KALI­FA SARAH CLYNE

Let's Face it. When we turn on the tele­vi­sion, whether we have ca­ble or stick with the lo­cal tele­vi­sion sta­tions, we are bom­bard­ed with a cat­a­logue of choic­es.Va­ri­ety has be­come com­mon­place in our lives so we ex­pect it in every as­pect. How­ev­er, al­though the choic­es we have in terms of tele­vi­sion soaps and talk shows are var­ied, they all seem to have a com­mon thread. They aren't lo­cal. There is a steady stream of for­eign con­tent on our air­waves, and though or­gan­i­sa­tions like the Trinidad and To­ba­go Film Com­pa­ny con­stant­ly en­cour­age lo­cal film and tele­vi­sion pro­duc­ers, it seems like any head­way made is mi­cro­scop­ic.

The T&T Guardian re­cent­ly spoke to lo­cal tele­vi­sion and film pro­duc­er Kevin Adams about the chal­lenges he faces try­ing to "keep it lo­cal" and why it's worth it to en­dure the fight.Adams is a Trin­bag­on­ian who is "against all odds" try­ing to get lo­cal pro­gram­ming on the lo­cal tele­vi­sion sta­tions and lo­cal films in the movie the­atres. Don't let his Amer­i­can ac­cent fool you. De­spite mi­grat­ing to the states at a young age and be­ing ed­u­cat­ed in New York, Adams vi­sion is set on his home­land. He just wish­es that lo­cal broad­cast­ers could see the things his way, in red, black and white.

Step­ping back to move for­ward

Af­ter hav­ing worked in video pro­duc­tion in the US, Adams moved back to T&T to do a film called Queen of So­ca. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, he is cur­rent­ly pro­duc­ing a tele­vi­sion show called Lo­cal Ad­dicts."It's a mat­ter of look­ing at oth­er film­mak­ers world­wide, most study in the US, but then they go right back to their cul­ture to make their best known films," said Adams, adding that he would have been crazy to have wast­ed the op­por­tu­ni­ty.How­ev­er, pro­duc­ing a film and de­liv­er­ing qual­i­ty ma­te­r­i­al to an au­di­ence isn't as sim­ple as one might imag­ine.

"In T&T if you get a grant, most of the time it doesn't cov­er your en­tire pro­duc­tion so you still have to find mon­ey. The cost of rent­ing pro­duc­tion equip­ment lo­cal­ly is more ex­pen­sive than US prices," said Adams.Adams re­ceived a grant from the T&T Film Com­pa­ny to write, pro­duce and di­rect the 30 minute fea­ture Queen of So­ca. The movie fea­tures songstress Ter­ri Lyons and ac­tress Pene­lope Spencer as part of the cast.With such a huge op­por­tu­ni­ty, Adams want­ed to make the best of it, and re­alised the film would be best pre­sent­ed as a full length fea­ture. With that de­ci­sion made, he added 45 pages in about a month.

Pro­duc­ing on a tight bud­get

Ac­cord­ing to Adams, the chances of pro­duc­ing a 30 minute film on $200,000 was al­ready tight, so at­tempt­ing to pro­duce a fea­ture with the same amount was more than a bit chal­leng­ing. He was able to com­plete the short, and was able to film 75 per cent of the fea­ture. But he is no ma­gi­cian."Now we are back look­ing to raise an­oth­er $200,000 to com­plete the pro­duc­tion and pay off a few debts," said Adams.

With work on the film on hold and a tele­vi­sion pro­duc­tion in the mak­ing, Adams still has to face more hur­dles in the form of sell­ing his tele­vi­sion show to broad­cast­ers. And these broad­cast­ers in­sist that in or­der for the con­tent to be shown, pro­duc­ers must buy the air­time."The US does such a great job with mar­ket­ing their pro­grammes that every­one knows about it, so when it gets to Trinidad, their work is done. When you hear Tyra every­one knows, so TV sta­tions spend less on mar­ket­ing and ad­ver­tis­ing."When a lo­cal pro­duc­er comes with his pro­gramme un-mar­ket­ed, un-known, this is work for the broad­cast­er," said Adams.

With one movie await­ing com­ple­tion, and a tele­vi­sion show that Adams is ac­tive­ly pre­sent­ing to lo­cal sta­tions, one might won­der why he doesn't give up. Well ac­cord­ing to Adams, he lives for chal­lenges. He is al­so very con­fi­dent that he will find a cre­ative so­lu­tion to all the (his) lo­cal prob­lems. In the mean­time he is pro­mot­ing Lo­cal Ad­dicts, which will fea­ture co-hosts Fern Gray and Ashan­na Arthur, for­mer Miss T&T/World.For a pre­view, check Lo­cal Ad­dicts on Face­book.