Travelogue diary

Day One.
Mon 7th April 2014 -

Rabies shot three with the lovely if slightly eccentric Joy the practice nurse at the surgery.
She was suitably encouraging and wished me bon voyage despite my being late for the appointment.
I now have minute amounts of Typhoid, Rabies, Diptheria, Hep A, Yellow Fever, Polio, Cholera, anti Malarial medication and a slight cold running about my system - joyful plane journey coming up....
Interesting to note that the shots combined have cost GBP 375.00 which is a sign of the galloping privatisation of the NHS, but I guess if you can afford international travel then the least you can do is make a contribution to the inherent health costs.

Back home to finish packing, trying to load 65 kilograms of kit into the smallest possible travelling bag space.
Given the fact we are doing travelogue, interview, straight documentary footage, reportage and some arty farty stuff with some redundancy built in for possible equipment breakdown in the boonies,  it's been hard to finalise a kit list that covers the bases.
Credit to Barry Basset at VMI for giving us the Canon C300 for less than 40% of usual cost and Richard Meredith at AudioDept for the radio mics which he has provided for free

Have opted for a Canon C300, 4 lenses 35-70mm zoom, 10-22mm wide angle, 35-70mm walkabout and an 85mm prime, a portable Tascam sound deck, two rode mics, two sets of legs, an LED lighting kit, a set of radio mics and what will probably prove a redundant luxury of a slider. B roll is the 7d.
Have tried to download Magic Lantern firmware for the  7d which would make it easier to use as a video camera, only to discover the Canon 7d firmware update 2.0.5 is now incompatible with the current build of ML.
Canon and Magic Lantern deliberately finding ways to avoid talking to eachother in case of some kind of spurious commercial advantage being conceded. Bollocks to The Man - again - however corporations are the only entities with the resources to build useful filmaking tools and it would seem cure malaria globally, so it's not all bad.. Oh well....
Hitting the hay to read the rest of Heart of Darkness which someone we met at Tom and Dawn Morley's boat-race party yesterday recommended I read. I don't know if she had me down as Marlow, Kurtz or what, but she seemed  a sweet person and very well read so I follow her advice. This is the kind of trip where taking local advice might well come in useful, such as the guy in Runner's World where I went to buy some shoe inserts, who told me to be incredibly careful about touching the camera gear after using anti-mosquito spray as it eats off the lens coatings - a really useful and  timely tip!

Meeting Kir here at Chateau Despair at 4.30pm tomorrow with her man Louis and the landrover to get the gear and us to Heathrow.
Really looking forward to this trip, if a little apprehensive about being a one person crew given how important to Activation this film will be in securing future funding -
Let's do it and try not to screw up!