Cinematography, Directing
Alex Ireeta is Cinematographer/ Director of Photography with 15 years experience. According to him a cinematographer is a person who focuses on final look of the picture and supervises all the technical crew on set.
Little did Alex know that he would become a cinematographer, His first time on set, was taken by friends as a visitor who were already into the business. On set he realised he would help with the lighting, cables etc. He started with lighting to camera work and later joined cinematography.
To excel in cinematography, it requires patience and professionalising in one field. One should have an artistic mind and technical knowledge.His favourite thing about being a cinematographer; it is a prestigious title as the whole set depends on you, highly respected and during project planning a cinematographer comes in mind first.
Alex has worked on several projects like movies e.g Bodaboda Thieves, Kony Order From Above, Love Faces, TV commercials for MTN, UHMG, Airtel and music videos for Juliana, Peter Miles, Chameleon etc.
Alex defines creativity as coming up with something original that is motivated directly from your mind.
The biggest challenge holding back the industry is; Ugandan audience wants to watch what they see in Hollywood but it can’t be produced due to limited resources, low pay and lack of some equipment on certain production sets. To overcome such challenges you have to improvise a lot, be patient and work within your means.
Alex believes that the film industry can employ a good percentage of the youth, therefore he calls upon creatives in the film industry to train the youth what is done in the film industry. This is because in the next 5 years he envisions foreign production coming to Uganda.
His advice to other creatives is to be patient, share knowledge and not to fear competition.