1st day of shooing in the can, I mean, hard drives...

It's 12:30am here and we wrapped up the first day of shooting. The biggest news is that we finished the day/night by buying prostitutes in downtown Monrovia. We first tried to talk to some of the girls about taking some time to speak about their lives on camera. That wasn't going to work, so we went inside an "establishment" to try and work out a deal. Remember I am traveling with equipment, one white guy (not white like me, family comes from India) and four Africans (one female). I was asked to put away my camera that was sitting on the table as it was making the other patrons nervous. We eventually went through a maze of hallways and rooms with two girls waiting. Once the room boss saw the group and equipment (two Africans and the two white guys) he started to freak out and kicked us out. We then went to an even shadier street with the girls and found a room there.

The interviews were nothing fancy. I made a crazy shotgun mic boom handle grip thingy out of spare red rock parts. Had a grip, long shotgun with the zoom H4N mounted on the grip so you could stand close, boom from underneath and watch the zoom recorder. Had one led light I used to back light the girls so you could not see their faces. Didn't look great but we recorded their stories of loosing parents at young ages and no work. Tough girls.

Will have more to say and try to upload pictures tomorrow. Out of time and I need to catch up on sleep and get this jet lag. Was starting to fall a sleep while interviewing a UN official in the afternoon. I did manage to stay awake when we interviewed the Liberian speaker of the house.

On a side not, ran into the personal bodyguard of Charles Taylor. Huge guy that has no future now, but he does want to tell his story. Was with Taylor from the beginning and now is looking for handouts.

Could be an interesting documentary film...