Here We Are - portraits from Ghana
Meena Ayittey travelled to Ghana to interview strong women who inspire her and, armed only with the LUMIX GH5, recorded a compelling series of short films, says Damien Demolder
Abena
‘I like to make films with a purpose’, says director Meena Ayittey. ‘I’m always on a mission, and there’s usually something that I’m trying to say. I like to feature people that perhaps we haven’t historically heard from – I want to find out about their take on the world or their views on certain subjects. That’s what inspires me.’
Meena’s films have a distinct sense of cinema about them which easily disguises the fact they are really issue-heavy documentary – but the kind of documentary that’s visually compelling to watch whether you were interested in the subject beforehand or not. They are good to watch, and while the colours, styles, angles and effects keep us mesmerised we gradually swallow the message. It’s like eating a Snickers bar that has a protein bar hidden inside, she says.
Meena Ayittey is a film-maker based in the UK who creates mostly short films based around issues that mean a great deal to her. A graduate of Central St Martins College of Art and Design she says her time there studying art was useful as it convinced her that she didn’t want to become an artist and helped her to realise that her calling was in film. On leaving St Martins she learnt her trade in post-production houses in London, starting as a runner and getting to sit in on editing, grading and colour sessions, and gradually finding out how the processes work. ‘Not going to film school made me nervous that I didn’t have the credentials, so I spent as much time as I could around film makers to learn as much as I could - hoping I’d learn their secrets by osmosis. I’m still learning those secrets.’ Eventually, after working at a number of advertising agencies and production houses, including the famous Framestore, Meena decided to make the jump into making her own short films.
Strong Women
For her latest project, in which she features a series of what she describes as ‘strong women’ from Ghana, Meena recorded all her interviews and the footage of her subjects using the Panasonic Lumix GH5. 'Here We Are - portraits from Ghana' is a bid to counteract misunderstandings about people from Africa in general, but also to highlight the problems African women face, as well as their dreams and ambitions.
Catz
‘My family is from Ghana but I was born and raised in the UK,’ Meena says. ‘Ghana has always been a place of fascination for me and I used to visit a lot as a child but not much when I became a teenager and an adult. When I would to talk to my friends here in the UK about Ghana, well, not a lot of people know what is going on there or very much about the country at all. Sometimes in Europe, unless we’ve travelled, we can have antiquated ideas about Africa as a continent. When I told some people I was going to Ghana for a month to make these films they wondered how I would get on not speaking the language – not realising that most people in Ghana actually speak English. I want to show people here that people in Ghana don’t all live in mud huts and that there’s a side to Ghanaian women that perhaps they didn’t know about. Africa in particular isn’t given enough recognition for its advancements in technology or its political and social systems. People still think of Live Aid and that Africa needs help. And that bothers me. In Ghana there’s so much entrepreneurship – Ghana is thriving. I feel I have to show people that the country, and the continent, has changed and is changing.’
Meena contacted 12 women via social media that either she followed herself, admired or who were recommended to her as examples of strong personalities. ‘I wanted to speak to people who are vocal and unrestrained,’ she says ‘and who are outspoken about their hopes and dreams – people who aren’t afraid to dream. I collaborated with a magazine and went out to Ghana for a month to shoot the stories.’
Gaining their confidence
Travelling around the country Meena got to meet the women she had been chatting to on the Internet for the first time, and she was able to film them and record their stories. Meena had also been in contact with a Director of Photography (DOP) who would help with some of the shots, but most she shot herself with the Lumix GH5 and the X-Vario 12-35mm f/2.8 lens. ‘As I’d been in contact with the women before, they were going to be more comfortable with me getting close to them rather than to have the DOP, who they didn’t know, in the room while we discussed their life. I spent some time with the camera before I left the UK to get completely familiar with it, and to be confident I knew where everything was that I might need to access and alter during the shoots. The menu and controls are pretty intuitive, and when you have done anything once it’s very easy to find that feature again.’
