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arts & entertainment Film Barry Hampton, 42 continued from page 6 about Africa that are negative and depress- ing and we didn’t want to fit into that mold. In marketing, I think sometimes people don’t know how to respond to it because it doesn’t fit into that mold and they don’t know what to do with it. It’s also pretty nerdy. It’s pretty geeky. And that’s because of the subject matter and my co-director (Morgan Robinson) wanted to make sure people understand all the dif- ferent steps involved to eventually produce solar energy. That’s a hard world for people to step into sometimes. It’s not something preachy, pro-environmental, anti-climate change, because people are used to that. tSn: But he’s not doing this to be “green” or “pro-enivornment” is he? Unlike what many people might associate with someone installing solar panels in Portland. He’s doing it because it’s practical? CM: The current energy situation in Mali is not really tenable. It’s very spotty in the city. It’s expensive. It’s completely unavail- able for people living outside of major cities. I think he’s just thinking, helping people who are ready to have energy to have it. What’s the easiest, most financially sound and non-environmentally degrading way to provide that? And this just very sim- ply makes sense. tSn: Was it nice to make a film about solar energy without having to get into the political muck like you’d encounter in this country? CM: There’s not any resistance. The one thing that amazes me, in a place like Mali, you’re dealing with a completely ineffectu- al power grid. They don’t have the political resistance to something like solar. They just get down to what makes sense and what works. People there, the main way to acquire fuel for cooking is to cut down trees. This is in a country that is covered mostly by the Sahara Desert. They realize that this is not good for the place they live. No one is telling them to cut down trees. There is no tree cutting industry. tSn: It’s just a matter of survival. CM: Yeah. I guess that’s it, there is no tree cutting industry. Well I guess there is, peo- ple do sell blocks of wood … tSn: What kind of challenges did you face filming? CM: One challenge was knowing when to turn off the camera. We shot about 140 hours of film in three months. The amount is average for a documentary, but in 3 months, it’s a lot. The reason is, everyone we were filming, there was a lot going on, a lot of characters, we didn’t necessarily have the story in mind from the beginning. We were filming everyone and everything. That was challenging and exhausting. There were two cameras, a three person crew. We were shooting all day nonstop. Definitely language was a challenge. The film is in English, French and Bambara (Mali’s native language) with Italian and Spanish going on for various reasons. … Sometimes when we were filming and not knowing what we were filming… Frankly, it was really, really, really hot, especially in the village. We were boiling our own water and letting it cool. A celebration of the life of local musician Barry Hampton will be held at 9 p.m. on Wednesday, Feb. 9 at Backspace, 115 NW 5th Ave. Hampton, a musician and singer for multiple local bands, died on Feb. 4, 2011. Details will be published as they are made available. Organizers of the celebration are asking singers, poets, musicians, family and friends who knew Hampton to come and celebrate his life with food and song. Attendees will be encouraged to share stories, photos, perform and bring food to share. His daughters will be in town as well. Barry leroy Hampton was born on Sept. 16, 1968. He was a member of Barry Hampton and the Triple Grip, The Clampdown, an original member of the Black key and was curriculum creator at REAl Prep Charter Academy. N ew Fe at u r e Online Now you can post your announce- ments directly, using The Skanner.com ‘YOUR BEAT, Eyes on the Street’. february 9, 2011 The Portland and Seattle Skanner Page 7
