Brett McAfee

KNPR-Wait Wait, Don't Tell Me

2010-12-08T20:38:00.003-06:00

PBS 5k Run-Shot for Kirvin Doek

2010-11-29T15:48:00.003-06:00

Model Shoot-Make-up by Adeline Oseguera

2010-11-29T14:33:00.018-06:00

Travel-A Few From Africa

2010-11-29T14:14:00.002-06:00

Travel-Morocco

2010-11-29T13:57:00.009-06:00

Travel-Germany

2010-11-29T11:46:00.008-06:00

Don't Panic

2010-07-02T14:44:00.002-05:00

Alright folks, here's the status of things. I haven't posted since Bamako, Mali and all hell has broken loose once again. Since then we left two more of our crew behind. One by choice and the other because of money problems. I have taken on more roles than ever thought possible. I am the Director of Photography as well as the initial shooter position. On top of that, driving shifts have increased and most days average around 20 hours of shooting/driving. The remaining 4 cast members have done nothing but push through mishap after mishap. Weeks behind schedule at this point, we sit in Brazaville, Congo. The teams' stay in Benin consisted of Nigerian Nightmares. We didn't get our visas in time due to lack of pictures and paper work. It took almost a week to get the visas after things were finally sorted out. We did however make a drive out of Cotonou, the capital I believe, to a beach resort where we camped and waited. Taking a run along the Atlantic Ocean helped with frustrations and such. I got to witness a village set fish nets in the morning, and pull them in later that night, all to the tune of amazing african song. We spent our final day in the Nigerian Embassy locking in our visas. At the time I was battling a possible malaria scare, due to the fact 3 of us still haven't purchased our pills. The entire day is a haze really and I was utterly worthless. Our excitement of finally entering Nigeria was short lived when we hit our first military check point. Little did we know that about 80 more lay in our future. It took far too long to push through the country but we pressed on nonetheless. We got our Cameroon visas within hours of going to the embassy, which was actually so fast, we weren't quite prepared to get back on the road. Cameroon was a bit of a blur as well. We drove through the most Indiana Jones-esque road at that point and we have nicknamed our night drive Witch Mountain. Let's just say, Harrison Ford can go F himself after what I drove through. We blew a tire and ruined oil skid plates by driving at night, in the rain, up a half mile high mountain side. Our editor, who was having bowel problems at the time, had to make a pit stop, in the rain, in front of the production vehicle. We drove straight through the night to Yaounde, Cameroon. We arrived at the Ideal Hotel, no lie, that's what it was called, and immediately started on car work. The production vehicle needed a couple stitches and we got plates fixed on the two remaining cars. Great city footage and money problems ensued. We gained our Congo, Gabon, and DRC visas after two days and 300 dollars and got back on the road. We left for Gabon at a blazing pace. With the roads as bad as they were, we made it within a couple dozen kilometers of the border before things went horribly wrong. Our leader, John Lovejoy, had a slight mishap with his baby the VW. As we were making up time, he pushed himself a bit hard and ended up dozing off behind the wheel. Yours truly awoke to Tony, our mechanic and cast member, yelling for a camera man and quick feet. I ran back to find the car parked into the side of a bridge, devastated. We camped for the night and towed it back to a small town 5 kilometers behind us. I spent a few hours of that morning filming a young man "spear fishing" in the water under the bridge John so narrowly missed. Two days and lots of filming later we were amazed to receive the car in perfect working order, a few blemishes, but otherwise sound. Back on the road that night, we were making great time. I was riding in the VW with John and Lucy, our resident Aussie when one of the most jarring moments of my life arose. Since it's the dry season, dust and debris clouded John's vision causing him to drive into yet another bridge. This time the car was finished. After debating flipping the car over with our air jack and man power, a man showed up asking to take the car for himself if we gave him 15 minutes to gather his brother and friends. Very illegally, we have him papers and cannibalized the vehicle and crammed into the remaining cars and jammed our way to the next town. We slept outside of a bank. Yep. That's about it. Our Suzuki, the remaining cast vehicle, was having problems with it's immobilizer, aka, the bane of the first Renaults existence. Myself, John, and Tony took the car to a mechanic/electrician the next day, where I got to witness the engine lighting on fire, while shooting of course, and subsequently driving off the lot. Welcome to Africa folks. With two vehicles in tow, we made it to the small town of Loutete'. We were told that a police escort was necessary to press forward, due to the fact that "ninjas" aka "bad boys" were on the roads. After hitting the station we came to realize that they were too drunk, and or tired to take us. We camped outside the police station and headed out the next morning. We road along with a military escort from a small town along terrible roads to the next checkpoint. We luckily met an English speaker in the small town, which, after a small discussion, talked a driver into letting me ride on top of a proper African produce truck to film from a higher perspective. Needless to say, one of the craziest experiences thus far. Riding atop an immense truck carrying oranges and 10 Africans definitely changes your perspective on commuting. We then hit the worst 300km of the trip on our way to Brazaville, Congo. After we realized at the checkpoint that the production vehicle's front driver's side wheel was basically sitting sideways in the wheel well, we decided to send it on ahead and a snail's pace. I spent the day in and out of the Suzuki, filming and getting one hell of a work-out pushing the toy size car out of sand and dirt. We ended the drive with an immense puddle of knee deep water, which, against all odds, the Suzuki made it through. We spent the night on the side of the road. Actual road. Proper, wonderful, glorious pavement. The production literally limped into Brazaveille after a tire blowing around 7 am and destroying the A-arm 50 meters in front of the ferry entrance to Kinshasa. That being the case, the team wasn't able to get our Angola visas started today like originally planned. I sit now in front of this very foreign piece of western technology debating on whether or not i'll make my July 14th flight. The team is in high spirits, but the idea of getting to Cape Town by the 10th seems hard to grasp. John did the drive 6 months ago and mentioned that 5 days of 23 hour driving got him from Kinshasa to Cape Town. Meaning we need to leave this place by the 5th to even make it possible. The shows final episode is under strong debate and yours truly sits in thought. TIA. (This is Africa) Cheers all.

F§à)K Mauritania!

2010-06-06T10:39:00.002-05:00

This will be my shortest entry thus far. Im currently sitting next to a Malian applying for an american visa, drinking a sprite, and sweating like a hooker in church. The last blog post I sent from Spain was during a time of peaceful countryside and friendly locals. One week can change many things. To keep things short and sweet, Ill say this much. Today 4 people will be asked to leave the project. I have been asked to stay and run the ship along with the remaining cast. A big hooray followed a monstrous fuck. Renault number 2 broke down 4 days ago, the cast all hate each other, and my team is leaving. Get ready for Brett the director, videographer, driver, DP, PA, aka production machine. Currently in Mali. Tomorrow? Burkina Faso. Minus one third of our team.

Estoy in Espana!

2010-05-21T08:03:00.002-05:00

The last few days have been an absolute blur. Actually I don´t think there is a word to acurately describe the diffusion and scattered firing of synapsis going on at the moment. At this point, not much has gone according to plan. Other than the driving aspect, Murphy´s law has been in full effect. About 2 hours outside of Berlin, the French car, a Renault, decided it was done being a utilizable piece of machinery. Whilst yours truly sat filming in the backseat of said car, the years and miles caught up with our lucky driver and created a beautiful symphony of swear words and grinding metal. After a few moments of playing the blame game amongst each other, the cast hooked a tow rope to the Renault, which is illegal on the Autobahn, and drive to the nearest town. Now, at that point in time, none of the cast or crew knew just how we would get all this sorted out. We had planned on being in southern France that night. After gassing up the remaining cars, a very faint comment was made about the production vehicles tires. It was disregarded. We pressed on.
About four miles later, on the way to a town called Hof, our producer´s voice came over the walkie talkie saying that a tire had, as he described, ¨blown to shit.¨ This was the tire that had been mentioned at the gas station moments earlier and totally disregarded.
At this point we all looked at each other with wide eyes, realizing the severity of the situation. We had no spare for the production vehicle. It was too late in the day to go to a parts store or automotive repair shop because in Germany, business close around 7. There are no ¨on call¨repair men like in the states. We were standing beside the fastest highway in the world, with twelve people and only two working cars.
The decision was made to send the mechanic, also a cast member, and our producer, cast as well and the only German speaker, to the town of Hof to see what kind of miracle, if any, could be pulled off. The rest of us began discussing worst case scenarios, who´s eating who first. Who has more meat, who´s the most useful to the group. The usual. And here, reader, is where I sat for the next six hours. On the side of the German Autobahn, sharing four sleeping bags between ten people. Why so few bags you ask? Because a select few thought we would not need one prior to Africa.
The next 48 hours were pretty much a nightmare. Every silver lining seemed to crack and fade away as the group dealt with our stay in the little town of Hof. By some stroke of luck, our mechanic located the one tow service guy in a 10 mile radius to come pick up our production vehicle. At the same time this was happening, the German highway patrol had picked up on the fact that our little French car had a giant orange tow strap attached to it. Charming as he is, our producer and resident German talked them into letting us tow to Hof and use the Autobahn.
After a tow to the service station and a few phone calls, we realized we had no place to stay for the night and proceeded to set up tents and cleared room in the remaining cars and slept in the field a block from the station.
We spent the entire next day in a McDonald´s. This is not an exaggeration. Twelve hours we sat in a fast food restaurant. Given, it was literally the nicest Micky D´s I´ve ever set foot in, but no one, not even the absolute worst of your enemies, should spend that much time in a McDonald´s. By the end we realized that the music that had been playing all day was on a two hour loop. Which brought us to the conclusion, McDonald´s never expects a patron to spend time over two hours in one of their restaurants.
Anyway, here´s how this whole thing wraps up. We ended up finding a replacement car, almost the exact same to be exact, but was unavailable for pickup until the following day. We found a house\hostel type thing and settle in for night two in Hof. I think it should be known to the reader the amount of Star Wars references made because of the similarity of Hof to Hoth. Hooray for nerdity.
We awoke first thing wednesday morning to an angry German home owner, that had at some point in our 8 hour stay, become so upset with our noise level that he made us leave four hours earlier than previously expected. He still served us coffee and bread with cheese. Sucker.
We spent the next few hours at a ¨cafe¨next to the service shop. It was a truck stop diner. I´m from Kansas. Germany can call it whatever they want, but it was a truck stop.
The mechanic, along with a couple cast members, resituated bags and tires into the new Renault, aired up tires, and topped off all the tanks in the other cars. After a game time decision, we all decided that the next leg of driving was going to be a straight shot to Barcelona with no stops. A rotation was made between drivers for the next 16 hours and we blew straight our of Germany, across France, and straight into Barcelona last night. We found a horrible hostel, parked the cars in a guarded lot, and went our separate ways for food and libations. I guess you could say I got a good night´s sleep. If by good night´s sleep you mean sharing a room with 11 unshowered bodies and only netting about 3 hours, then ya, I got a great night´s rest.
I sit now at the hostel´s internet bay. We were kicked out of our room at 10 this morning but basically set up shop in their back meeting room. They don´t speak English so it´s easy to just play naive and utilize their resources. We leave today for southern Spain and tomorrow we hit the ferry. Off to Africa. Hopefully the northern countries have decent internet. Oh, and I still have my towel. So Í´ve got that going for me.

