Preliminary thoughts

On every film shoot I've ever been on, I'm unable to sleep the night before Day One. It's almost become a superstition, a habit I don't want to undo. I'll toss and turn all night, sifting through a hundred pointless thoughts about how best to prepare for the long day ahead. I'll question my abilities throughout the night, wondering if I'm even remotely ready for the undertaking. Then it's over, and we make it through our first day, and I sleep so soundly because I don't have the energy to stay up and worry anymore.

As a cinematographer, I like to play with toys. Lighting equipment, new-fangled lenses, film or video cameras alike are fair game, all within the comfort of a regimented set and a bastion of talented and versatile crew members. While I'd never admit it to anyone, and though it makes little sense, there is a certain comfort to cinematography in narrative film. You know the tools, you've planned the shots, there's a script and there's an order to the day, and by the end of the shoot you've either come in on time and under budget or you haven't. And I believe I'm very good at what I do, especially within my comfort zone.

This trip, and this documentary, are nothing like anything I've ever attempted before in my life. True, there is a rather detailed itinerary, and there has been a pre-production process and the formulation of a visual concept. But for two weeks, it's me, Bill, and five boxers. There's no grip truck, there's no shot list, there's no assistant director barking orders down my neck, and at the end of it all, it's a man with a movie camera. Run and gun. Seeking out compositions and interesting shots that, in the editing room, might have the faintest prayer of telling some semblance of a story.

It's a documentary. Inasmuch as you can be prepared, you are. But nothing can prepare you adequately. You have to live in the moment and capture it at the same time. And with this location, I am stepping further outside my comfort zone than I've ever been in my life. I've never traveled to a non-English-speaking country, I've never seen poverty on this scale, I've never filmed a documentary of this magnitude, and the weight of it all crushes and humbles me. I hope I can do justice to our subject matter, and I hope that the night before Day One, my run-amok mind can settle just long enough to remember why we are here.