The Mango Lab in Africa

About six weeks ago there was mention of a buzz brewing at The Mango Lab. We now can reveal that we won an exciting contract that has taken us to Africa for three months. It may have looked as though we had abandoned our blog or website over the last few weeks, but we have had good reason. Planning for a trip of this magnitude (which includes sound, video and still photography shoots) and length of time of the project has presented itself with many preparatory challenges that one only can breathe deep and learn by doing. It has been a steep learning curve but now as we settle in we can return to our additional means of communication. We are happy to have made it through “the test”.

Julia at work filming mountain gorillas in Rwanda.

Those of you who know Julia or have had classes/ workshops with her will be happy to hear that she is in the field following her dream. Her locations tend to be very remote so we only get limited feed coming through once or twice a week, with snippets of stories and experiences here and there. At this point we have very few pictures because of the extremely slow upload speed from her end which tends to be at roadside bars or the odd café.

We can say that four weeks in she has been doing an amazing job wrangling still, video and sound equipment on her own and while her days are filled with a list of filming needs, her evenings are made up of downloading and editing the material from the day. She reports the days are very long – often 5:30 am starts and 11:00 pm nights with an attempt, if she can, at emailing us here with her news. But despite the incredible workload her spirit is dancing as she has a front row to scenery and experiences not short of life changing.

As much as she is excited about presenting it, we look forward to her imagery and knowledge that she will return with. We are very pleased to add her specialised knowledge and field experience to The Mango Lab and be able to pass on to our clients.

Meanwhile back in London, courses continue to run here so if you are looking to book a course please phone the office and speak with Kay about booking your space. Julia is returning at the end of June and those looking to secure a one-to-one with her for either video, camera or project development advice should let us know as soon as possible.

If you have any additional questions about upcoming dates and courses we welcome your queries at info(at)themangolab.co.uk or call 0203 002 4991.