Desaha
Keeping her kit minimal and streamlined, Meena recorded direct to the camera’s SD card instead of using an external recorder, and used the Cinelike D Photo Style for all the shots. ‘I like the way Cinelike D looks, as its vibrant without being unnatural. I knew how I wanted the finished film to look, and knew too I would push the colours a bit in the grade, and Cinelike D seemed the best starting point for this. As what the women were speaking about are issues that affected my mother’s and grandmother’s generations too, I also I wanted a timeless look to the films, which is why I’ve added grain, dust and scratches to some of the footage – to give a feel it was shot on a home cine camera.’
Home-movie style
Meena also kept in mind that she wanted the films to look as natural as possible, and tried to avoid scenes looking too set-up or as though they were studio-lit. ‘I used natural and available light in these films to make sure they are realistic, to emphasise that these women are just like anyone you’d meet in the street and so that they could remain relatable.’
‘The camera shooting style is ‘home movie’, so you can feel you are right there with the person. I didn’t have a crew or use a Steadicam as that really wouldn’t have been appropriate. I wanted just the person and the camera - no dolly shots or cranes - as it had to all feel very intimate. When you are shooting handheld and close-up it keeps a sense of that intimacy which is really important to me. I was able to shoot handheld as the GH5 has an incredibly useful built-in image stabilisation system that allows a ‘handheld’ look without the footage being jerky and jumpy.’
Silvia
Meena recorded her audio directly to the camera using a standard hotshoe-style shotgun microphone into the 3.5mm mic socket and had decided on specific soundtracks to run behind each of the interviews. Shot in 4K and at 60fps, the resolution of the recorded footage allowed Meena to add pan and zoom effects in post-production, while the frame rate leaves plenty of room for slow motion as the final films are presented at 25fps. ‘When there is lots of movement in the scene it can look really beautiful in slow motion, such as when one of the ladies is waving her arms around in the street. On other occasions, when someone is laughing for example, it looks better in real-time. While I’m filming I get an idea of whether that scene will be slow motion or not, but I change my mind all the time and switch back and forth during in the edit.’
In the edit
Even though the process of creating each film was long and complex Meena presents the interviews in a short format that maintains the viewer’s attention throughout. To do this though she had to edit the footage carefully to get to the information and sequences that she feels represent what these women are about. ‘When you are interviewing there’s a lot of rambling but I let the subject ramble as I need to get into an intimate space with them - and within that rambling they come out with amazing things. One of the women said “When you are a strong woman people think you are difficult and they don’t know what to do with you, but you are just a woman with a strong mind.” To get to that stage we had maybe twenty minutes of her talking about her brother or her day – things that are interesting but not necessarily relevant to the film. So when you find those bits and isolate them you can form your story around them with other bits of dialogue – you can’t just have a series of ten amazing statements. You have to cut off the fat, anything that is superfluous have to get rid of.’
Laurie
‘I had hours of dialogue – in one case four hours – but slowly you whittle it down. It’s a slow process, and you need to get to a certain stage, leave it and then come back to it, as you see different things on the second and third look. The four hour interview was edited to just three minutes, so with that degree of editing you also have to be careful you still show the subject’s true self. Sometimes in an interview it takes a long time to get to the truth and the essence of a person, and with others it happens quickly. I hope I’m not editing the person by choosing slices of the conversation but I do think the bits I have included give a full picture of the individual. They all get to see the films too and I tell them that if there’s something they don’t like to let me know – and none of them changed anything. Some were surprised they revealed so much about themselves to a stranger in such a short period of time, but that’s a good thing.’
Meena intends to submit 'Here We Are - portraits from Ghana' to film festivals to get them seen by a wider audience. Film festivals, she says, also get her exposure and are good places to get funding, backers and collaborators for future projects. She says too that they are great places to see other film-maker’s work and to see what it happening in the industry.
Now signed to the Great Guns international production company Meena made her first feature-length documentary last year, and is in discussions with networks about making this into a series. ‘I do this because there are stories I want to tell,’ says Meena ‘and through film-making I’m able to tell those stories and to connect with people in a way that’s heart-felt and memorable.’ And with her visually compelling style and powerful story-telling we should expect to see plenty more of Meena Ayittey.
You can see all of the films in this series as well as more of Meena’s work on her Vimeo page and on her website
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