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FEATURES IN PRODUCTION
INSPIRED BY A TRUE STORY, THE FIRST GRADER FOLLOWS THE FORTUNES OF AN ELDERLY MAU MAU VETERAN, MARUGE (NEWCOMER OLIVER LITONDO) WHO ENROLS IN A SMALL, REMOTE MOUNTAINTOP PRIMARY SCHOOL IN KENYA RUN BY AN IMAGINATIVE HEAD TEACHER (NAOMIE HARRIS). DIRECTEDBYJUSTINCHADWICK, THEFIRSTGRADER,
WRITTEN BY ANN PEACOCK, IS SHOT BY ROB HARDY. HE REPORTS...
Postcard fromKenya
At the production office in
Nairobi for Blue Sky Films, we “test the Aaton Penelope 2-perf camera. Jennie Paddon, my 1st AC,
has come up with two shooting modes for handheld work – one is what we call Film mode - the camera beingequippedwithalltheusual accoutrements – and the second is Kamikaze mode – the camera is stripped back to its bare essentials.
I focus myself using the barrel of the lens and hold it using nothing but the pistol grip. It makes the whole thing weigh the same as a Bolex. Hard to believe for a 35mm camera.
I will be using two new stocks from Fujifilm, the ETERNA Vivid 160T and the ETERNA Vivid 500T – rating the 160T at 100 for Daylight. The tests Rachel and Jerry from Fujifilm showed me looked amazing.
I am looking for something with a captured feel but without a
documentary palette. There is a fairytale quality to the story that I would like to bring out fully in all the photography.
By this I don’t mean fantasy but something much more subtle. I want to avoid the bright colourful high contrastlookthatfilmsmadein Africa tend to go for. I want it to feel softer, more elegant, almost ‘liquid’ in places.
I’m looking at the work of Jack Cardiff and photographers of the fifties’ era for inspiration. I like the sense that it can feel contemporary yet the world we create has a definite sense of identity. This isn’t social realism and by turns it is also notTheLastKingOfScotland. As with all the films I have shot, I intend to use only Tungsten light (I do not believe HMI for a minute). Dinos will
suffice but I would pre- fer to use Wendy lights as I believe they give a softer, fuller light. Elliot (Gaffer) has buried ca- bles in various places throughout the village andsurrounding the school, partly to keep them out of shot and partly to prevent them from being stolen, stripped down and sold back to us.
Our main location is Oloserian School in a village on the periph- ery of the Rift Valley. In this one horse town on the road to Mombasa, the school sits on a hilltop framed on one side by the Ngong hills and the other by the vast expanse of the valley, it’s like something out of a Sergio Leone movie. We are shooting for four weeks. The ‘set’ is effectively 360 degrees of the school and the
village it occupies, everywhere one turns is texture and life.
I intend to keep the depth of field very shallow (poor Jennie). By doing this I can make Maruge jump out of the landscape while, at the same time, the mountains and dramatic skieswillbecomepainterly.
At times I want it to feel like we have created huge scenic paintings and shot everything in a studio akin to the opening sequence of 2001 – A Space Odyssey, albeit with a
lot less money, time and
human manpower.
Tracker and The First Grader are currently both in post-production in London for theatrical release later this year.
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Photo top: Oliver Litondo, an Xpan shot by DP Rob Hardy and below Rob Hardy on location with friend
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