I used two Lacie rugged disks to copy / backup the footage, and a HP netbook to do the copying. The camera does get very hot in these conditions but never gave any problems.

Here is a small clip for you to check out while we finish the editing. Meanwhile check out the gallery.