Shado Beni is Shado Beni

Did you know that Shadow Beni is a Patwa name? See? Some words of the language still exist today, and we don't even realize it. Anyway, our plan for Saturday (25 April, 2009) was to go to the market for 6:30 am; go to our school's open house from 10:00 am to noon; go to Santa Cruz to get b-roll footage and get some vox-pops if we can.

Well, we went to the market! It was nice! Got some other people who speak Patwa; a vox-pop; and some translations of items sold in the market (and the translations included shado beni haahaa).

We stayed on longer than expected at the open house, but we didn't mind. And at 5:00 pm-ish, we called it a day. And decided that on Sunday we would try to get the footage that we didn't shoot on Saturday.

On Sunday (26 April, 2009) we went to Santa Cruz to get the footage we wanted and intended to go to Paramin, but we met heavy bumper to bumper traffic that came from nowhere. We decided that we would do Paramin on another day, and instead, we got the b-roll footage we needed from around town, Woodbrook and the Botanical Gardens.

Forgot to Mention Other WIP

As a result of not blogging for some time, I forgot to mention the other aspects of the project that are a WIP (work in progress).

1. We were constantly calling NCC Channel 4 to get some archival footage. We were eventually told that we would have to try again after the summit;
2. I made contact with a friend who has a friend that may have some footage of Carnival characters that we may be able to use, so hopefully this week he'll be available to see both or one of us to go through the footage. If we get what we need then we may not need to pursue NCC Channel 4;
   
3. Our Audio Consultant will meet with us this week to show us how to build our music bed. We gave him a brief, general idea of what we want it to sound like;
4. We have also contacted the last Pierrot Grenade, he agreed to do an interview with us.
   

That's it in a nutshell.

Back in the Race

Unfortunately I was out for a while, but I'm back and in good spirits. Work was being done while I was away. It's itemized to make it easy for you.

PART 1 - PARAMIN
We did a shoot in Paramin. Boy was it adventurous, we were taken to heights that was described as "it so high yuh cud touch God foot, but doh tickle 'im... ". Matthew accompanied us, it was the first shoot that we worked on with him and he was an excellent assistant. He was on top of his game, we didn't once have to tell him what to do. And best of all, we were fed, we were priviledged to experience the best tasting spicy Paramin chicken there was, the only thing that was wrong was that it wasn't enough, we should have gotten some to take home :0

We were able to conduct interviews with four persons who have very different Patwa influences and experiences. One of which was extraordinarily compelling, but we didn't know how juicy it was until about a week later (I'll explain as we go along). And, just as we were leaving Paramin that night, we met a real Patwa master and champion bongo singer, we kept the beers coming and the stories kept coming, it was a nice lime and we were lucky to have it recorded. NB to lecturer - we did not engage in the consumption of alcohol and therefore remained sober while thoroughly enjoying the lime. I never got home that night and had to bunk by Karlene. Forgot to mention that we went to build contacts and were supposed to stay for a couple of hours, but because we were prepared, we were able to record lots of valuable information.

PART 2 - SHUT DOWN IN CUREPE
So, the following day Karlene and I set out to St Augustine for two reasons: firstly to get translations for the patwa we recorded and secondly to help one of our contacts with some editing skills etc.

Well, we had experienced a bit of trouble with the car in Paramin, but it worked and we got home. On that day the car worked well, so we headed off to St Augustine. Just as we got to Curepe we decided that we needed to get something to eat and decided to make a right turn to get some Chinese food. Well, we stopped at the traffic lights and the car shut down and couldn't start. Everyone blew us. The car started again and shut down again whilst making the right turn - in the middle of the road. Need I say that horns blew even more aggressively? We were able to make the turn (after a few attempts) and decided to head to the nearest gas station for the car and to get some food for us. Well, we never made it, we were able to get a couple of guys to push us to the side of the road. We postponed our appointment and called it a day. Karlene bamboozled some men at a nearby car-wash, they advised us. We gratefully accepted and headed home.

PART 3 - A 2ND TRY AT ST AUGUSTINE
Karlene had a flight, so I went alone, it was good. We were able to get the translations of the footage that we got. And that's how we learnt of the strange story that one person told. I was constantly told that no one has ever really tried to document Patwa in the way that we have attempted and I realized that that was one of the reasons for everyone's willingness to assist. They are a really good bunch.

PART 4 - HOLLY BETAUDIER
Yes, we interviewed the icon, the man himself. It was indescribable. The stories were captivating. We could have stayed all day. Informative and entertaining. It made up for having to pay for the ticket that Randy got :0 (you are never in control of what comes out of your miscellaneous costs in your budget). Nonetheless it was an enjoyable experience. Holly's wife and puppy were also gems and very accommodating.

It was Randy's first time with us and Matthew's second. We can't complain about those guys.

PART 5 - THE FAILED DOWNTOWN ATTEMPT
Madam Karlene and I attempted to go downtown to get some vox-pops. We were warned by Sherece and Simone that it wasn't such a good idea, but we were too determined. We left the school at around 4:00pm, but there was so much traffic that we didn't get there until after 5pm. It was unbelievable. We called it a day.

PART 6 - THE PATWA CLASS
Karlene (poor thing) had to do this one alone, I had to work. I'm sure she'll report on this.

THE SAGA CONTINUES
Tomorrow we're off to the market to shoot two Patwa speakers from Paramin. It should be very exciting. We'll let you know how it goes.

Propose & Present

Wednesday was the big day for proposing and presenting to the class, and it was recorded by the lecturer. We were a bit nervous, but we were glad that we were 2nd to present. The rules were that we had a maximum of seven minutes to present and after which, our classmates were allowed to ask us a maximum of two questions.

Although we forgot to mention a couple of items, we think that we covered all aspects of the criteria. The two questions directed to us came from Renata: Explain the differences in the spelling of Patois/Patwa; and Kyron: How do we intend to reach our secondary target audience? (Not quoted).

We called a couple of our classmates to find out what they thought about the idea and the presentation, generally everyone said that they liked both the idea and the presentation, in addition to that they also thought that: we would have to do a lot of research; one classmate offered to assist with some footage (it turned out to be unsuccessful) but we really appreciated the gesture; another said that she loved our outfits and didn't realize that lagniappe was Patwa, she explained that before the presentation she was not interested, but now she wants to learn more about it; another said that she didn't think much about it before, but after the presentation she's looking forward to seeing the documentary.

We are pleased about these comments and we look forward to producing an enlightening documentary.

The Dry Comedian

At the very beginning of this project the lecturer used very dry comedy which was quite amusing to her, but scary for me (though it may not be her intention). Today a bitter joke popped out of an email to the class. I am now nervous to infinity.

So back to the project. While we made another baby step toward acquiring archival footage, a plan B, C and D came into being, so we are hoping for the best. We also made a mutual decision not to contact any other authorities on the subject as we feel that we have all that we need for interviews, if we have any mishaps then we can pull from the other names that we have.

We're off to our meeting tomorrow.

Saturday @ SBCS

Karlene and I spent many hours at SBCS on Saturday. We:

• shared our ideas and did the bulk of our proposal and budget;
• got another step closer to getting old footage of patois (fingers and toes crossed);
• discussed our presentation (we have a few questions about that though).

So we're on the same page and moving forward. We will meet again on Tuesday to finalize everything, but in the meantime we are in contact via email and mobile phones.

Welcome Matthew

Matthew is the fourth member of our team, he's in the same class as Randy. We're grateful that they were both just as eager to devote some of their time and energy to this project. Everyone was sent a crew contact list tonight, a calender of events will follow after Karlene and I meet on Saturday.