Perhaps I misled when I said that the first thing you notice about Dhaka is the population. I guess it depends on what time of day you arrive. By noon, it was easily 110 degrees outside in the scorching sun, not to mention the 100% humidity. You stand still and sweat. You walk out of a cold shower and sweat. You lay down to sleep and you sweat...for the entire night. Thank the Lord we were all too tired to care, or else it would have been an even more miserable night.
What an amazing city. It boggles the mind to think that nearly 15 million people, day in and day out, make their lives here. The electricity goes off constantly, sometimes for hours at a time, because the city's power plants can't handle the ever-increasing distribution and need to offset their immense load. We were told by Father Frank that Moreau House's basketball court and garden - beautiful and almost necessary additions to the otherwise sparse and small campus - are considered "wastes of space" in Dhaka. There are no parks in the city. There are barely any green spots where kids can play. There are only buildings. Endless rows of buildings. This city is the size of South Bend, and yet contains twice the population of Chicago. The fact that it works at all astounds me.
Today, we head over to Notre Dame College, considered the best of its kind in Bangladesh. "College" here actually means senior high school or junior college; it does not have the same designation as "university." But getting into the school is highly competitive - 14,000 applicants vie for just under 2,000 slots - and because some cannot afford to go, they are placed in a work study program that aids the surrounding community. The campus is the equivalent of two city blocks in size, which gives you an idea of how valuable space truly is here. Hard to believe that this was all swampland not more than fifteen years ago.
Tomorrow's post may be my last for a while, as we venture to the north. Till then, keep reading.
Saturday, May 31, 2008
Friday, May 30, 2008
Dhaka
The first thing you notice about Dhaka is the sheer volume of people. We stepped off the plane at about 6:00am and, after a lengthy baggage claim process, ventured outside the airport walls, where we met up with Father Frank and Father Leonard, who would take us to Moreau House in the city. Hundreds of people - rickshaw drivers, beggars, onlookers, families - lined the fences around the entrance, even at this early hour. Multiple people, some of them young children and some of them cripples, instantly came up to us and asked us for money or food, and would not leave until we had loaded up all our gear and sat down in the van.
The drive to Moreau House was...enlightening. Imagine streets with no road signs or traffic lights, where people walk in the middle of the road alongside bikes, rickshaws, and buses. The buses are scraped along the sides - all of them - because of the tightly packed quarters on the road. And every bus is full. Always. Despite this, Father Frank assured us that very few real accidents happen in Dhaka, perhaps due to how slowly one must drive to get around. A 5-mile drive took us about half an hour. Marketplaces line the roads and curbsides. The number of people boggles the mind. Half-finished buildings already house families thanks to poorly built tin roofs and bamboo walls. And the buildings lie on top of other buildings, with only inches between each lot. A room with a view amounts to a view of another wall across the street.
Upon arriving at Moreau House, we were instantly greeted by several seminarians who offered flowers to the group and sang a hymn for us. The boxers, in turn, sang the Notre Dame victory march, to laughter and applause from all. The rule and culture here is to entertain and to be entertained. It is surprising how upbeat everyone seems, given the circumstances.
Now, everyone is resting. The days ahead will give us a tour of the city proper and will send us to the northern tribal parishes of Mariamnagar and Jalchatra. Mark hopes to see a few elephants and scores of birds; the wildlife here is impressive to say the least. Wish us luck. Welcome to Bangladesh. Here we are.
The drive to Moreau House was...enlightening. Imagine streets with no road signs or traffic lights, where people walk in the middle of the road alongside bikes, rickshaws, and buses. The buses are scraped along the sides - all of them - because of the tightly packed quarters on the road. And every bus is full. Always. Despite this, Father Frank assured us that very few real accidents happen in Dhaka, perhaps due to how slowly one must drive to get around. A 5-mile drive took us about half an hour. Marketplaces line the roads and curbsides. The number of people boggles the mind. Half-finished buildings already house families thanks to poorly built tin roofs and bamboo walls. And the buildings lie on top of other buildings, with only inches between each lot. A room with a view amounts to a view of another wall across the street.
