American Cinematographer - September 2016 - 87

Photos by Raoul Germain, Andy Sladek, Tedos Teffera and Wubete Takele, courtesy of Mango Productions, LLC.

From left: Melat, Emuye, Lemlem, Bekele, Sara, Manti and Mimi eye their competition.

at the idea of being the lone foreigner on
the production, and so I turned to my longtime first assistant, Andy Sladek, for help. I
knew Sladek could be trusted to not only
run the camera department, but to be a
second set of eyes for my aesthetic. The
expense was going to strain the budget, but
having someone in my corner helped my
confidence on a project that was being shot
so far beyond my comfort zone.
Our camera package consisted of
two Blackmagic Design Production Camera
4Ks with EF mounts; we kept one camera
dedicated to sticks and handheld, and the
other was rigged on a Glidecam X-10 stabilizer. Sladek provided his personal set of
Contax Zeiss primes for the production, and
I monitored the image with a Convergent
Design Odyssey7Q, which came in very
handy with its plethora of exposure tools.
After some testing and a discussion with
post, we decided to shoot 4K ProRes HQ to
save space. Quality hard drives are difficult
to come by in Ethiopia, and shooting raw
would have been prohibitively mediahungry.
I rated the camera at its native 800
ISO. In testing, I saw significant highlight loss
when the Blackmagic was rated at 400 or
200 ISO, and protecting the highlights was
a real concern in the hot African sun. We
had one character who wore a white head
scarf, and I was worried we would have
issues keeping it under control. I asked if we
could tea-stain it or use a different colored
scarf, but it was in keeping with her charac-

ter to have a brilliant-white headdress. Once
we brought in a small amount of fill,
though, protecting that highlight while
keeping detail in our actor's dark skin was
surprisingly not a problem for the camera.
Throughout our shoot, I was continually
pleased with the results the Blackmagic was
able to deliver.
The film industry in Ethiopia is still
emerging and, like the country itself, is finding its legs economically. There are only a
few film schools in the country of almost
100 million people. There are a number of
production companies, but the majority of
films in the local cinema have very little
production value. Uncontrolled ambient
light rules the set because there is simply no
equipment to work with; Ethiopia has no
motion-picture rental houses. DSLRs are the
main cameras being used due to their low
cost and ready availability. Nevertheless, in
recent years, some powerful films have
come out of Ethiopia. Ashenafi's own film
Guzo is noted as the country's first breakout
docudrama and laid the groundwork for
other story-rich films such as Miguel Llansó's
Crumbs and Yared Zeleke's Lamb. These
films are raising the bar for production value
and have gained a large audience both in
and out of the country.
For all that Ethiopia's film industry
lacks, it is rich in both heart and ingenuity.
Our local crew, the majority of which were
daily employees of Ashenafi's Mango
Productions, were the real stars of the shoot.
They worked tirelessly to keep each depart87

http://www.backstageweb.com

American Cinematographer - September 2016

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of American Cinematographer - September 2016