<h1 style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 25px; color: rgb(37, 37, 37); padding-top: 15px; padding-bottom: 5px; height: auto; line-height: normal; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> Not your average &lsquo;Family Film&rsquo;</h1> <div style="overflow: hidden; float: right;"> <a><img alt="Print this page" border="0" src="http://www.screenafrica.com/pics/print.gif" /></a></div> <div class="date" style="overflow: hidden; padding: 2px 0px 10px; font-style: italic; font-size: 11px; color: rgb(182, 182, 182); font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: normal; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> Mon, 02 Jun 2014 12:06</div> <div class="addthis_toolbox addthis_default_style " style="overflow: hidden; margin-top: 5px; margin-bottom: 20px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: normal; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> <div class="fb-like fb_iframe_widget" data-action="like" data-font="arial" data-href="http://www.screenafrica.com/page/news/film/1643298-Not-your-average-Family-Film" data-layout="button_count" data-ref=".VE-_lsg2UCM.like" data-send="false" data-show_faces="false" data-width="90" fb-iframe-plugin-query="action=like&amp;app_id=172525162793917&amp;font=arial&amp;href=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.screenafrica.com%2Fpage%2Fnews%2Ffilm%2F1643298-Not-your-average-Family-Film&amp;layout=button_count&amp;locale=en_US&amp;ref=.VE-_lsg2UCM.like&amp;sdk=joey&amp;send=false&amp;show_faces=false&amp;width=90" fb-xfbml-state="rendered" style="overflow: hidden; 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width: 1px; position: absolute; z-index: 100000; border-width: 0px; left: 0px; top: 0px;" title="AddThis utility frame"></iframe></div> <div class="newimg" style="overflow: hidden; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: normal; float: right; text-align: center; font-style: italic; border: 1px solid rgb(231, 231, 231); margin: 10px; padding: 5px 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> <img alt=" " border="0" class="big_ctl" hspace="5" src="http://www.screenafrica.com/cm_pics/news/2054-4714-0-0_2513693.jpg" title=" " vspace="0" /> <div style="overflow: hidden; clear: both;"> &nbsp;</div> </div> <p><br style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: normal; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /> <span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: normal; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">South African director Bonginhlanhla Ncube and his family form both the cast and crew in a new short film, Something is Wrong With Kelvin, which is selected to screen on the opening night of the Independent Mzansi Short Film Festival on 25 June 2014.</span><br style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: normal; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /> <br style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: normal; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /> <strong style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: normal; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Holiday turned horror flick</strong><br style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: normal; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /> <br style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: normal; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /> <span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: normal; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Most people prepare for a summer holiday by signing up for spinning classes, stocking up on sun screen and packing their cars with beach paraphernalia, but the same cannot be said for the Ncube family. Bonginhlanhla Ncube along with wife Nokuthula Mguni and sons Shaun (nine) and Ashley (18) spent the days before their family break at a forest lodge in the North Coast of KwaZulu-Natal learning the script for a short horror film.&nbsp;</span><br style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: normal; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /> <br style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: normal; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /> <span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: normal; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&ldquo;My son had been telling me how he wanted to break into the industry as an actor and a crazy idea just hit me: how about we write a short film and when we go on holiday, we&rsquo;ll take a few days to shoot it. In three days I had a script,&rdquo; says Ncube, better known as Mr B.&nbsp;</span><br style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: normal; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /> <br style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: normal; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /> <span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: normal; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Unlike most films, which require months of rehearsing, planning scenes and scouting locations, Mr B&rsquo;s short film had to be constructed in a slightly backwards fashion. Their pre-determined holiday destination, a log cabin situated in a thicket of dense trees, would have to serve as the location for his film and the concept would have to be developed around it.&nbsp;</span><br style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: normal; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /> <br style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: normal; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /> <span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: normal; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&ldquo;I visualised this place and looked at some pictures online. It was full with thick trees and I thought: This would work really well for a horror/ thriller film,&rdquo; remembers Mr B, who was delighted when he arrived to find a setting that matched the dark and mysterious plot he had built his script around.&nbsp;</span><br style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: normal; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /> <br style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: normal; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /> <strong style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: normal; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Family first</strong><br style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: normal; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /> <br style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: normal; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /> <span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: normal; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The family of four rotated between being in front of and behind the camera. When a scene required that they all take part in the action, they would position the camera, get into character, press record, and clap their hands (instead of using a clapper board) for each new take.