Newsletter April 2007

COMMERCIALS

In July, 2006, Pontact welcomed Producer BJ Boulter from Portugal back to Kenya with Deem Productions to shoot a commercial for Suzuki Netherlands.

It was “Suzuki Saves the Rhino” and featured another old friend, Tony Fitzjohn. Tony was the subject of the 1998 Canadian/Kenyan co-production “To Walk with Lions” which told the story of his years with renowned “lion man”George Adamson and starred Richard Harris as George, and John Michie as Tony.

Tony is now a world renowned conservationist in his own right and runs the extensive Mkomazi Game Reserve in Tanzania.He felt it would be too difficult to shoot the commercial in Mkomazi and suggested Lewa Conservancy as the location. It was refreshing to see that Tony has not lost any of his mischief and sense of fun.

It was a great honour for us to shoot a tvc in Lewa but we also appreciate that this beautiful area must more and more be kept exclusively for the wildlife and can only host low profile wildlife documentary crews in the future. Needless to say, we made a great commercial.

No sooner had BJ returned to Portugal for her son, Christian’s wedding, than she had to come back for another tvc shoot – this time with MJZ, New York. The client was Alcon and the product ReStor lenses for cataracts.

It featured a Granny with her grandson on “The Safari of a Lifetime” and, as usual with BJ’s jobs, we shot in the most stunning and wild locations. It was refreshing not to be told “it’s a very low budget”, and to shoot a tvc on Panavision – just like the good old days.

PILOT FOR BBC COMEDY.

In January, 2007, BBC Comedy came to shoot a pilot for a series entitled “The Calais Rules”. The shoot was in Nakuru, in the Rift Valley, and the crew hotel as well as main location was the wonderfully different Waterbuck Hotel.

It was the biggest film shoot that Nakuru has ever seen and a good experience for crew and cast. The series has since been approved and so, hopefully, we will be returning to Nakuru early in 2008.

FROM BOLLYWOOD VIA HOLLYWOOD

In November we hosted a crew from Hollywood to shoot establishing scenes of a Bollywood financed film entitled “Ode”. Grand ideas were curtailed by limited funds and the shoot was reduced to a week in Mombasa and a couple of days in and near Nairobi.

But it gave us the opportunity to work, albeit on the wettest day of the year, with one of the beautiful old veteran steam engines of the East African Railways and Harbours, recently taken over by a South African enterprise and renamed Rift Valley Railways.

OUR OFFICES

Email:
pontact@africaonline.co.ke

Pontact Productions EPZ Limited
Rafiki EPZ Industrial Park
Outer Ring road
P.O. Box 64918
00620 Nairobi,
Kenya

Telephone Numbers

Office switchboard +254-20-8562386
Office direct landline: +254-20-6752166
Office mobile +254-720 030870
Jenny direct +254-20-8561463
Office fax +254-20 8562133

Cellphones

Jenny +254-733 602431 or +254-722 221179
Joram +254-724 334110 or +254-735 836560
Maggie +254-720 796998 or +254-737 227037
Michael Karanja +254-727 107700 or 0735 107700
Yusuf +254-722 213667
Naomi +254-721 884749