Upon arriving at Moreau House, we were instantly greeted by several seminarians who offered flowers to the group and sang a hymn for us. The boxers, in turn, sang the Notre Dame victory march, to laughter and applause from all. The rule and culture here is to entertain and to be entertained. It is surprising how upbeat everyone seems, given the circumstances.
Now, everyone is resting. The days ahead will give us a tour of the city proper and will send us to the northern tribal parishes of Mariamnagar and Jalchatra. Mark hopes to see a few elephants and scores of birds; the wildlife here is impressive to say the least. Wish us luck. Welcome to Bangladesh. Here we are.
Thursday, May 29, 2008
From one airport to another...
Our journey begins at Chicago O'Hare International Airport. I'm sitting in the gate awaiting boarding; the flight is running about 20 minutes behind schedule, which is like a fly in the wind given our five-hour layover at Heathrow in London. Security was smooth sailing; we've checked most of the bigger cases, but we're carrying on our camera equipment to avoid any mishaps with lost luggage. Imagine coming all that way to shoot a documentary, only to find that your cameras wound up in Bangalore instead of Bangladesh. Ouch.
Dhaka is eleven time zones ahead of Chicago. All told, we'll be traveling for about 24 hours, but we're losing a half day in the transition, so we'll arrive on Saturday morning, May 31, despite leaving on Thursday. Quite the journey. The only thing more impressive is the trip back, when we'll leave Bangladesh at 8am and arrive in Chicago in the early afternoon. At that point, we'll have been up for close to 36 hours. Talk about the longest day ever.
The boxers are antsy. Mark hasn't been able to sit down since arriving at the airport; he wants to stay standing and walking around "until the last possible moment." Tomas and Leo have been reading books while leaning against posts or standing by their bags. Bill and I almost feel like fish out of water; we're the only ones relaxed enough to sit down. That's what happens when you don't sleep the night before a shoot. The desire for sleep outweighs the anticipation, if only just so.
And, with that, I'll leave you with a particularly jarring picture, for those of you who know me. I shaved my beard in anticipation for the lack of shaving over the next two weeks, and during my search for supplies I came across a hat only Indiana Jones could love. So, naturally, I bought it and will be wearing it every day. Here's to adventure on the other side of the world. Indeed.
Dhaka is eleven time zones ahead of Chicago. All told, we'll be traveling for about 24 hours, but we're losing a half day in the transition, so we'll arrive on Saturday morning, May 31, despite leaving on Thursday. Quite the journey. The only thing more impressive is the trip back, when we'll leave Bangladesh at 8am and arrive in Chicago in the early afternoon. At that point, we'll have been up for close to 36 hours. Talk about the longest day ever.
The boxers are antsy. Mark hasn't been able to sit down since arriving at the airport; he wants to stay standing and walking around "until the last possible moment." Tomas and Leo have been reading books while leaning against posts or standing by their bags. Bill and I almost feel like fish out of water; we're the only ones relaxed enough to sit down. That's what happens when you don't sleep the night before a shoot. The desire for sleep outweighs the anticipation, if only just so.
And, with that, I'll leave you with a particularly jarring picture, for those of you who know me. I shaved my beard in anticipation for the lack of shaving over the next two weeks, and during my search for supplies I came across a hat only Indiana Jones could love. So, naturally, I bought it and will be wearing it every day. Here's to adventure on the other side of the world. Indeed.
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
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.
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.
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
The beginning of a journey...
I've never considered myself a blogger. That fact, in and of itself, is strange, given that I've perpetually updated my Xanga weblog for five years running now. The term "blogger," to me, designates a purpose beyond the who and what of everyday life - a sports blog, a film blog, or a political blog, perhaps. A weblog may have simpler qualifications, but to me, it's a matter of semantics.
