Rising from the Ashes – Notes from a Sound Mzungu

Last October, I was trolling for information on JW Sound regarding travel in Africa, specifically Rwanda. I had just become the sound department on the final leg of Rising From Ashes, a documentary about Team Rwanda, the country’s first cycling team. The editors of S&P were kind enough to ask me if I’d mind sharing my experience with their readers… so here’s my story.

Largely due to the genocide that occurred in 1994, misconceptions remain about what modern daily life is like in Rwanda. I certainly pictured it to be dangerous and unstable, with Rodan-sized mosquitoes and typhoid covering every surface. Getting over $300 of inoculations prior to leaving didn’t assuage my concerns, either. Thanks to folks online who were generous with their information, along with some general research, the veil of unease quickly lifted. It also helped to know that the director had been over there a few times already.

Rising From Ashes has been in the works for the last five years. It’s being produced by Greg Kwedar of Gratis 7 Media Group and directed by T.C. Johnstone. Sixty minutes of it is already complete. We were going over to finish it by filling in the cracks with additional b-roll, interviews, scenic’s, and attempting to cover four cycling races in Kigali, the capital of Rwanda. As an added bonus, we were actually making two films, as manufacturer Zacuto is creating a BTS piece called bts: a web series ~ The Journey Begins. We had two additional shooters who were responsible for producing and shooting the BTS.

Prior to leaving in November, I attended a couple of meetings with the director and producer to establish what their goals were and began assembling my rig with those objectives in mind. Left to my own devices I am occasionally guilty of over-thinking situations and have arrived at more than one knife fight with a bazooka. I am a long sufferer of diarrhea of the gear. I made it a goal to fit all essential items in a Pelican 1510, the largest airline-approved carry-on they make.

I went with my 302 as the mixer in a small Porta-Brace, along with an attached RM Multi. As this was a DSLR-based shoot, I was going to need a recorder. I chose not to bring my 788T; a decision I pondered quite a bit, and then decided it was going to be overkill and an unnecessary risk. I ended up finally pulling the trigger on a Zaxcom ZFR100 with the STA150 stereo adapter to be my primary recorder in the bag. I had been eyeing it for a while, as I’ve wanted to have a TC-friendly cart backup recorder, as well as something very portable for bag stuff. I also like the ability to jam it and then have it in a vehicle or on an actor who will end up out of range at some point. My biggest disappointment about the ZFR/STA150 combo is the inability to monitor the second audio channel via the STEREO adapter. Thinking it was defective, I phoned Zaxcom and they didn’t have a compelling reason for this, other than, “That’s just how it is”. That being said, I found the ZFR to be a great-sounding, very portable solution. Even though we are using non-TC-based cameras, I still wanted TOD-stamped files, so I jammed the ZFR100 daily with my iPhone, using an app called Jumpstart LTC. Micwise, I brought both of my trusty 416s with a softie and a zep, along with my little ENG pole which barely fit in my carry-on. I included a simple AT518 stereo mic with a ball gag/windjammer for quick ambience recordings. Lavs were Sanken Cos-11s and Countryman B6’s. On the wireless side, I opted to just use a 411 and 211 (blocks 26 and 25 respectively), with UM400 and UM200C transmitters. I included a camera hop consisting of two block 22 UM400s and an SRa5p receiver with the EXT plate. I brought a Zoom H2 recorder as a backup, and it wound up being one of the best decisions I made, more on that in a bit. I also toted a netbook for data management.

We had a van for the whole trip and a driver named Abdoul who was our secret weapon as he was a very knowledgeable resident of Kigali and spoke French, English and Kinyarwanda, the local dialect. We spent the first few days of the trip in a small town called Ruhengeri, in a lush rural district called Musanze. It’s about a ninety minute drive north from the capital. Agriculture is big there with lots of coffee and tea production. Everywhere you look there are these beautiful hills that are mostly tilled, which makes for a picturesque patchwork of red earth and green foliage. It rains pretty much every day there. Ruhengeri is where the team lives during training and the team’s coach Jock Boyer has a residence there. He was the first American to participate in the Tour de France.

Our assignments in Musanze included interviews and b-roll at the residences. As it was mostly a fast-paced DSLR shoot, we relied on voice slates, finger snaps and the onboard camera audio for sync purposes. I wasn’t wild about this, but the producers picked the format and were well aware of my thoughts on it. Plural Eyes hopefully to the rescue. I ginned up sound reports everyday with Wave Agent.

