One shot, no mistakes: How digital tech has killed the art of old-school filmmaking

 

Henry Bwoka with a camcorder that he transitioned to after spending over three decades operating the film version. [Courtesy, Benedict Wasiche]

In 1982, veteran cameraman Henry Bwoka was covering a presidential function at Uhuru Park when he told his soundman to alert him so he could ‘shoot’ President Daniel arap Moi as he began his speech.

The choice of words briefly alarmed a security officer. “Unasema nini wewe?” (What are you saying?), the officer demanded. Bwoka quickly explained that he meant filming, not anything threatening.

The incident offers a glimpse into an era when filmmaking depended on specialised equipment, technical precision and close coordination between camera, sound and laboratory teams.

Today, Bwoka and his former colleague John Wambulwa are among retired practitioners who believe Kenya’s shift from celluloid film to video changed more than the equipment. It also altered the skills, discipline and craftsmanship required to produce moving images.

“The shooting ratio for film was 1:1,” Bwoka recalls. “Each action was to be shot only once. You either got it or never.”

That limitation came from the science of celluloid. Unlike digital cameras, which allow filmmakers to immediately review footage and record again, exposed film had to be processed before its images could be seen.

Mbarack Ambe, a former film producer at the Voice of Kenya and now a lecturer at the Technical University of Kenya, describes the modern workflow differently: “These days, shoot, preview and delete if the image isn’t satisfactory, are the norm.”

For Bwoka, who spent more than three decades in the Ministry of Information, the technological transition marked the end of an era.

Training demanded science

Bwoka joined the industry in the late 1970s as a trainee at the Kenya Institute of Mass Communication (KIMC), joining the second intake of its Film Production Training Department, established with support from Germany’s Friedrich Ebert Foundation.

Between 1979 and 1981, trainees studied camera operations, sound, editing, laboratory processing and production techniques. Classes were small, with about 10 students in each specialty and drew trainees from across Africa.

Henry Bwoka with a camcorder that he transitioned to after spending over three decades operating the film version. [Courtesy, Benedict Wasiche]

Wambulwa trained alongside Bwoka before specialising in sound and later teaching generations of sound recordists. He retired in 2016 after 37 years in government service.

“We have gone the wrong direction,” Wambulwa says of the transition from film to video. “Sound in itself was an art.”

Sound recording involved more than placing a microphone near a speaker. Practitioners had to anticipate how sound would work with the images and music in a finished production.

“You visualised the sound and music to be used in a production. You could even advise a producer on which musician to record for the soundtrack.”

The training reflected the technical nature of the profession. Students rotated through different departments before specialising.

Camera and sound students needed mathematics and physics, editing trainees studied English and geography, while laboratory students required chemistry.

When cameras were built like machines

Bwoka trained on 16mm and 35mm cameras, including the Arriflex 35ST and 35BL. The 35BL weighed about 20 kilogrammes with a standard lens, while its tripod added another 12 kilogrammes.

“It was important to have a friendly sound operator to help me carry the tripod,” he jokes.

Operating the cameras required manual control of exposure and focus. Cameramen used handheld light meters to calculate the correct aperture — the opening that controls how much light enters the lens — based on the film’s sensitivity and the available light.

German sound instructor Rolf Weichel, during a sound workshop in the early 1980s, held at the Film Production Training Department, KIMC. [Courtesy, John Wambulwa]

Film had to be loaded into magazines in complete darkness, either inside a darkroom or a special loading bag.

The material came in rolls of different lengths, including 200, 400, 800 and 1,200 feet. Kodak, Fuji and Agfa Gevaert were among the major manufacturers.

A 400-foot roll of 35mm film cost about Sh20,000 around 2000, according to Bwoka.

“Imagine having gone out with two rolls and you mess one,” he says.

The risk did not end when filming stopped. Exposed film had to undergo chemical processing before the images could be viewed.

Kenya had no 35mm processing laboratory, meaning Bwoka’s footage was sent abroad, initially to Austria and later Britain. KIMC and broadcasting houses in Nairobi and Mombasa had facilities for processing 16mm film.

Sound was commonly recorded separately on Nagra reel-to-reel machines in a technique known as double-system recording. This meant the sound and picture were captured on separate devices and later synchronised.

Wambulwa remembers the precision required between the camera and sound teams.

“If he planned to pan left to right, I knew where to stand so my microphone wouldn’t appear. We respected each other’s roles.”