Well, here I am, and now I can officially call myself a blogger. This journal, inasmuch as is possible, will serve as an account of my journey to Bangladesh, which starts a mere 66 hours from now and during which time our group will be shooting a feature-length documentary on the Holy Cross missions there.
A brief bit of background: in the 1800s, Father Basil Moreau began a series of Holy Cross-founded missions in the region of India that is now called Bangladesh, despite immense hardship and pressure from within and from outside its borders. Then, in 1930, a small charity boxing tournament known as Bengal Bouts was founded at the University of Notre Dame, with the express purpose of donating proceeds to the Holy Cross missions each year. What started as $500 in year one has ballooned into tens of thousands of dollars each year, and the tournament - the largest of its kind in the Unites States - is nearing its 80th anniversary of existence.
However, in all that time, none of the boxers themselves have ever set foot in Bangladesh. Priests and coaches have made the trek, but the boxers remain distant from what they are fighting for, a fact we hope to remedy through this documentary. In addition to myself as director of photography and ND professor William Donaruma as director, a group of boxing captains will accompany us on our trip to Bangladesh, led by Mark Weber, whose perseverance and drive brought this project to fruition.
Starting May 29, we'll fly across eleven time zones to the small country, a country the size of Wisconsin, and home to 150 million people. For two weeks and change, our group will travel all across the country, from the northernmost villages of the region to the borders of India and back to the capital city of Dhaka, headquarters of the Holy Cross missions and the residence of 11 million people. Then, on June 14, after one incredibly long day of travel, we'll be back in the States, winded and jet-lagged.
No amount of mental or emotional meditation has been able to adequately prepare me for the trip. But one way or another, we're going. And hopefully, the work we do now will serve others, be it past, present, or future generations of missionaries and contributors. And hopefully, this account of our journey will serve as a marker for what we have done, and for what we are about to do. Wish us luck and prayers.
God bless,
John Klein
Director of photography
www.windycitycamera.com
Well, here I am, and now I can officially call myself a blogger. This journal, inasmuch as is possible, will serve as an account of my journey to Bangladesh, which starts a mere 66 hours from now and during which time our group will be shooting a feature-length documentary on the Holy Cross missions there.
A brief bit of background: in the 1800s, Father Basil Moreau began a series of Holy Cross-founded missions in the region of India that is now called Bangladesh, despite immense hardship and pressure from within and from outside its borders. Then, in 1930, a small charity boxing tournament known as Bengal Bouts was founded at the University of Notre Dame, with the express purpose of donating proceeds to the Holy Cross missions each year. What started as $500 in year one has ballooned into tens of thousands of dollars each year, and the tournament - the largest of its kind in the Unites States - is nearing its 80th anniversary of existence.
However, in all that time, none of the boxers themselves have ever set foot in Bangladesh. Priests and coaches have made the trek, but the boxers remain distant from what they are fighting for, a fact we hope to remedy through this documentary. In addition to myself as director of photography and ND professor William Donaruma as director, a group of boxing captains will accompany us on our trip to Bangladesh, led by Mark Weber, whose perseverance and drive brought this project to fruition.
Starting May 29, we'll fly across eleven time zones to the small country, a country the size of Wisconsin, and home to 150 million people. For two weeks and change, our group will travel all across the country, from the northernmost villages of the region to the borders of India and back to the capital city of Dhaka, headquarters of the Holy Cross missions and the residence of 11 million people. Then, on June 14, after one incredibly long day of travel, we'll be back in the States, winded and jet-lagged.
No amount of mental or emotional meditation has been able to adequately prepare me for the trip. But one way or another, we're going. And hopefully, the work we do now will serve others, be it past, present, or future generations of missionaries and contributors. And hopefully, this account of our journey will serve as a marker for what we have done, and for what we are about to do. Wish us luck and prayers.
God bless,
John Klein
Director of photography
www.windycitycamera.com
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