I started a film and media production company in October 2011, and this month it makes ten years! I’m marking the moment with a series of blog posts on what worked for me, how I’ve kept up in a country that has no viable film market. This is the third article (you can read the first one here and the second one here) and I’m reflecting on why I offer free film training and mentorship to emerging filmmakers.
The first time anyone asked me to talk ‘teach’ (for lack of a better word) was soon after I made the shortlist for the Commonwealth Short Story Prize in 2013. That was a defining moment in my career. The system is set up to make us need some kind of recognition from our the ex-colonizers…. Anyway, when it happened for me, someone said; ‘Congs! You are now in the mix’ to mean I had made it, and so I was expected to give advice to others on how to make it too. I was hesitant, because then I was still trying to find my own footing.
I always say I’m self-taught, meaning, other than books by people like Judith Weston and tutorials I found online, I had no teacher in my formative period. I refined my film making skills at the Maisha Film Lab, where I met experienced Hollywood people, like Steve Cohen (RIP) who mentored me as I wrote The Felistas Fable, and this smoothed what I had learned on my own.
On learning and relearning the art of film making
When I was starting out, there was hardly any experienced filmmaker in Uganda, and the few who had made something practiced a lot of gate keeping. Most were willing to teach. I think they had the irrational fear that if they taught others, then they’d lose out on gigs. But I soon discovered that most had nothing to teach, anyway, for they came of age in theater and TV, and they dived into film without bothering to learn the fundamental rules. For example, multiple takes. In theater, you have only one chance to get it right. In film, you need several takes, and even when you are happy, you have a safety take for backup. This helps the actors performance and it saves you from technical nightmares in post-production, like sound interference, dropped frames in DV tapes, or boom in the shot. Above all, multiple takes ensure the director has better control of the story in post, with multiple cutting options. I thought they would have learned this, but nope, and so it was always a big fight with actors and crew who wanted only one take. A lot of fights over things that I assumed were basic principals of film making, and it made life on set very stressful.
Eventually, I started to do most things by myself. I learned how to shoot and not rely cinematographers who did not really understand photography. I learned to edit and not use editors who thought that their job only required proficiency in using Premier Pro. With time, I learned to pick my crew and cast carefully, identifying people who were keen on learning and relearning what they knew, and ignoring the headaches.
Read how: I Suffer to Entertain You
That, in brief, is why I started film training and mentorship. I needed people I could trust on set and I wanted my shoots to be so much easier. Today there are so many film training initiatives and film schools in Uganda, and the quality of the cast and crew has greatly improved. There’s also more online resources, with the internet being cheaper and more accessible than back in the day, making it easier to self-learn. Yet, it’s necessary to run a film training and mentorship based on my experience making films in Uganda. There are certain realities that a filmmaker in Uganda has to deal with if they are to create high quality films with the limited resources, and if they are to establish a profitable career, in some ways I feel it a duty to say yes to anyone who is eager to get into the industry.
Film training outside of Kampala
Since 2017, I’ve run a practical film training initiative in Gulu and Kabale districts, with support from Stitching DOEN. I call it the Mobile Film School, for it focuses on using encouraging participants to use readily available resources to create high quality films. How to Successfully Become a Full-time Artist
I first had the idea around 2012 when I visited Gulu with a friend. I met filmmakers based there, working under United Youth Entertainment, and I saw some of their films, and they reminded me of when I was living in Kamuli town, anxious to make films, but living so far away from Kampala that I was unable to network, unable to find people to collaborate with. Five years later, I made finally started a small support filmmakers who are based outside Kampala.
I’m building a film studio, and so I’ll finally have a place to call home. Then, it will be easier to give Kampala filmmakers the full course, but I’ll talk more about that in the next post.
What I’ve gained from teaching film
I got some really bad mentorship once, in 2012, when I was placed under some UK company called B3Media for mentorship so as to get a short film grant. Ah! They were such a pain. They micromanaged everything, and questioned every decision I made, nearly killing my confidence. They behaved as if it were 1950 and only those in the Colonizer’s Motherland knew it all, and the natives in the colonies were simpletons. The one that stuck to my head was them telling me to cut out wailing in a scene. ‘It’s melodramatic,’ they said. ‘Make the crying subtle.’ But the story was set in Uganda, where teenage girls wail when hurt. I tried to explain this, but nope, they had their ideas of acting and they wanted to force it down my throat. When I resisted, I lost the grant.
In retrospect, this perhaps inspired me to start film training initiatives in Uganda, because we have to tell stories from our perspectives, rather than follow rules that work only in other cultures. Especially with film, which is supposed to give an accurate visual representation of the place and people in which the story is set. When I formalized my role as a film trainer, I kept thinking of that horrible UK-centric advice and it encouraged me to respect my trainees, particularly to understand the cultural nuances in which the story is set so as to give appropriate advice.
Like one time in Gulu, as participants made a film under Mobile Film School, I saw an actress ‘dancing’ in a scene that was supposed to be a quarrel, so I asked, ‘Why is she dancing?’ and everyone chorused, ‘She’s not dancing!’ Ah, at that moment I realized I was missing something. Later, I learned that Acholi girls, when angry and aggressive, assume a certain posture and shake one leg that gives the impression of dancing.
Making art is an endless process of learning and unlearning, and teaching art has taught me to respect the opinion and input of other artists, especially in film which is a very collaborative process.
The kind of film training I love to give
I got some really bad mentorship once, in 2012, when I was placed under some UK company called B3Media for mentorship so as to get a short film grant. Ah! They were such a pain. They micromanaged everything, and questioned every decision I made, nearly killing my confidence. They behaved as if it were 1950 and only those in the Colonizer’s Motherland knew it all, and the natives in the colonies were simpletons. The one that stuck to my head was them telling me to cut out wailing in a scene. ‘It’s melodramatic,’ they said. ‘Make the crying subtle.’ But the story was set in Uganda, where teenage girls wail when hurt. I tried to explain this, but nope, they had their ideas of acting and they wanted to force it down my throat. When I resisted, I lost the grant.
In retrospect, this perhaps inspired me to start film training initiatives in Uganda, because we have to tell stories from our perspectives, rather than follow rules that work only in other cultures. Especially with film, which is supposed to give an accurate visual representation of the place and people in which the story is set. When I formalized my role as a film trainer, I kept thinking of that horrible UK-centric advice and it encouraged me to respect my trainees, particularly to understand the cultural nuances in which the story is set so as to give appropriate advice.
Like one time in Gulu, as participants made a film under Mobile Film School, I saw an actress ‘dancing’ in a scene that was supposed to be a quarrel, so I asked, ‘Why is she dancing?’ and everyone chorused, ‘She’s not dancing!’ Ah, at that moment I realized I was missing something. Later, I learned that Acholi girls, when angry and aggressive, assume a certain posture and shake one leg that gives the impression of dancing.
Making art is an endless process of learning and unlearning, and teaching art has taught me to respect the opinion and input of other artists, especially in film which is a very collaborative process.
Now that you are here, I have a small favor to ask. I regularly make science fiction short films and I’m looking for your support. It’s very difficult to make it as a filmmaker in Africa, where there is virtually no market to encourage big film investments, and so any dollar you can spare will go a long way into changing things. Please pledge on patreon.com/dilstories You only pay after I make the film, and you can stop payments at anytime. For other options, like donating via mobile money or PayPal, please go here dilmandila.com/donate
Great work. Keep going. Sky’s the limit