Day one Dhaka

Maybe Jennifer should plan….more?…..nah

The symbol of Bangladesh…something
that will eat me…Great! (Photo: Jlewis)

I land…and  as per my usual ... I didn't quite think through my plans. Um address? where I am going? A phone number? Nope. And no driver in sight. Great Jennifer!

What to do?…Sit down. Yep…when all goes to shit…sit the f down. I mean…..at least you save energy. Right?

Guess what else is everywhere here? TIGERS! YES! Everywhere! On everything. A near constant reminder. So I sit….amongst the tigers.

Finally someone shows. Problem was…strike just ended. And EVERYONE needs to get onto the roads. So the roads become one big gridlock. To travel the 12 km to house of people I will follow next takes about 3 hours.

What does a bus look like after being pounded by cricket bats during a strike in Bangladesh?
Almost like country kitsch? (Photo: JLewis)

Get to work!

I get to the house. The next group I am following all work for a dolphin conservation group in Bangladesh. Here in Dhaka, a husband/wife team help to run the main offices of this group, and the offices are located in their home.

Elisabeth is in charge of educational outreach and Rubaiyat is in charge of research. In addition they have two young assistants who also work full time for them. Farhana helps with outreach and Masudur helps with accounting.

I thought it would be really interesting to see the perspective of this type of work from a family who were all involved.

I am exhausted …thanks to my first Asian wedding…..but realize I need to get started. So I immediately start filming them.

What have I learned? …about film….stuff

Home in Dhaka, Bangladesh (Photo: JLewis)

Filming positives here. The lighting in their home is off the chart beautiful. Many large open windows with sun spilling in. Even though we are in the center of the city and surrounded by other tall buildings. They also own the roof! So we have easy access to some outdoor filming, which was good because they spend most time working at their home. I think I have a love of natural lighting (except for bad sky…..when it is bad…but I am figuring it out….slowly). 

AA are the enemy
(Photo: JLewis)

Filming issues so far…..biggest is batteries in the audio recorder. Re-chargables DO NOT LAST WORTH POOP. Good for the earth….bad for the film maker. Sorry earth. Because I am in charge of everything…..I had a few instances here in Dhaka where the darn thing had stopped and I did not know it during interviews. This was a negative of doing this solo. You are responsible for EVERYTHING. I also learned that no one ever says it as well the second time. Energy lost….moment lost. Is a big bummer.

Another issue here with audio is background noise. Here the home is about a block from the train tracks….So we have to stop and pause many times during interviews. Part of the game I suppose.

I have also learned that chairs with wheels are your enemy when interviewing. Means the subject can move in and out of focus. And they will……constantly. 

My other issue is figuring out how the hell to compress the clips I have so I

Frenemy! (Photo: JLewis)

can send them to folks to get feedback while I am underway. Turns out this is not a simple process with FCPX. It is actually on the border of what I could call….horrific. And I spent way to many eves around 2am trying super hard to figure it all out. OMG. HATE YOU FCPX for making that so awful! I HATE YOU!