Sick in Berlin

2010-05-15T12:00:00.006-05:00

A "Kiss Me Bench"

I chopped wood

Today started off much like any other. Well, save the cold. The 50 degree weather finally caught up with yours truly. Luckily our Director of Photography had a pharmacy in tow. After a slow morning of shooting the cast and meetings with crew, the cars were maneuvered into position and painting began. (photos to follow in the next blog, along with the car names)

The artists are absolutely amazing. They are two local graffiti artists, and they are "tagging" our cars with themes from our trip. The beast of burden, a.k.a. the production car, has been outfitted with a fresh skid plate, brush card, and more sponsor stickers than Danika Patrick could shake a stick at. I've been shooting most of the day, transferring batteries and memory cards on an hourly basis. We have some cameras made by GoPro that shoot full 1080p footage for extreme sports. They are like little tank cameras with wide angle barrels. I'll be taking one of those hopefully when we're done. Red Rock, here I come.

I'll have to cut this entry a little short, seeing as we have a shindig lined up tonight marking our Auf Wiedersehen to Berlin. Free beer provided by the hostel. w00t. Hope all my readers are doing well in their respective corners of the universe. Enjoy the pictures. Stay tuned. And as our UK native cast member would say. Sod off.

The Internet Without Internet

2010-05-14T01:56:00.008-05:00

Large Bear Shakes Hands. Later, Small Child Mauled to Death

The View From our Coordinator's Lake House

Today is the day our final cast members arrive. Lucy and Susan are the last addition to our rag-tag crew of young adventurers. Time to really go to work. For the last few days in Berlin, the crew and cast have been working together to secure the vehicles for the caravan. On Tuesday, I drove a Suzuki with a 1.1 engine from a used car lot back to our hostle in Mitte, Berlin. I would relate the experience to every 16 year old's first time on an interstate. The experience of driving a $150 car through a busy foreign city is quite invigorating.

We have already experienced a few set backs in the production schedule. Our Renault, a French car similar to an old Saab, has already broken down and has spent the last 3 days at our production coordinators house. Ask a mechanic if they know what a demobilizer and see how they respond.

Another wrench in the works presented itself a few days ago when our director had a meeting at a local bar. A local Berliner by the name of Illa overheard some of the details and immediately threw herself at the mercy of our vagabond court. At the moment, the discussion is whether our not we would have enough space between the 3 cast cars to accommodate our new German friend. After meeting with Illa, a sense of utter confusion came over me as I discussed the project with one of our cast members. What the hell are we all doing? Ever since our overly vocal, hilariously stereotypical Englishman cast member arrived, he has been spouting off knowledge about African foreign relations. Whether it be Angolan insurgents, border wars in the North of Burkina Faso, or the absolutely awful conditions of South Africa at the moment. Can we say a murder rate of 20,000 per year? Wonderful.

