February 28, 2011 02:15PM EST

Sure-Footed Ponies: Great African Location Scout

ENTRY 7: The Great African Location Scout
February 25, 2011—Ramabanta, Lesotho
With preparations on track for a March 7 shoot, Andrew and crew are securing locations throughout the countryside.


           
I'm shaking hands with a villager. He wants to know where I come from, where I'm staying now, if I'd like to try his homemade sorghum beer, and why there are so many white people sitting in the shade of his peach tree. I show off with one of my few grammatically correct Sesotho phrases, then cordially state the reason for our visit, which is to see if we might use his home as a filming location.
            
This last week has been about storyboards, shotlists, and seven of us bouncing around Lesotho on a two-week location scout. We’ve been asking the Basotho people to participate in the film by allowing us to film the rondevals they live in, the cattle they tend to, the wrinkles on their faces—all the images from the pages of the script. It's also been a technical scout, as we're figuring out how much gear (lights, power cables, dolly track, etc.) we'll need in each location. The spirit of the crew is high, and the overall support remains steadfast wherever we go. I'm deeply grateful for the hospitality that this country continues to offer, and I hope this film will make them proud.
            
The "on the ground" pre-production TFK family that once consisted of only Cecil, TR, Papali, and me has now been joined by Director of Photography Carlos Carvalho and Production Designer Ockert Van Rooyen. We also have Meri Hyoki from Finland, by way of North Carolina. She's embraced the job of still photographer, horse wrangler, and occasional vegetarian chef. Her Jamaican rice and peas is a welcome break from the carnivorous fare of a regular Lesotho menu.
             


So… we're making good progress, with filming scheduled to finally begin on March 7. We have our cast, including our child actor Ntsane (the pizza party was a grand success), the many talented local Basotho actors, and the four professional actors coming from Johannesburg. These performers are Zenzo Ngqobe, Jerry Mofokeng, Nozipho Nkelemba, and Lillian Dube. Our cast is outstanding; I simply never imagined that we'd have such talent for this little film.

With the casting behind us, our days are packed with a multitude of missions, from Cecil meeting with the Lesotho ministry of tourism (to please provide us with 4-wheel drive vehicles), to Pieter locking down lenses and other production equipment from Johannesburg rental houses, to TR finalizing contracts with our actors, and to Papali and Meri securing approval from village chiefs in the areas where we'll film. This often involves them hiking a mile or two into the mountains to where the big man is felling straw for his home or building a stone corral for his livestock. Deals here are made with a handshake and our promise to thank people in the credits, in addition to a small payment.
            
As for me, I've been spending my waking hours tweaking the script, preparing the shot list, and working with Ockert to source props and wardrobe. Just today we found the shepherd outfit for Tau off the back of a herd boy we met on a bridge in Semonkong. He gave us his tattered old hat, sweater, and blanket in exchange for a new outfit we bought for him at that one-horse town's closest thing to JC Penney. I get the authentic Basotho getup, he gets Christmas come early. You might call this a win-win situation.
         

 
Another of the highlights of this week is that we found our hero horses, to be ridden by the leading actors in the section of the film that we shoot next month. One is a regal chestnut mare named Tina, and the other is scrappy little nag who carries the somewhat auspicious moniker Autumn Wind. Tina reminds me a bit of Kevin Costner's horse from Dances With Wolves, while the pony resembles a beat-up old Huffy dirt bike I had when I was 10. These are just the animals we were looking for; however, the job of bringing them to each shooting location is proving to be quite the logistical challenge. The problem comes back to the roads in Lesotho, which under normal circumstances are bad, but this season are purely abysmal due to El Nino's on time delivery of record-breaking rains in Lesotho. To transport the horses, we'll haul them in a trailer from Maseru until the pavement dissolves into the gaping and eroded goat track that we're now all too familiar with. Since it would be torture to have them stand in the trailer during this stretch, the horses will be unloaded and ridden the remaining 20 or so miles to Semonkong, with the truck and trailer full of grain, hay, and water bouncing along behind them. The hitch is that we have locations to use them at along the way, so each day our film team is leapfrogging the horse team, or rather they're leapfrogging us. My Producer/Assistant Director TR shakes his head while handing me a fresh printout of the latest shoot schedule, commenting, "I can't believe that we are scheduling this entire movie around the transport of a couple of friggin’ ponies." What can I say? We're making a Western. The horses rule the day.
           
The roads here have also wreaked havoc on my Kinski: the old truck is just limping along these days. It seems that every day we're finding some new malfunction. The CV joints sound like they are close to seizing, the gear box is cracked, and the tires are about as about aligned as the spine of Igor the hunchback. One mechanic gave me a repair quote that was about twice the cost of the vehicle's purchase price. Sigh. With a little grease and duct tape, we hope that he'll carry the day.


           
Vehicle troubles and the horse transport headaches aside, everything else is on track, and we're more or less staying right on budget. The next week consists of daily rehearsals and horseback riding lessons for the actors, more shot lists and storyboards for me and Carlos, and a producer to-do list that goes from here to Argentina for TR, Cecil, Pieter, and Terry (at least they sell Red Bull in this part of the world). Naturally, we wish we had one more week of pre-production, but no matter when we schedule it, we'll always feel like we need more time.

So a week from today, we'll travel that long road back to Semonkong and begin making the film. It's taken six years to get to this point, so it's rather surreal to me that the moment is finally here. Africa, please be kind.

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Want more Sure-Footed Ponies? Get caught up:

Sure-Footed Ponies: An Introduction
Sure-Footed Ponies: The Beginning
Sure-Footed Ponies: Return to Lesotho
Sure-Footed Ponies: Tortoise's Pace
Sure-Footed Ponies: Rain, Rain, Rising Rivers
Sure-Footed Ponies: Where There is no Sunscreen
Sure-Footed Ponies: Finding Our Tau