a long old day.

Today has been an amazing experience from start to finish. I'll give the short version because I can barely keep my eyes open. I stayed in a guest house very close to Lhamo Tso's house last night, so I'd be able to roll out of bed to start filming at half-four in the morning. My guest house turned out to be a shit hole but I got a decent night's sleep and we started on time. The shots of her in her flat weren't great but there should be enough usable ones to look reasonably pro. Then we followed her up to the market to shoot her selling bread. Then it started raining; and in Mcleod, it don't rain - it fucking pours. I got soaked, but I may have got the best shot I have ever filmed in my life - I set the camera up in the middle of the square on a tripod - cars, bikes, tuc-tuc etc driving around me, holding an umbrella, pointing straight down a long road which Lhamo Tso was sat on the side of, under an umbrella. Just as I pressed the record button a massive bolt of lightning shot down in the middle of the road a couple of miles up - to the naked eye it looked unreal; I can only hope the camera picked it up.
The Tibetan Women's Association (whom I am producing the documentary for) have to be the best people to work for in the world; even though we were being charged to use the camera by the hour, after the market shots they insisted on going for breakfast...followed by a sleep. Ideal. After a bit of a kip we went to the kids school where we had all manner of problems, mainly revolving around electricity, which, when it was actually working (about 50% of the time), seemed to be only working at 10-15 volts. Needless to say the local power supply didn't have any of our 1000watt studio lamp, so all the interviews were done not only in a very noisy school, but also in natural light. I had absolutely no idea what anyone actually said (my Tibetan is still improving), so I don't know if the interviews were much kop, but they looked ok on screen. I'll be transferring all the footage to PC tomorrow to start editing, which is going to be a massive job. They told me today that as well as organising a public screening of the film, they are sending copies to every TWA group in the world to do the same, and sending copies to Bill Clinton (who apparently has taken it on himself to try and release political prisoners of late), and His Holiness the Daily Lama...so no pressure then. I also realised that as a result of the film, I will never be able to go to Tibet (China doesn't allow publically pro-Tibetans in Tibet), and quite possibly China either. If it even helps the Tibet situation, or indeed Lhamo Tso's husband's, it is 100% worth it. I urge you to do a little research into Tibet and specifically China's policies and treatment of Tibetans and prisoners, and spread the word. Every little helps.
Ps. If anyone has any good ideas for a name for this documentary, throw ideas my way (jonlisty@yahoo.co.uk); I'm absolutely stuck.
I'm off to bed for some seriously good sleep. Night x