After a rather thorough analysis of their first efforts shooting video consistent to international broadcast news standards, I sent the JAMA Video team out again to give it another try. If you happen to view the clips from their initial effort, you will see a wide range of abilities in terms of managing light, creative shot selection and, most importantly, how long it took to actually shoot and edit the piece. Well, this time, they nailed it.

Just as on the first day of training, each member of the team was given an hour to shoot and an hour to edit. I didn't let them off easy though: I walked around reminding each person of how much time he had left to create that sense of time pressure and urgency that was missing from the first day of practical training. I am sure it must have been very annoying to have me barking "22 minutes ... 15 minutes ... 7 minutes to go!" But it definitely served its purpose.

On the first day, several of the reports featured varying qualities of exposure balance, and the ability to meet the basic requirement of 1 minute of video content produced within a two-hour period was a struggle. This time, they all delivered work that could easily run on CNN or any other major network. The color quality was even, length of each shot was consistent and they each did a nice job at deciding when to use the tripod and when to go handheld with the camera.

It is very encouraging to see the progress we have made over the past week. When we began this process, the team did not understand the simplicity and discipline that is required to shoot for news. After all, these guys have had quite a bit of experience working on dramatic television for programs like Rien que la Vérité but never before as a "one man band" who will be responsible for shooting events under considerably different time constraints.

Next, for the third and final phase of our training plan the team will be put to the test in a real world scenario. The U.S. embassy is holding a special event called the "Mark Twain Award" in celebration of a local Congolese author. The event will occur at one of the embassy's facilities here in Kinshasa and the guys will be tasked to shoot the award ceremony, edit the video down to 90 seconds and have it available by noon the following day for broadcast on local Congolese TV stations.

We have spent a considerable amount of time talking about the importance of pre-production planning so I will be watching carefully to see how many batteries they bring, what kinds of cables are packed, and if they have sufficient supplies for a three hour event all the way across town. We will post their work here at the end of the week. All in all, after the great job they did on their second assignment, I am very confident they will just fine with their next task.

We have less than a week before the JAMA Video Project embarks on its first client assignment at the U.S. embassy in Kinshasa, so it was important to get the team out with the cameras to see how they perform under a bit of pressure. The assignment today was to shoot a 1-minute package about the smallpower offices. They would be permitted 1 hour to shoot and 1 hour to edit their package.

Felix editing his segment

The key principles that they had to incorporate in their packages were:

• 80-90% of the shots MUST be on a tripod
• Use the "5 second" rule and take longer shots of each piece of video. (see previous post for what the "5 second rule is)
• Tell the viewer a story using the images they record. I should be able to understand what smallpower is just by watching the visuals.
• Demonstrate understanding of wide, establishing, close and cut-away shots.

Each segment is available to view and you will notice that they definitely achieved all of the above key principles, but also revealed that some other basic concepts of news-style videography do need some work. I encourage you to watch some of the clips and follow their progress.

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There's a traditional African folklore that goes something like this:

Content monkey sits eating fruit in tree.

To her surprise, she hears a plea for help from below and sees a menacing-looking snake. The snake explains that he needs the monkey's help to cross a nearby river, since all the rats on this side of the river are gone, and he's starving. The monkey has been warned of the calculating snake who tells this exact story, convinces a monkey to help him cross, and then eats the monkey.

The snake brushes off the monkey's story and shares a story that he's heard: about fearful monkeys who kill all the snakes, allowing the rat population to multiply, eat all the fruit the monkeys once ate, and all the monkeys starve.

The monkey hasn't heard this one but realizes that she has a lot to lose by not helping the snake. In the end, the monkey decides to take the risk and help the snake cross the river. The snake doesn't eat the monkey. The monkeys have lots of fruit on their side of the river. The rats, however, don't fare so well.

The illustrations above are part of a series of animatics created by Ian Greeb for a children's ESL show smallpower is currently in the process of developing. As with smallpower's previous work, the new project will allow the team to use a combination of traditional and new educational approaches (including the use of familiar stories like the one above) to teach English and to address issues related to HIV/AIDS. The show will be targeted towards secondary school-aged children and their parents.

We've already begun work on exploring this new territory with RQLV's quiet and imaginative Kabe, whose presence in Season One caused some controversy in the family as Mami and the kids feared that he may have contracted AIDS from his parents, who had recently died of the disease. Though Mami and the kids soon learn the truth about modes of contraction, Kabe continues to face harassment from kids at school who relentlessly bully him and spread rumors. With the help of Kokodikoko's storytelling skills, Kabe retreats into his own fantastical world and imagines how the monkey and snake story might very well have some lessons he can learn from.

You'll have to stay tuned to see how it all works out with Kabe! More worlds to come very soon!

In an attempt to be a little less opaque, and inspired by Matt Webb's efforts at Berg, we're going to start writing weekly updates of what we've been up to at smallpower.

Kinshasa has been baking hot since we returned in February, and whether it's caused by Chinese road machinery or new construction blocking the breeze, even a short walk to the corner store can be exhausting.

So it's a mixed blessing that we're in a production lull at the moment, while some bureaucratic red tape untangles. In the meantime, we've got plenty to keep us occupied. I (Tomas) spent most of the week working with my friend Dave in San Francisco on the redesign of smallpower.org, which went live on Tuesday. Otherwise I was occupied with coding a video game, which I'll talk about more as it matures.

Ben has been working hard on several fronts, unsnarling some of that afore-mentioned red tape, planning logistics for an upcoming documentary and live concert project, pitching new work, and keeping our donors happy. In the few hours left to him, he's doing post-production work on season two episodes.

Eric's doing an amazing job as our new CEO, working with Becky in London to get our work entered in competitions around the world, and with Mimi in South Africa to drum up media interest in what we're doing here. He's also making it possible for JAMA—the Congolese non-profit we produce our show with—to get work covering government and corporate media events while we're not in production. He wrote a 10-page training manual, started running workshops with the crew, wrote a brochure for potential clients and had it translated into french and chinese, and set JAMA up with email and a website. They've got two clients already. On top of all that, he's documenting the whole process on this blog.

Lara has been managing finances and the office here in Kinshasa, and working with Mette in San Francisco to keep our books in order. She's also been taking inventory of all our equipment, a long and arduous process. Nicole was helping with the inventory, writing for this blog, and getting all our footage in order, until she was struck ill mid-week. She's feeling much better now.

Finally, Ian and Kathryn are in San Francisco, eagerly waiting for production to start again so they can come join us here. And Owen is on leave in Los Angeles, working on a short film until fall.

No one disagrees that there is an untapped market in Kinshasa for professional video services. Where that market actually is, is something of a discussion. So when it comes to getting the word out about the JAMA Video Project (JVP), we will approach the usual suspects like the United Nations, the major Western embassies, and the big international corporations that have operations in the DRC. However, a new market that remains entirely untapped is the Chinese.

The JAMA Video Project brochure
The Chinese now have one of the largest diplomatic and corporate presences of any country currently operating in the DRC. Moreover, with the population of Chinese émigrés surging, their presence in Kinshasa and around the country is only going to grow. We want to target this emerging market (oh the irony of one emerging market within another). All of JVP's marketing materials will be available in Chinese and distributed at various Chinese restaurants around Kinshasa frequented by visiting business delegations, corporate leaders, and diplomats. No one is really sure if the Chinese market will surface, but it does feel like it could be a missed opportunity to not even try.