At Mara Mambo Media, no two months look quite the same when it comes to documentary production.
One day, we are on an oil and gas site capturing the scale of Uganda’s energy story. The next, we are translating an entrepreneurship programme into engaging audio and animation. Then we are behind the camera documenting scientific training, celebrating business success, or capturing a moment that will become part of Uganda’s national story.
June, July and August were exactly that kind of season.
Read on.
JUNE | Capturing the Heart of the CPF
June took us into Uganda’s growing oil and gas story, where we worked with TotalEnergies EP Uganda to film and edit a collection of photographs and videos documenting the Tilenga project’s Central Processing Facility (CPF).
The CPF is a major part of the Tilenga development, and being on location gave us the opportunity to capture more than infrastructure. Through photography and video, we focused on the people, processes and details that bring a complex operation to life.
From wide shots that communicate the scale of the facility to the smaller moments that help audiences understand what happens behind the scenes, the assignment challenged us to think beyond simply documenting a site.
How do you make a highly technical environment feel human, accessible and engaging?
That question was at the heart of our June work.
And, as always, the camera became our storytelling tool.
JULY | Making Entrepreneurship Come Alive
In July, we switched gears and moved from oil and gas to entrepreneurship and family business.
For Opportunity International, we produced audio content and an animated video for their Family Business Entrepreneurship Program.
This project reminded us of something we love about multimedia storytelling; that sometimes, the most effective way to communicate an idea isn’t through a traditional talking-head video.
Audio can make a message personal.
Animation can make a concept easier to understand.
And when the two are thoughtfully produced, they can help turn information into something audiences can actually connect with.
AUGUST | From Business Success to Science and National Milestones
If June and July showed us the range of our work, August took that range to another level.
We started the month celebrating achievement with Forever Living Uganda, where we filmed and edited a video for their Success Day.
Events like these are about more than speeches and photographs. They are about people – their journeys, milestones, ambitions and celebrations.
Our job was to capture that energy and create a video that allowed the experience to live beyond the event itself.
And then, we pivoted again.
We moved into the world of research and public health, filming an Oculomics training at MRC/UVRI in Entebbe for MRC/UVRI & LSHTM Uganda Unit.
It was a very different environment, but the storytelling principle remained the same: make the subject matter understandable, engaging and human.
Training documentation requires a careful eye. You want to capture the technical aspects of the work while also showing the people learning, collaborating and putting knowledge into practice.
It was another reminder that documentary storytelling can be a bridge between specialised work and the audiences who need to understand it.
At the start of September, we packed our bags again and headed back South to film and produce two significant documentary videography and documentary photography for TotalEnergies EP Uganda as Uganda’s crude got her name, Pearl Sweet.
Stay tuned for the September wrap up. It will be quite the rollercoaster.
And if the past three months are anything to go by, we’re only getting started.
Here’s to more stories, more cameras, more creativity, and more moments worth capturing.
