Alex Pearse Joins Triomf Crew. Rain Stops.

I just spoke by phone with Alex Pearse, a South African writer who lives in London but is now in Johannesburg to help with the Triomf film production, as a "labor of love," according to our executive producer, Lyndon Plant. Alex told me in an email, "My official credits on the film are clapper loader and stills photographer - and general multimedia dogsbody!"

Alex will be on the set from 6AM until 6PM or whenever shooting is finished for the day. Then he plans to download any photos and anecdotes to me in the evenings. Stay tuned!

Lyndon also told me that the month of October is known in parts of Southern Africa as the "suicide month," because it is usually so hot and dry. Jo'burg has been known to get some afternoon/evening rains in October, but never has it seen rain such as it was last week. So you would think that this is a safe time of year for a film shoot, but unfortunately for the crew, the rain put off the entire production schedule. According to an article on the City of Johannesburg website, tornado reports were a hoax, but they managed to snarl up traffic because so many people left work early in fear of the tornado.

Ezekiel Sebego, a forecaster at South African Weather Service said,"We are aware of the emails that were sent to people warning them about a tornado and severe storms. Yes, there were severe storms in some parts of the province - there was heavy rain, hail and extremely strong winds yesterday in Gezina [east of Pretoria] - but there was no tornado."

Finally, Lyndon and Alex had to fly to Jo'burg from London and bring the sunshine with them. All of you in Jo'burg, and the crew of Triomf, can thank them for that. Now he and Alex and the rest of the crew are back on the job, specifically Lionel Newton, who plays the part of Treppie in the film. He was selected to perform weather watch in between takes.