STORY 4.So I fungua lock with ART DEPARTMENT CAN KILL YOU. The scene I had written was for a posh boss riding his prado in a leafy suburb. A prado owner gladly allowed us to use his shiny prado free of charge, only that we had to hide the number plate. The art department guy fashioned a replica sticker to change the number plate, and the locations dude recced a nice leafy road in Upper Hill, then leafy since the concrete jungle hadnt been developed. Off we went, the arts dude said he had modified the plate, and the crew complete with a sony Z7 camera hopped in the car and rolled. Z7 was the hottest cam then for local production. Sawa. Take one, they drove round the leafy street. Then director calls take 2, and they repeat. At take 3, a crew boss with security background, notices 2 men in black suits by the roadside pretending to be reading newspapers, covering their faces but peeping. Take 4, and this dude says no, let us stop near the men in black and talk to them, something is fishy,his security instincts kicking in. So prado stops next to the men. As soon as our guy walks up to them, the men in black run. He calls out to them, they turn, whip out radios and pistols and shout rapidly at him. You know those shouts you cant finish hearing one word before the next comes but you know best thing to do is kneel, hands reaching for the skies? Those. In a flash, up the road, almost 30 red beret GSUs appear, in a neat line, like in Rambo movies, down the road, another huge batch of GSUs. It feels like you are acting in some hollywood film when you were just filming yours! This is how a sandwich ham feels,only now it is the crew between tens of assault rifles. To cut the long story short, 1: the prado with a camera pointing out was filming near the Israeli embassy. 2. The number plates on the car had been totally covered with a white paper. This was the main point of interogation. Yes, you are calling yourselves film makers. But why conceal number plates? What is your Al qaeda cell name etc etc. I forgot the replica plate at home explained the arts dude to the detained crew so I just covered the plates our security linked dude called all big bosses he knew, including Nairobi top cop who came and could not pacify the Israelis (the fact that our dude did not have a citizens ID and could only produce his service ID rattled the Israelis more. See, these are trained commandoes filming with a bad intent). The top cop could do nothing, as things quickly became Tel Aviv-Nairobi top discussions. The crew spent 3 days in a cell, i guess as Mossad screened their background from the day their great grandfathers were born and possibly looking for sperm specimens to analyse if there is a potential terrorist that crew might sire in 2050. It all ended well 3 days later. But one of the black newspaper reading men thanked our security trained dude. you did well to stop. We were waiting for that car to do another round because then we would have been sure it is a terrorist and the GSUs would have sieved it with bullets. The cops saved the show. Imagine if the episode aired with a car that has a papered out numberplate? Audiences would have killed us. Now of late, 90% of local shows dont have an art department. They think why hire a proffessional when si it is just putting props on set? The make up chic can do that after she finishes applying lipstick to the main lead. If they hire, they dont give budgets to arts to buy props and yell Improvise! Groan! That is why you see a drama where supposedly rich people drink champagne with regular water tumblers. Or a couple married for ten years in a neat living room where there is no single thing to personalise their house, heck not even a wedding photo framed on the wall. You wonder what is missing until when the character opens a door and you see a key with a huuuge brown wooden key holder with the number RM 69 carved in white and you realise they hired a hotel room but forgot the keyholder will kill the show. Or why lovers say let me take you to an expensive dinner and buy just one coke. Is this too much to ask for? Art department is not just putting props on set. Dont let me get started on production design. Art dept, seriously, can kill you,literally, and figuratively i.e kill your audience.
Posted on: Fri, 23 Jan 2015 08:00:01 +0000
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