Gelder’s audio recording of their boots stomping on
the flag.
Jooste had informed the boys’ parents that the journalists would be at the camp, and he signed the releases. “He said he was their guardian for the nine days.
He signed an agreement with us that we can ask them
whatever we wanted,” Njiokiktjien says.
Audio
They interviewed the boys on the first day of the camp
and at the end of the last day. “We wanted to get their
opinions on the first day before they were indoctrinated,” Njiokiktjien says. In an early interview, one boy
says, “I don’t like racism.” Nine days later, however, one
of the boys says he’s Afrikaner, not South African. “I
don’t want to be associated with the rainbow nation,”
says another.
For the interviews, they used lavaliere microphones,
but relied primarily on a handheld mic to record ambi-
ent noises: the boys singing Afrikaner songs, the wind
in the grass, bird sounds, chirping crickets. “I think it
helps that I’m a radio journalist. I know how important
these things are, even if you hardly hear them,” says
van Gelder.
all Photos © Ilvy Nj Iok Iktj IeN aNd elles va N Gelder
van Gelder notes. Two text slides near the beginning
briefly describe the camp, without breaking the flow
of the soundtrack.
Editing
To begin, their editor, Thomas Knijff, suggested they
select their favorite clips and images and put them on
a timeline. “But some of them just didn’t look right,”
van Gelder recalls. Though the narrative follows a basic
chronological structure, they reedited some segments
several times.
One section that changed little, however, was the
opening sequence. “We knew we wanted to start with
a surprise,” van Gelder says. The piece begins with a
www.pdnonlinE.com
Visit PDNOnline this month
to watch the award-winning
multimedia presentation
“Afrikaner Blood.”
Both Photos © Ilvy Nj Iok IktjIeN
Clockwise from upper left: Franz Jooste, the camp leader; a camper in the middle of a drill; in the multimedia piece, the focus in this image shifts from one face to the next;
a still by Njiokiktjien; the image that appears with the title and byline of the multimedia piece.
