My film group’s last couple of days have been filled with filming and editing our peers’ stories, but also storyboarding for our profile of Dr. Norbert Ndjeka. This process has involved multiple very late nights, a couple of all-nighters, and a lot of learning. We’ve learned a lot about what it takes to put together a story and inform an audience that isn’t necessarily knowledgeable about TB about a pivotal figure in the TB world in a way that is engaging, visually interesting, and does justice to everyone involved.
A recurring theme I’ve observed in our time here is interconnectedness. When we visited Constitution Hill, we learned about how connected history is with the present. (We’ve even witnessed it in the last couple of days amid the power outages, WIFI outages, and the load shedding.) In our global health classes, we’ve learned how issues of global health are entirely dependent on their contexts: different parts of the world, their cultures, the socioeconomic climate, etc.
The example of interconnectedness most fresh in my mind comes from my group’s storyboarding process over the last few days. Last night, I sat on the floor of room 12 taping two large pieces of paper together to form our storyboard and begin to write, and I paused to think about the format that would best suit our needs and organize the story we are telling. It dawned on me that in our hours of discussion about the supporting characters of our film, we were essentially trying to parse through the many connections that would best tell Dr. Ndjeka’s story. During his pre-interview, he mentioned the support of others throughout his life and career several times, he had multiple mentors, co-workers, and committees without whom his accomplishments would not have been possible. Telling his story wouldn’t be possible without mentioning some of the people around him that have supported and worked alongside him, hence our excitement at being able to speak with Phumeza and Phulmani in the coming days. In discussing the final moments of our film and what they’re going to look like, we talked about the fact that there are many areas in the world of TB that still need the kind of breakthroughs that Dr. Ndjeka has worked his whole career to achieve in the area of changing the regimen for drug-resistant TB, and it feels like a great honor to be one of the people telling the story of a person who is so crucial and interconnected in setting the world of TB up for future progress.
