Filming Locked Up Abroad: Sierra Leone
By Hannah Lewis, Associate Producer

The story we are filming took place in Sierra Leone and it was a difficult process deciding which country we were going to film in. Sierra Leone was not an option due to instability and a lack of infrastructure. Looking at the map for the tenth time, most other African countries were also ruled out for the same reasons. There were not many options: we narrowed it down to South Africa, Uganda and Kenya, all of which had issues with weather: South Africa is going into winter and Uganda and Kenya into rainy season. As Renny, (our Director) aptly put it: 'it's a question of choosing which battle to fight'.

After much deliberation we decided on Kenya as it offered a very good visual match for Sierra Leone and does have equipment we need such as lighting. Also there are a lot of Kenyan peacekeepers in the story so it makes sense for casting.

Monday May 4th, 2009
Awake in Nairobi on our first morning to local news message on mobile phone: '12 dead in grisly road mishap on way to Nairobi'. Renny and I meet Jenny Pont, our production partner from Pontact Productions in Nairobi, but Andrew, our location manager is late. He is on the road to Nairobi. I'm worrying about him being involved in the grisly mishap just as he pulls in to the car park in a spectacular old land rover laden down with military props. Things are looking good.

After a meeting about locations Andrew sets off for the 10 hour drive to Malindi on the Kenyan coast whilst we go to a production meeting with the rest of the crew.
We go over the script scene by scene and address any questions that come up.

Tuesday 5th May
We go to equipment companies to look at grip equipment and lighting that will stretch our budget. One thing we have to factor in is that we are filming a long way from Nairobi so everything we need will for the whole shoot will have to come overland in trucks.

Wednesday 6th May
We catch a morning flight to Malindi and by chance are seated on the right hand side of the plane so we see snow-covered Kilimanjaro rising up from the flat red earth below. Seeing the terrain below and the incredible sight of Kilimanjaro reminds us what a privilege it is to be able to go to such amazing places as part of our job.

On arrival in Malindi we are met by a wall of heat and Andrew, our location manager who had arrived safely despite the notoriously treacherous Nairobi to Mombasa road, well known for car-jackings and accidents.

It looks wonderfully tropical and a lot like our Sierra Leone reference pictures, as Andrew had told us it would.

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