Gabriel Blogs

I’m Gabriel. I am the videographer. It’s an interesting job because I’m not really here as a teacher, I’m more of an observer. I spend my time getting the footage of all the interesting and mundane things that go on and then to edit it into a short video that tells the story of what happened. So I tend to be more in the background, and focus more on the relationships and interactions that develop between others rather than having them myself.

It’s a pleasure to watch Erik and Andy teach this workshop, they’re a well-oiled machine and they find many ways to make it fun, like in the middle of a series of complicated computer instructions, when they want to know if everyone’s got it, instead of saying raise your hands if you’re done, it’s “make a muscle” or “make a piece sign” or “do the wave.” Little things.

So today was day two, and the story is still unfolding. Yesterday was all about excitement, lots of new faces and toys, at certain points nearly every girl had a camera and had it trained at someone else and you’d look out a see a mini sea of smiling faces giggling, performing for the camera, or watching the instant playback, or shooting that, it became like a fun house mirror at times, constantly reflecting back on itself.

Today the main event was when we began recording the narratives the girls had written. Some of them were really amazing. One girl began crying and had to stop when she tried to describe how she felt about having been raped, seven times. It was one of those difficult moments, when it’s very painful and uncomfortable, yet because the camera is rolling it’s also a golden moment for the film, effectively telling the story of the pain and suffering that is so common here, and yet at the same time letting the person suffer, alone, the rest of us behind the camera, watching. It actually only lasted about one second before Mary Claire, one of the directors from Cape Town came in to comfort her.

For me the day went by quite quickly as I trained the camera on girl after girl, each telling her story. My main concerns were about the light, the sound, and the background (did we want the university as the background? The city skyline? Some trees? We settled on trees.) Erik directed, quickly and effectively.

As I write this, the footage is capturing to a computer and then we’ll split it all up and put it on the girls’ computers in the morning. That’s the moment I am looking forward to, watching them watching themselves. It’s then that their work really begins, as they enter the next stage of crafting their own stories.

G