We started out shooting them training on hilly roads. This was accomplished with shooters on motorcycles using the 5Ds and 7Ds along with some helmet-mounted GoPros. We weren’t trying to do too much sound for the on-road training since there were always the cursed motorcycles in tow. Riding backwards on motorcycles and trying to film action is a fairly risky proposition, we were very fortunate to have no mishaps the entire time. One of the team’s support workers had a motorcycle accident during our stay and had to be stitched up by a vet.

Big on my list was capturing assorted ambiances in Musanze. Each part of the day has different feel to it. To capture the morning birds I had to get up at 4:30am twice since someone cruised off with the crew house key and we were locked inside until after sunup. There’s a remarkable variety of birds there, including some very vocal Ibis. One thing I hadn’t factored in was the attention one receives over there in the more rural areas. Walking around all blinged out I blended in about as well as Rick James at a Klan rally. We would get surrounded by curious passersby who wanted to ask questions or little kids seeking a quick buck. I quickly learned that in order to get my nat sound collected, I had to go into stealth mode. I rigged my H2 into a little tool pouch with its Windjammer on and would grab stuff while pretending to scribble in a little notepad.

Folks would soon lose interest and be on their way. This approach allowed me to acquire several things I wouldn’t have otherwise managed, including lots of market and neighborhood sounds and even a couple of church congregations singing. The lesson learned was that some usable sound, even if recorded with a prosumer-ish device, is better than no usable sound using the expensive stuff.

After our stint in Musanze, it was time to head back to Kigali, the capital of Rwanda. Kigali is a growing city that is modernizing rapidly. Our hotel was very new and despite the swanky facade, our DIT guy had many nightmares there as the power would just drop at random. He was having to wrangle large amounts of footage from various devices, supporting both the doc and the BTS we were doing.

We would continue to do interviews and b-roll in Kigali as well as cover four cycle races, at least one of which was an Olympic qualifying event. The Team Musanze riders were all fairly quiet, soft-spoken guys, very different from us loud-n-proud Yanks. We learned in Musanze that a less formal interview setup led to better content. This also meant we would be subject to many noisy environments, as there is always some sort of activity going on.

Covering the races, we again used shooters on the back of motorcycles and a camera or two at the start/finish. The director wanted audio from the chase car at the smaller races so I visored a lav for the driver who made lots of comments and also rigged a mic in the back seat to catch the mechanic. We had a BTS guy in the front seat so there wasn’t room for me. I put the Lectro receivers and the ZFR in a tray under the seat and just rolled it and split. I put the H2 in a wireless belt on the team’s coach who was on a motorcycle. I had a Countryman EMW wired for Sennheiser that worked just fine attached to the H2’s mic in. Even with the motorcycle noise you can still easily make out anything the coach yelled at the team, which is all we were hoping for.

The main race we wanted to cover consisted of 12 hilly, city laps that took approximately 20 minutes each. We would use about eight shooters on the ground and one up in a helicopter. I even had a GoPro on my spare boom pole at the start/finish. I again wired the coach with the H2 recorder. Instead of the chase car, the director wanted me to rig the race directors car this time. Again there was no room for me. Power was going to be a consideration, as the race was going to be over four hours from the point I actually started the recording. As we were only concerned about recording the driver, I wired two lavs and transmitters to the same visor. I asked one of the passengers to turn on the second transmitter about two hours in. I used a Lectro SR receiver with a AA battery pack I made and put Lithium AA’s in the ZFR. I had my boom and bag ready for the post-race stuff and was going to be doing a single channel boom hop to an HVX.

During the race I just ran around with the GoPro having fun trying to catch the passing peloton in different ways. After the race ended and we finished running around (literally) getting the last OTFs, it was time to see whether my car stuff succeeded. I was happy to see that both UM400s were still on and the ZFR was chugging along still. I was not so happy to notice the SR was no longer on.

Being in a hurry to clear the car, I had to just bite my tongue and cross my fingers until we got back to the hotel. Once there I was able to do the Zax convert and after what felt like an eternity I was rewarded with full coverage of the event. The battery pack must have conked out only a couple of minutes before I de-rigged the vehicle. Dinner was extra good that night.

I feel very fortunate to have been included in this project. Team Rwanda is a great metaphor for the rebuilding and reconciliation that is still occurring in Rwanda. The poverty in many areas is indeed severe but even the poorest folks were incredibly generous. It was a good message to bring home.

Visit RisingFromAshestheMovie.com to view the Rising From Ashes trailer and to keep current on the doc’s progress.

For those really interested, I made my own home movie of the trip here:
http://www.seanthesoundguy.com

Tags: Rising from the Ashes Rwanda Sean McCormick