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Producing Sarawak Gone

Andrew | July 16, 2008

A small team left Kuching for what turned out to be an 18 km trek visiting four remote Bidayuh communities affected by the Bengoh Dam development.

It was epic!

I’d not taken many notes on the trek itself, spending much of my time behind a video camera… and given the context of the trip, there are several stories I could tell.

Should I attempt to recount the forest soon to be drowned, walking into the heart of this region, opening out to me as if I were on a planet best described in detail by the author, Iain M Banks? Or the Kampongs (villages), which, to my urban eyes, were much like an apparition, the first of which could have come from J. G. Ballard’s, The Drowned World.

The Kampongs and the stories inherited there could consume a tome of works unto themselves, but I had little time for listening and with few people around and the focus of our mission being about land rights, it was not possible to absorb at length what will soon be lost.

To give you an idea, a very scant idea of what where I’d been, peruse the photos and these few posts:

Producing the series on a miniDV cam (thanks Paul W) has helped immensely, however, I can see the value in recording straight to disk or memory card for these kinds of projects.

Either way, little to no budget DIY projects are based on the notion that you use what you’ve got and make the most of it. I think you’ll find the results pretty good… at least I’m happy with the material I came back with and now with editing in full swing, the results are starting to talk for themselves.

For information on the series: