Things that matter

Enhancing Nigeria’s Response to HIV and Aids (ENR) is the BBC World Service Trust’s new Pan-Nigerian, DFID-funded project which will focus on lowering the prevalence of HIV in the country.

An aspect of this is to help capacity building at national and state TV stations. This involves creating a TV training team which will then go out and provide training at local stations, including training on HIV reporting and co-producing with the station for several weeks.

Ambika Samarthya, an international trainer based in Abuja reports on the first stages of the three year project.

* * *

After the feedback we received from the research and internal reviews of our two original TV pilots, I began training Devaan and Nasiru in the techniques and styles of documentary TV production.

Documentary TV is not necessarily news, but real-life stories told through people who are not actors: character-driven, real life narratives. It is not only the direction where our templates were headed, but what audiences globally have been leaning towards.

I explained to them the two necessities of this style of production: interesting stories and engaging characters. I then asked them both to choose a topic they were deeply invested in and to find a story and character with whom they would shoot an interview with.

Nasiru chose to focus on the housing market and the financial real estate crisis in Abuja. Here, real estate prices have hiked up so much that very few people can pay their rents. Ironically one of the victims of the housing market is Devaan, who bought her house several years ago but is suffering from loans and mortgage increases.

Nasiru knew Devaan’s story very well, but this was his first time shooting a documentary. He immediately wanted to shoot it at his house as opposed to Devaan’s because his house is closer and more in his comfort zone. I explained to him the importance of trying to get as close to the reality of the situation and location as possible. So they drove a distance to shoot the testimonial in Devaan’s house.

Watching Devaan tell her story as she washed dishes and gave a tour of her house was compelling, especially when she herself, a slick presenter, almost fell silent for a loss of words. You can’t script moments like that.

For her documentary, Devaan looked at sickle cell disorder – something she’s quite familiar with, as she herself suffers from it and for years has been an avid proponent of sickle cell research and education. She knew instinctively what she wanted to focus on and immediately decided to call up one of her fellow advocates, Eric Edoja, a man who is crippled with the disease and is now in the hospital without proper funds for care.

She shot his testimonial in the park, where he struggled to walk to a tree and finally to sit down. He began talking about how he lost two of his brothers to the disease and his role in advocacy.  But it was his face and voice which made for a moving interview. Nasiru suggested we use the video as a way for him to raise money for his hospital care.

I was moved with how compelling their exercises looked and am excited to see how they will produce the next two editions of the TV show.

At one point Nasiru told me, “Now I get it. For all these weeks we’ve been learning about all these techniques. But now I see how we can really use them.”

 

Preparing for everything

Enhancing Nigeria’s Response to HIV and Aids (ENR) is the BBC World Service Trust’s new Pan-Nigerian, DFID-funded project which will focus on lowering the prevalence of HIV in the country.

An aspect of this is to help capacity building at national and state TV stations. This involves creating a TV training team which will then go out and provide training at local stations, including training on HIV reporting and co-producing with the station for several weeks.

Ambika Samarthya, an international trainer based in Abuja reports on the first stages of the three year project.

* * *

One of the great things about working for an organisation like the Trust is that we believe in preparation. For our training at the stations we need to have a few pilot or template programmes to show to the stations.

These pilots go through a long process before they can be finalised and used as training tools. The aim of making the pilots is for local stations to consider using them in developing their programming on HIV and Aids. It was really important to get them right.

But preparation can only do so much – and I’m finding that in a country like Nigeria, no amount of preparation can ever translate into a guarantee!

For instance, last Wednesday I prepared to export these pilot TV shows onto DVD but when I came into the office there was a problem with the electricity supply and I had to go back home and work from there.

Eventually, with the help of Devaan and Nasiru (who I trained at the start of the project and are now in my TV training team) the work got done. And then we – the trainers, trainees and a few members of the WST staff – all gathered at the office to watch the shows and give feedback in an ‘internal review.’

First, we watched Keeping Up, a talk show (with a host and guests) specifically dedicated to HIV issues. The unique thing about this show is that all the edits were done predominantly in camera. This means we created a show with a low level of editing which would be used in stations that don’t have editing facilities and resources.

The feedback was useful: the template and purpose was clear, but it dragged on and felt slow. As a TV producer, I know it’s very difficult to create a fast paced show without editing. And in this we confront the main question: how can we prepare the stations to create engaging programmes that don’t depend on pace (i.e. editing)?

As an example, Deji Arosho, our head of production, suggested a change of guests would perhaps keep it more lively and create more debate.

Next up we watched Swagger, a multi-format show that includes a testimonial, an edited discussion, and a ‘musical dramatisation’. Everywhere in the world, people are accustomed to watch programmes based on what they are ‘prepared’ to see – what is in their TV watching habits. Almost all Nigerian TV shows have a presenter and Devaan and Nasiru were both sceptical on how we could create a programme like Swagger without a host.

When we screened it, the question came up of how the segments were connected. My response was that they were three separate segments connected by a theme.

People nodded quietly and said “we should wait to see how the audiences respond” (audience research is the next stage and will help assess how well the formats and contents work).

The musical dramatisation (i.e. short film without dialogue set to music) was perceived as “confusing” since it wasn’t a music video or a short drama but something in between.

Overall, there were two specific changes that resulted from this feedback review. Firstly, to create another episode which would involve marginalised and lower income groups (our target audience), and secondly, to include real people instead of actors.

Devaan and Nasiru listened to these suggestions in silence. I could read their minds!

When we made Swagger, we prepared ourselves with weeks of camera rehearsals, shot lists, production breakdowns, scripts, actor rehearsals, and had to re-shoot several scenes many times. In spite of all this preparation we still ran into problems: limited lighting options, actors’ limitations, fuel scarcity, uncharged batteries, and power shortages.

Now, adding a documentary component, not to mention in a non-urban or affluent setting, would mean even more levels of preparation – and with it, risks and unpredictability. It would be up to myself, Devaan and Nasiru to oversee all of this.

But these challenges are crucial to our jobs and all the work of the Trust – to push the boundaries of media with no guarantee. And we will prepare ourselves to do just that.

 

Thinking outside of the box

Enhancing Nigeria’s Response to HIV and Aids (ENR) is a new Pan-Nigerian, DfID-funded project which will focus on lowering the prevalence of HIV in the country.

An aspect of this, which the BBC World Service Trust (BBC WST) is a part of, is to help capacity building at national and state TV stations. This involves creating a TV training team which will then go out and provide training at local stations, including training on HIV reporting and co-producing with the station for several weeks.

Ambika Samarthya, an international trainer based in Abuja reports on the first stages of the three year project.

* * *

TV programmes in Nigeria can generally be quite dull. This is primarily due to a lack of creativity in approach, which is something I wanted to focus on during my training and really push Nigerian TV trainers to think outside of the box.

Nasiru and Devaan (the two Nigerian producers who are involved in the ENR project) embraced this concept hands on. As we planned our HIV content TV programmes, Nasiru came up with the idea of a short music-based dramatisation of a married man who has multiple partners. This idea is unheard of in the Nigerian TV landscape, even though music videos and Nigerian music are widely popular. Nasiru’s shot list (list of visual images) consisted of a man at a bar, hotel, office, and at home with his wife.

When it came to filming, I suggested to Nasiru and the actors that we would go into a bar pretending I was a tourist and shooting it like a home video. They looked at me with blank faces. I realised then that the idea of “guerrilla shooting” isn’t a regular part of Nigerian filmmaking. Using a handheld or a one-person crew to do off the cuff shooting, capturing busy streets and hangouts, or filming in a bar or hotel without permission is just not done. But it’s (almost) exactly what we did – and it worked.

When we got to the hotel, Nasiru immediately went inside to ask the manager for permission. Of course the manager wasn’t around and Nasiru was disappointed. As a compromise I suggested we just shoot the hotel sign from outside and show us entering the gates. It worked.

But some other things weren’t as straightforward.

The format that Devaan had developed was a testimonial, which is simple enough, but to make it visually exciting and different she scripted it out so the person would be talking while driving in their car. We were well prepared: I had a shoulder brace to steady the camera while she was in the passenger seat, we checked the audio so it was clear, and the actor had memorized the script.

But as we started driving three things happened that I had not at all expected.

Filming in the car

Firstly, all the street lights went out. There was a power shortage and cut (as there often is in Nigeria, a country which has a significant power supply problem) and it was evening so it was too dark outside. We had to look for a street with busy, well-lit businesses but it wasn’t easy to find.

Secondly, because the power had gone out, there was a traffic jam in the middle of the street. We sat waiting, and waiting, and waiting in a criss-cross of dozens of cars around an intersection. There was no traffic warden. An exasperated man finally came out of his car to try and direct traffic.

Last of all, and possibly the one I had considered least, was fuel. We were using Devaan’s car for the shoot and I noticed as we drove around that she had become anxious. Apparently there was a fuel scarcity in Nigeria and because of upcoming gas price hikes, petrol stations were hoarding fuel making it both difficult to obtain fuel and also to afford it.

This was not working. We stopped the shoot and decided to film the scene right before dusk the next day so there would be abundant light and we could grab everything we needed with a few loops on the same street. And it worked.

Although we will have to brace ourselves in occasionally hitting a wall, I believe we will continue to think outside of the box and keep pushing other producers in Nigeria to do the same.


 

Enhancing Nigeria’s Response to HIV and Aids

Enhancing Nigeria’s Response to HIV and Aids (ENR) is a new Pan-Nigerian, DFID-funded project which will focus on lowering the prevalence of HIV in the country.

An aspect of this, which the BBC World Service Trust (BBC WST) is a part of, is to help capacity building at national and state TV stations. This involves creating a TV training team which will then go out and provide training at local stations, including training on HIV reporting and co-producing with the station for several weeks.

Ambika Samarthya, an international trainer based in Abuja reports on the first stages of the three year project.

* * *

I first saw Devaan on her reel which I watched at my desk in the WST Abuja offices. She is a very articulate presenter at the Nigerian Television Authority, but her show lacked production quality, creativity, and preparation.

As an international trainer on the ENR project, my task is quite a big one. My main goal is to build a training team that will go on to train and co-produce with stations around Nigeria. First I have to take current TV employees like Deevan, and ‘unteach’ them everything they think they know and inspire them to adopt new methods of conceptualization and production techniques

When I met Deevan, she told me she had never worked with a camera or used a Mac and had edited only on a PC using Adobe. I asked her about her script writing skills and she laughed – “I take notes and present from them but there’s no script.”

My challenge was to take this beautiful, stylish lady and turn her into a rugged cameraman, editor, and scriptwriter.

Over the course of four weeks we worked together on camera exercises, transferring editing skills for the Mac using Final Cut Pro, as well as reiterating the merits of shot breakdowns, storyboarding, and scripts. Initially, she was so tired after shooting hand-held with the camera for just 10 minutes that she would pass out when she got home. But within a few weeks it was exciting when she was asking to shoot our workshops and sessions on her own.

Devaan during her camera training in Abuja

I drilled into her the importance of preparation, and especially being able to complete a project so the end has a pay-off. For someone who had never even written a shot list before, she threw herself into the experience. After a month she completed a video of the training team (using the concept of Mission Impossible!) that had layers of audio, video and graphics – and a pay-off.

But the real hard work was yet to come. The ENR project is a pan-Nigerian initiative, focusing on capacity building initially in four states: Cross River in the south, Kaduna towards the north, Nasarawa in the centre and Benue in the south east. The true test was when we arrived at the local TV stations to start implementation. Our first state session visit was to Calabar, the capital of Cross River.

Devaan looked at the editing station and large studio and assessed that the editing facilities at the station were weak and that the stations needed smaller and more versatile cameras which would be better in the field. She was able to fully assess their needs.

When we reconvened as a team, I encouraged her to create a 30 minute show without using any editing so that stations like the one we visited could use it as a template. She immediately began planning shots and focusing on camera rehearsals!

While Devaan’s old station was well-resourced and technically sound, she has now learned about concepts and techniques that have taken her to a whole new level. The exciting part will be watching her take the partner TV stations with her.

 

HIV and AIDS: have we seen the worst?

On World AIDS Day on Monday, at the final event of our HIV and AIDS season hosted at the Frontline Club, an expert panel of policy makers, scientists, journalists and community activists were asked “have we seen the worst?” The perhaps unsurprising answer was; “it’s more complicated than that”. Representing very different sectors in the global fight against AIDS, the panel were all careful to emphasise both what has been achieved in the 20 years since the first World AIDS Day and how much there is left to do. In short, the past two decades have witnessed almost unprecedented progress in disease response, yet there remains much, much more to be done.

The statistics are sobering; 3 million people on anti-retroviral drugs (ARVs), another 7 million needing them, 2.7 million people infected in 2007 and worldwide, over 33 million people living with HIV. Robin Shattock, Professor of Cellular and Molecular Infection at St George’s, University of London was clearest in his statement that without investment there is no possibility of keeping up with demand: “we cannot halt the epidemic without reducing rates of infection which will only come with medical advances – and ultimately a vaccine.”

 

World AIDS Day: blogging positively around the world

Today, marking the 20th annual World AIDS Day, we’re preparing for the final event in our co-hosted HIV and AIDS season at the Frontline Club in London. A panel discussion “Have we seen the worst” featuring Robin Shattock, Michael Bartos, Anton Kerr and Thandi Haruperi and introduced by BBCWST Asia Director Caroline Howie, is being streamed live online, and you will be able to watch a recording here (scroll down to 1st December).

Elsewhere online, the Harvard-based Global Voices has an interesting project mapping and linking to HIV positive bloggers around the world “who bravely defy stigma and taboo to communicate their situation to the rest of the world.”

View Larger Map

This Wednesday, 3rd December, they will also be a hosting a live chat facilitated by Kenyan bloggers Serina Kalande and Daudi Were on how to use citizen media to help improve awareness and information about the AIDS epidemic. Find out more here, and contact the editors to contribute to the map.

 

The Wisdom of Whores – Elizabeth Pisani on HIV and AIDS

“A wholly preventable disease”. Elizabeth Pisani’s description of what she calls the defining epidemic of our age is damning of the international response to HIV and AIDS. We have, she says, collectively run out of excuses for the ways in which we are getting it wrong whilst people continue to die.

Elizabeth Pisani

Pisani, a former journalist turned epidemiologist and self-confessed science “geek” was speaking at the Frontline Club in London last night at the second of four events in an HIV and AIDS season co-sponsored by the BBC World Service Trust.

As to be expected with an informed audience and a wide-ranging topic such as this one, the evening covered a variety of issues with Pisani an entertaining and avowedly blunt speaker. In conversation with Yusef Azad of the National AIDS Trust, she was discussing her new book “The Wisdom of Whores: Bureaucrats, Brothels, and the Business of AIDS” in which she deals – characteristically honestly – with “sex and drugs”.

 

World AIDS Day 2008

HIV positive woman in India. DIBYANGSHU SARKAR/AFP/Getty Images

Ahead of the 20^th annual World AIDS Day on 1^st December, the BBC World Service Trust is co-hosting a special season of events with the Frontline Club in London throughout November exploring issues around living with HIV, the search for a cure, securing universal access, and documenting the impact of this devastating disease.

Highlights include a screening of Living with AIDS with Sierra Leonean journalist Sorious Samura, a photo exhibition looking at the impact of HIV/AIDS in Africa by Gideon Mendel and a panel discussion looking at the future of AIDS prevention work “Have we seen the worst?”

Full details of each event are on the Frontline Club website, or at the bottom of this post.