Celluloid became part of Kenya’s cinema and news history. Audiences at theatres including Kenya Cinema, Nairobi Cinema, 20th Century, Cameo and Odeon watched the Kenya Newsreel before the main feature.

The roughly 12-minute production carried local and international events to cinema audiences.

Bwoka travelled across Kenya and beyond covering presidential functions and other assignments, while Wambulwa accompanied foreign crews filming in the country.

 Missed footage

During a visit to the United States in November 2022, Bwoka went to a cinema after being asked whether he still enjoyed watching films.

“When the silver screen lit up, the memories flooded back,” he recalls. “I was a regular visitor to the theatres. Cinema halls there are always full!”

He also remembers mobile cinema vans that travelled across Kenya and screened films in open-air venues.

“They always started with Kenya Newsreel. You would see something interesting... maybe wildlife.”

Ambe recalls another lesson from the era: sometimes the technology could fail silently. During a Safari Rally assignment, his crew filmed after a racing car veered off the track and crashed into a mound. Expecting dramatic footage, they alerted laboratory staff at Broadcasting House.

But when the film was processed, laboratory technician Sylvester Okondo reported that nothing had been captured. “I asked, ‘What?” Ambe recalls.

The crew returned home disappointed without telling the newsroom that the expected footage had been missed.

Video changes the equation

Magnetic tape gradually displaced celluloid, removing several costly and time-consuming stages of production.

Video eliminated the need for darkrooms, film-loading bags and expensive laboratory processing. Crews could record, review and edit footage in Kenya.

Integrated camcorders also reduced the number of people needed on location.

Bwoka adapted to the technology, comparing the transition to driving a vehicle: once someone understands the basics, operating another model becomes easier.

The change accelerated with Betacam, DVCAM and smaller camcorders, followed by digital recording on discs, memory cards and solid-state drives.

Editing also moved from a physical process to a computer-based one. During the celluloid era, editors cut strips of film and joined them using a splicing tool and liquid cement. A misplaced cut could disrupt the sequence or throw picture and sound out of sync.

Analogue video simplified the process further, while digital non-linear editing allowed editors to move, revise and rearrange footage without physically cutting the original material.

Retired sound instructor at the Kenya Institute of Mass Communication, John Wambulwa at his home in Mapera Village, Tongaren. [Courtesy, Benedict Wasiche]

By 2000, the Kenya Newsreel had stopped running, partly because producing film had become too expensive. Bwoka, who had remained attached to celluloid, eventually joined the video team.

In 2006, another attempt was made to assess how Kenya could modernise its film facilities.

Wambulwa was among three experts who travelled to Waterfront Studios in South Africa. They identified a telecine machine — equipment used to convert processed film into digital material — as one possible tool for preserving and working with Kenya’s film archive.

“We submitted our report. I don’t know how far it went,” he says.

The decline of celluloid has created another problem: what happens to the images already captured?

Many old recordings remain vulnerable to deterioration. Wambulwa believes the government should invest in preserving archival footage while supporting new production and passing technical knowledge to younger filmmakers.

His former laboratory instructor, Eston Munyi, used to remind students that “pictures are seeing for keeps”.

Properly stored, Munyi believed, motion pictures could last 100 years.

Wambulwa’s message to the next generation is to think beyond the immediate production.

“As you prepare a story, think of the future. Films made long ago still speak today; look at Charlie Chaplin.”

Bwoka has continued teaching since leaving government service in 2016, training students in camera operations at KIMC and the Kenya Film School at Kasarani Sports Centre. He now co-directs ORRECC School for Orphans with his wife, Jennifer, where he teaches mathematics and photography.

Jennifer remembers the weight of the cameras he carried and the excitement of seeing his work on screen. Their daughter Brenda says her father fulfilled his childhood ambition of becoming a cameraman and continues to keep memorabilia from his career.

“He used to travel all over the world showcasing his talent as a cameraman,” she says. “His dream came true. The house is full of his memorabilia.”

The move to digital has made filmmaking faster, cheaper and more accessible. Yet Bwoka and Wambulwa argue that something valuable risks being lost alongside the old cameras – the technical knowledge, discipline and collaboration that once defined Kenya’s film craft.

Their concern extends beyond equipment. It is also about preserving the audiovisual record of a country before the knowledge needed to understand, maintain and interpret that record disappears.