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.

Yet Another Assassination Attempt on Michael Raeburn

Yet another assassination attempt on Michael Raeburn's life by an unidentified assailant.

Wait - this just in...this particular fork-wielding assassin is the distinguished Caroline Chomienne, Déléguation Générale of ALTERMÉDIA, le cinéma autrement, an esteemed film school in Paris, in this case fulfilling her function as film critic.


You can see that she hasn't given up, even in this next picture, as a group of great Triomf minds tried to have an elegant meal at the restaurant atop the Centre George Pompidou in Paris.

From left to right: Lyndon Plant, executive producer, Rachel, Michael Raeburn, director and writer, Caroline (Corday) L'Assassin, and finally co-producer Bruno Daniault, Epoteon Productions, Paris.

Michael Raeburn Field Tests Paris Vélib' Bicycle

Ever the early adapter, Michael Raeburn wanted to be the first to try the new Vélib' bicycles while he was in Paris last week. Vélib' bicycle rental areas were placed all over Paris, in hopes that people would use bikes instead of cars, thus addressing Paris traffic and pollution problems. We are seeing people on these bikes all over town - they were immediately popular.

To rent a bike, all you do is put your credit card or a Vélib' card into the machine and you can rent the bike free for the first 1/2 hour and then for only 1 Euro an hour after that. (Check out the great explanation of how Vélib' works, in English, on the Polly Vous Francais blog.) Since there are so many stations available, with proper planning, you may never have to pay for your ride.

When we were expressing awe about them recently with Jose Baptista, Triomf's sound engineer, he said, "Yes, but you can only use a credit card, or you can get a Vélib' card but you must have a bank account to do so. The rental machines don't take cash or coins. So that means that poor people can't rent them." Interesting point. We tried to rent a bike with an American MasterCard debit card but it didn't work, nor did an American Express card. So we may be out of luck also.

This was Michael's first ride on one of the bikes. He and Lyndon Plant, Triomf's executive producer, used the bikes to get to a meeting with the French accountant for Triomf. Michael customarily bikes all over Paris on a daily basis, whereas Lyndon, who lives in London, was more in the mode of the typical tourist. Both of them ended up quite delighted, a near-universal experience, if the faces of all those riders on the street are to be believed.