April 11, 2011 02:00PM EDT

Sure-Footed Ponies: Session One Picture Wrap

Tags: Sure-Footed Ponies  Andrew Mudge 

ENTRY 9: Session One Picture Wrap
April 11, 2011—Johannesburg, South Africa
Having survived salmonella, paranormal visitors and a crash at Ockie's Pass, the first half of the film is in the can. The second will be an entirely different beast to contend with.



We're on set, a grassy bluff looking across a creek to where we've constructed a small cemetery. Actors are rehearsed, camera and sound standing by—all set for take one. Suddenly the sun goes behind the clouds. We wait for fifty seconds until it comes back, then we roll camera. A nearby donkey brays over the dialogue. We set up for take two, but there's a camera glitch. Solved. We shoot take two, but one of the actors' blocking is off, so we prepare for take three. But now, one of the hero horses has move too close into frame, blocking the cemetery and background extras. Kefue the wrangler scrambles down the hill to pull it out of the way, and we finally get our first good take. I'd like one more "for safety," but the sun has gone back behind the clouds. Then, it starts to rain. Actors take cover, the grips pull out the lights. Take four is now thirty minutes away.



We have a favorite saying here on the set of TFK: "It's not the time that the takes take that takes the time, it's the time between the takes that takes the time." (Now say that fast three times.)

Incredibly, we have finished shooting the first part of the film, the summer season, which is actually the second part in the story. The footage looks beautiful, and somehow we all made it out alive, despite a mild case of salmonella that afflicted me and three other crew members, and our production designer's harrowing nose dive into a ditch, with only the trailer keeping him and the rented Toyota Hilux from rolling down the mountain (see photo, with said crew member assessing the damage). I regret that I don't have photos of the giant backhoe that came to the rescue. Unable to pull the vehicle out, the excited road crew elected to built a new road to pull the truck from the front. It was an operation that took about four hours, with an entire village lined up on the hillside to take in the entertainment. If you are ever bumping along between Ramabanta and Semonkong, be on the lookout for "Ockie's Pass."  As for the food poisoning, it knocked me out like never before, but fortunately it was on our day off, so we didn't lose any shooting time. A friend took me to the hospital where I put on my best Braveheart face as they injected antibiotics into my buttocks with a needle that must have been the width of a pencil. They could have least offered me a shot of whisky and a length of wood for me to bite on through my tears, but at least the next morning I was back to my old self.



For our last two weeks of shooting, the rains finally subsided (Hallelujah!). It happened pretty much all at once, as the locals had predicted, on the day after the full moon. That particular evening found the TFK crew deep in the mountains picking up a shot of actors Zenzo and Ntsane moving their horses through a flock of sheep. Meri was home sick (food poisoning, of course), so as the crew packed up the gear, I rode along with Kefue on the three mile moonlit search for our lodging. It was an exquisite journey, without hurry or any sort of trail to show us the route, just wending our way through fecund wheat fields swaying in the evening wind, with grasses reaching the height of my saddle, and an ethereal celestial light touching the ends of the straw, reminding me of bioluminesence you sometimes see in the breaks of ocean waves. It was the closest I've been to the sea in many months, and for about an hour I forgot all about the film I was making—which was actually a very good thing.



After leaving Semonkong we spent a week in Leribe, where we filmed more horseback scenes, and also a handful of interiors in homes we had chosen from the location scout. I'm endlessly amazed how much the Basotho people, particularly in the rural areas, are willing to cooperate. They do so without ego or ulterior motivations, simply from the joy of being a part of the film. As trite as this may sound, I've never met people who had so little possessions or money, yet had such capacity for happiness. Just the other day three workers at the filling station spontaneously broke into ebullient singing as they were checking oil and pumping gas. The man who took my petrol card bounced to the register then returned with a smile on his face like I'd just agreed to be best man at his wedding. I tipped him, then pulled away, only to watch him resume his jubilation with the next customer. I'm a bit surprised that the makers of Prozac aren't over here testing the public water supply. But of course Lesotho's happiness gene is not in the water. You'll have to come to see for yourself.



But I digress... Our accommodation in the area of Leribe was at an old Catholic mission. The sisters are as kind as can be, the meals are decent, and it's cheap! I adore this place, but several cast and crew members have independently approached the producers and myself testifying to the presence of ghosts (or not-so-nice spirits). This place was supposed to be my great find of 2011, but it's turning out more like the Bates Motel. I'm quite skeptical about all this super-natural business, and I'm going to fight the crew on this, since we have to shoot in Leribe this coming July and the mission is really our only affordable option in the area. If it means throwing down a couple of C-notes for a half-baked exorcism, then so be it.

From Leribe we spent two days at a remote herd boy shelter in Bokong Nature reserve, a spectacular location (and ironically the only place in all of Lesotho where we had to shoot around power lines). Our final "full crew" location was on the other side of the country, in a traditional hamlet just east of Mokhotlong. We chose that village as the set for our "village feast" scene, which would include singing, dancing, and the slaughtering of a lamb. We had approached the chief months before, and when we pulled up in our seven truck convoy, more or less the entire village came running down the mountain-side, the children and men clapping and the woman making the ubiquitous ululation cries of joy. A mob of kids helped us haul our film gear to the top of the hill and we shot out the feast, with young girls performing the traditional Litolobonya dancing and people getting plenty drunk on sorghum beer that made it onto our "set."



Our final destination was the great Sani pass, in the Drakensburg mountains, on the border of South Africa. It was another long haul on another dirt road worthy of a Land Rover advertisement, but fortunately we had cut our crew numbers way down, travelling only with a skeleton crew. The scene there we shot at dawn, in a chilly wind, what felt like the overture to this coming winter. After lunch most of our crew was heading over the pass, back to Joburg by way of KwaZulu-Natal. TR, Cecil, Zenzo and I drove the nine hours straight back to Maseru. I slept for most of that night and the next day.
With the first session behind us, we now begin the long road of pre-production for session two. We are finished with the horses, the burning rondevals, and distant locations at the terminuses of long, rutted roads. In the next session we'll be filming in the crowded taxi ranks of Maseru, as well as in the South Africa locations of Soweto and Hillbrow, the latter of which makes Times Square of 1986 seem... quaint. This next session will be an entirely different beast to contend with.

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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
Sure-Footed Ponies:  Great African Location Scout
Sure-Footed Ponies:  Cameras Rolling, Cue the Lightning