&nbsp;</span><br style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: normal; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /> <br style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: normal; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /> <span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: normal; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Working with family comes with its positives and negatives, explains Mr B, who at times had to contend with a cranky nine-year-old, made to trade hours of carefree sea-splashing for the role of boom operator.&nbsp;</span><br style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: normal; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /> <br style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: normal; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /> <span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: normal; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&ldquo;Imagine me trying to tell my wife what to do,&rdquo; says Mr B through a playful giggle, &ldquo;but everybody understood and I kept reminding them what we were doing. We need to support our son; he can&rsquo;t be the only actor in the film. We need to support him with our performances. That helped everyone get into the right mind-set&hellip; except my youngest son. To this day, he still insists he wants to go on a real holiday.&rdquo;</span><br style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: normal; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /> <br style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: normal; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /> <span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: normal; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Overall the experience of creating a film brought the Ncube family closer together and Mr B comments: &ldquo;We&rsquo;re sometimes in isolation in our everyday lives, but to be in a weeklong project which we are working so hard at, at times almost getting on each other&rsquo;s nerves, it really brought us together as a family.&rdquo;</span><br style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: normal; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /> <br style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: normal; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /> <strong style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: normal; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Guerrilla filmmaking</strong><br style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: normal; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /> <br style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: normal; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /> <span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: normal; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&ldquo;I shot a film in six days, with a family of four. We had one light, one camera, one boom mic, one sound recorder and one tripod &ndash; five items &ndash; and we shot it,&rdquo; says Mr B, whose ability to improvise, which went as far as casting a neighbouring holiday-goer in a cameo role, made it possible to complete the product.&nbsp;</span><br style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: normal; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /> <br style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: normal; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /> <span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: normal; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Mr B believes that with today&rsquo;s evolving technologies and smart phone capabilities, anyone is in a position to create a film, if they really want to. Though a Canon EOS 5D Mark III DSLR camera was used to shoot the film, one slow motion scene was shot using his camera phone and was modified slightly to be included with the rest of the footage.&nbsp;</span><br style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: normal; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /> <br style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: normal; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /> <span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: normal; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&ldquo;You don&rsquo;t need a huge camera; they have the same sensor size as a 5D. Most DSLR cameras are really good with light; they open up and pump light into the subject. You don&rsquo;t necessarily need extra light, unless you want to motivate something. That&rsquo;s how good they are. If you have that, and a small decent sound recorder, you can shoot a film,&rdquo; explains Mr B.&nbsp;</span><br style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: normal; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /> <br style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: normal; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /> <span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: normal; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Not only did Mr B write, direct, produce and act in Something is Wrong With Kelvin, he edited the film and has enlisted industry friends and film students to assist with the final nuances in post-production.&nbsp;</span><br style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: normal; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /> <br style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: normal; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /> <span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: normal; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&ldquo;After I did a rough cut I started showing it to friends, I shared it with Geo Hoehn who has done scores for a number of international productions. He wanted to score it and some students from AFDA are assisting with composing, sound design and final mix. I feel so excited and overwhelmed, but I think what sells the film is the story behind it,&rdquo; concludes Mr B.&nbsp;</span><br style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: normal; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /> <br style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: normal; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /> <span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: normal; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Mr B hopes that the film will be picked up for distribution by one of the local broadcasters and, dependant on its reception at IMSFF, screen at a number of film festivals. However, his initial goal for the project remains the most significant: to offer his son a unique opportunity to express his talents, explore the potential of his dreams and showcase to South African audiences, his ability as an actor.</span></p>