To end this entry on a high note, I would like the reader to know that all precautions are being taken. At the moment we are 12. With the possibility of rising to a bakers dozen. We are one car down and we haven't even started the trip, but we will push on. Our mechanic is en route to the Renault shop located an hour outside of Berlin. The two final additions to our crew arrive this afternoon, and excitement is at an all time high. As it stands, things look good. We have graffiti artists coming tonight and tomorrow to paint our cars, and we are on the road Monday.

Cash, Money, Dollar Dollar Bill y'all.

Puddle Jumping

2010-05-08T17:40:00.008-05:00

American On-line-esque internet speeds have catered to a later than expected blog post. At the moment it's 1:00 Deutschland time. It's been a busy and eventful 72 hours. We arrived in New York on Friday morning a 7am to the sounds of squealing metro trains and pissed off morning commuters. The producer's friend Andy, our tour guide for the day, met up with us and quickly led the way to a local joint for coffee and organic breakfast. I downed some grits and huevos rancheros along with a bucket of coffee, and then it was off to Chelsea. Two of the crew members were newbies in the Northeast, which meant we spent our 11 hour layover traversing the Manhattan area. A good friend and travel companion of mine, ended up taking the afternoon off from work and tagging along with our rag tag clue as well. The next 12 hours were a blur. Metro to Air Train, followed by the most ass backward trek to an air terminal. A volcano scare paired with a lack of sleep catered to a few short naps in between 3 horrible in flight movies. Bride Wars being my personal favorite.

Landing in Germany was the most refreshing breath of fresh air experienced in a long while. Something about being out of the country is soothing. Especially when it revolves around work. We were picked up by our producer and quickly driven through downtown Berlin. Our hostle is amazing. Lots of Australians and other tourists. The locals have been coming in for happy hour from 8-9 every night. We have had a dozen or so production team meetings in the last 48 hours, all resulting in smiles and an ever growing sense of excitement for things to come. Our cast members still wont be here for a week, but the main event we are looking forward to is the painting of the cars. We have some local graffiti artists coming to decorate our tiny little vehicles and convert them to moving pieces of art. I feel myself drifting and this point, and have spent zero time editing this post. All wit and verbosity (real word?) are out the window right now. Bye for now all. I promise the next post will contain a little part of my soul. I hit my quota for the day before typing this. Deal with it.

If You're Going to Survive Out Here, You Have To Know Where Your Towel Is.

2010-05-05T17:26:00.003-05:00

http://www.youtube.com/user/NomadicNation

Life is travel. Or at least that is what I've come to believe. I remember being asked to pop a dramamine in a church parking lot somewhere just outside my home town in Piper Kansas. Let's pretend you've heard of it and move on. Waking up hours later in nowheresville Minnesota to the sound of Don Adams' nasal voice on the over head television set became the source of hangover deja' vu fifteen years later. Maybe that explains my situational narcolepsy when I hear the Inspector Gadget theme song. The fact of the matter is, the bitter taste of that little white tablet, and the subsequent hours of missed travel, has never left me.

Author Greg Anderson wrote, "Focus on the journey, not the destination. Joy is found not in finishing an activity, but in doing it." The hours lost on my young road trip to Minnesota didn't necessarily take away that joy, but prevented it. Since then I have been infatuated with the journey. Road trips and travels abroad became commonplace. As much as money and time could allow. Which is never as much as one would like. I have spent time in Australia, New Zealand, and most recently in the Philippines. Now, as I finish packing for this most recent venture, I realize that I will be adding continent four and five to my travel log over the next nine weeks.

On to the real reason for this introduction. Toto is leaving Kansas and heading to bless the rains in Africa. Six hours from now I'll be on a plane to New York. After an eleven hour layover and a few coffees, four production team members and yours truly will be en route to Berlin, Germany. There we will be purchasing three two-stroke engine cars for the journey to South Africa. These will be piloted by teams of two cast members that have yet to meet each other. Along with a production team van, the convoy will head to spain, hop a ferry over the Straight of Gibralter eventually dropping everyone off in Morocco. The "plan" is to hop on what I've been told are roads, in the most generous sense, and spend the next seven weeks driving to South Africa for the semi-finals of the World Cup.

Synopsis aside, what the hell am I doing? I'm a the lead videographer for a pilot season of a TV show about young travelers. Think Real World meets Travel Channel. Amazing Race you say? Well, take away the made up challenges, replace them with real car troubles, searing Saharan heat, possible rebel contact, and the fact that none of the cast know each other. In that sense, they are the same. The fact that I met the producers two and a half weeks ago at the NAB conference is crazy enough. They were discussing the plot and mentioned they were looking for a videographer. Two guesses as to who jumped on bored.

I'm not much for writing, hoping I get better as this all goes along, but for an introduction, I hope I did my brief story justice. I've gone from being inspired by "Where in the World is Carmen San Diego" to channelling Anthony Bourdain. Minus the drug addictions and smoking habit. I'll be updating as much as mother Africa will allow. Cheers. Welcome to my life.