By Mwikali Lati
Posted Thursday, August 1 2013 at 16:57
As the Kenyan film industry grows, it calls for specialisation and no one knows this first hand than Ndanu Kilonzo, the head of production at Speilworks.
“When I first met Dorothy [the founder of Speilworks] in 2009, we were just the two of us. We would come up with the stories, write the scripts, do the editing — I mean we did a lot. Now, we have 60 people doing what we used to do,” she says. Between the two of them, they were able to produce the Katiba series, Lies that Bind and Block D — the last two still in production.
With the company’s ambitious plans to have eight new programmes this year Ms Kilonzo’s role as the head of production and for each show, the line producer, has clearly been defined.
“Line producer is the business aspect of film making. If I was not doing this I would be an accountant somewhere. Being a line producer means dealing with budgets, contracts — it’s everything, behind the scenes,” she says.
When pitching a show, the film making company is usually told the budget available or how much broadcasters will pay per episode. Ms Kilonzo’s job is to make sure that all the items, including pay for actors, fits within the set budget.
She explains that a line producer’s job is close to that of a production manager, who deals with the day-to-day running of a show and is always present at the set.
Demanding work
“A production is more demanding when it’s starting. I usually don’t start two productions at the same time,” she says, adding that the first month of any production is critical as is the last month when one does not want to go over the budget.
“If we are rolling camera, I like to roll more than two productions at the same time. We have to keep track, so in the first and last month I’m literally at the set every day,” she says.
As soon as she is done, she hands the show over to the production manager. This frees her time to start pre-production of new shows. However as the line manager, she still has to check on the progress of each show daily.
Ms Kilonzo credits her love for the creative and performing arts to books.
“I have always been an avid reader and I would always form pictures in my head from the books I was reading,” says she.
After high school, Ms Kilonzo wanted to study Media and started shopping for a college. But when she was invited to Maseno University, she decided to instead study Creative Arts and Performance.
“In my class, we were only four,” she says.
Ms Kilonzo jokes that even up to today her parents do not fully understand what she does, but they have continued to support her.
“They gave me the freedom, which in turn gave me the confidence to venture into the arts. That to me has always been special. To this day, they still give me the push to be more,” she says.
As a student, she learnt scripting, production, directing as well as acting. Her first job was as a production assistant; she knew early enough that her strength lay in working behind the scenes.
“The first day of shooting was confusing for me. You learn these things in school and then do some student projects but unless you are on a real set, nothing quite prepares you for the real thing,” she says.
She was part of a crew that was shooting a commercial. She was shocked and fascinated at the huge cranes, the cameras, wardrobe, make-up and all the people involved in something that goes on air more often than not for less than minute yet it was shot for two days, from 6am to 1am.
“There is a lot of media training and very little film training. We find that we have to train people on the field. They do not have basic filmmaking components like scripts, directing, lighting or post production,” she says.
Ms Kilonzo hopes to change how the creative industry is run at the top. At present, she is an MBA student at Strathmore University looking to get business knowledge to apply in the industry.
“It’s hard for people to understand that at the end of the day, it [film production] is a business which needs management,” she says.