Mali went on for an year and i think they produced 200+ episode.
Remember, when doing Mali i was just and Intern, and as soon as my internship was over i was done with that ‘production’ life and i wanted to move back to Journalism. As you know (well i don’t know if you know..) our media houses don’t really give you a chance if you are not a celebrity or command a good following of people either on social network or in real life, so i had none of the above and therefore stood no chance to ever make it on Kenyan TV or Radio.
I thought hmmmm, maybe i can do that ‘Art thing’ if i get a good platform, before i could even begin to think of where to start Dylan Llyod emailed me and told me he was visiting Kenya for another project and would really love me on board… and walaaaa the ‘art thingy’ was back in my life. Well before i did the happy dance i was super scared, i was now joining the project as a Props Master (i had no idea what the hell that was, or what was required of me) i promised myself that i could do it no matter what.
Shuga ‘Love Sex and Money’ was shooting its 2nd episode in the country, first i was a big fan of the 1st season, now am in the ‘Crew’ for the second one!! WHAAAT!! my mind was all over the place (yes with excitment but also with confusion on what to do, when and how)
So i was handed in six episodes of scripts, and my jaw dropped,
What in Christs name is this thing?
So, What am i supposed to do with it?
How am i supposed to shop all day ans see nice things with this thing?
They didn’t say that we were reading again lol (been played again yo!!)
Dylan, being the patient and understanding art director he is he taught m hoe to break down a script.
So what you do is read the many pages of story and for every part (they call it a scene) pick out the stuff that isn’t furniture, someones action when doing/lifting/moving something, see if that which is mentioned in the script is on available on set and take notes.
If it is available, then we don’t require it in the props, if it isn’t then it gets to the props list that the props master must buy.
OK Example:
Femi Walks in hiding a bouquet of roses and blind fold Dallah with one hand, she giggles and turn around holding her steamy cup of tea.
Dallah : What are you hiding there
Femi : Take a wild guess, and if you get it right its your
Dallah being the cheeky girl she is…
Dallah: Car keys….
……………………
Bla Bla Bla
So in this case the props you would write down are the Bouquet of flowers and the steamy cup of tea.
At first it was such a challenge, and i must admit i was giving up everyday, as the amount of pressure was too much and nobody really understood it was my first time, simply work needed to be done no matter the hours you sleep.
At some point, Dylan was so disappointed in me, or rather his patience was running out, i was just doing things wrong, being easily distracted by Actors and actresses who were my friends, not paying attention to detail, having all the wrong priorities in place, all i must say were awesome learning experiences.
We shoot six amazing episodes that were the most challenging production i think i have worked on. i remember asking Dylan if he was disappointed in me and he answered ‘VERY’.
I knew that was it lemmi wrap up this shoot and go back to trying to make it in media.
One of the producers on the show even approached me and told me ‘ you are just not cut out for this’ go open a fashion Blog or something’.
This made me want to prove them all wrong, but it was way beyond that, i was already in love with it, i was already dreaming it (remember i told you the dreams were coming).
So i wrapped up Shuga 2, not in good terms with my main mentor Dylan, or my then Art Assistant, i felt like crap, swore am done with this life and am done!
By this time i had made a really cool pal, she was just amazingly brilliant with her work. I had met her briefly when we were prepping Mali.
She had moved on to prep another show and we exchanged contacts.
And she called me a day after shuga wrap……. (am not sure if is where i write and the rest is history or not lol), but lets just say after this i have not loved anything as much as i love my job.
PS: This was one of the hardest shoots i did, not in terms of workload, but being under so much fire like every morning i woke up terrified to report to work.
Some comments i got made me want to be so good at what i do that i started doing my own research and reads just to perfect it. I’m not there yet but i will get there in due time.
I also got to admit it had the coolest bunch of actor and actresses, ohh funny thing i had auditioned to be Kipepeo 🙂
Watch the Episodes here:
