Video Shoot

May 25th continued...
I was asked to be in a music video and I decided to go after some convincing from one of my friends. I was picked up in a beautiful car and brought to the drama studio. We stayed for about an hour and then the dance director came and yelled at the cast for being in the studio without permission. It turns out that they sought out permission from the wrong individual, so we were forced to leave right away. We made plans for me to get picked up at seven thirty am the following morning by King, the artist. We clearly determined that we were speaking in white man's time and that he should actually arrive on time because I would be furious if I woke up that early and then he was late. He said okay and asked if we wanted to make the time later since he was not aware that he would actually need to arrive on time. I explained that I had plans the following day at nine, so we would have to do it early so I could be back. He assured me he would be on time and I would be back by nine.
There was suppose to be a dance show that began at seven, but I had left the studio at six thirty and it appeared as if the show would be canceled because of the rain. However, I received a phone call around seven thirty informing me that the show would go on and it would start immediately. Therefore, Sarah and I finished dinner and walked over. By eight thirty the production had begun. It was a composition of different types of dance from all over Africa. The performance was wonderful, the costumes were beautiful, and everyone seemed so thrilled to be upstage. However, at around ten it began to pour and most of the audience left because like everything else in Ghana the stage is outside. The rain came to a halt around fifteen minutes later and the show continued like normal.
After the performance I came back to the hostel to meet up with Happy, an individual I had met in the village on a mountain in the Volta Region. I was so excited to see him and it turned out that he arrived only a little after the show finished. I hung out with Happy for about an hour, but the bugs were terrible and since it was after midnight he was not allowed in the hostel. So he left and I promised I would go and visit him on Saturday before he left for the village. After he left I went to bed, knowing that the following day was going to be an early morning.

Thursday, May 26th, 2011
I was ready by seven thirty and like I expected King was late. He had a wonderful excuse, there was traffic; like I have never heard that before. It was about eight thirty by the time he arrived to pick me up, but I was not angry because I expected that to occur. That is why I told him my plans were at nine as opposed to twelve, which is the time they really were arranged for. The next issue I encountered was that we were not going to the drama studio today, but instead to Taifa, which is about a thirty five minute drive from Accra. The house we were shooting in was beautiful on the outside with five floors and a huge amount of property. There were about ten cars in the parking lot like area one of which was an Escalate. I have no idea who lived there, but I have never seen such a large house in my life. But, when I entered the house I realized the interior was nothing in comparison to the outside. I was taken into a room with air conditioning and the internet and told to keep myself occupied until the set was ready. What I was told would happen, would be that they would shoot the part I was in first and then I would be able to go home. However, this is not even close to the actual scenario.
It was after ten by the time we started and the rain made it difficult to get anything done. Every time it began to pour the equipment would need to be moved in and then we would have to wait until it stopped once again. At around one they decided to carry everything up to the forth floor and continue the shoot inside. While the men moved the things upstairs the girls all got food and I was able to eat jollof and chicken. After we ate we went upstairs and the shoot continued. The room was relatively small for the amount of people that were inside of it and the lights made the green screen extremely hot. People had to continually run out and dab our faces to remove the sweat. Different people came and went and I was stuck there the entire time. It was seven thirty by the time I made it back to my room and the only benefit from my day was a t-shirt with Kings name on it. I will be in a music video, but I do not even know who the artist is, so it seems as if I just wasted my day and missed the event I had planned at noon. Although I did meet a lot of nice people and for a part of the time I was there I did enjoy myself, so I do not regret participating.