Anyone who has seen ‘Blood Diamond’, has at least one scene that haunts their memory. VFX Supervisor Jeff Okun told of dozens he witnessed first hand. Spending eight months in South Africa, Mozambique and surrounding areas, he went there thinking, “Not really the top on my list of places; I prefer room service than roughing it, but I’ll get to see another country and make a good movie.”
For those of you who have met Okun, you know what a kind and sensitive soul he is. He is the kind of person you want to see successful because it tips the balance in the favor of decent people when all else seems awry. But he began to realize the issues dealt within the film were only fragments of the whole picture. “It was a journey unlooked for and a lesson unwanted,” Okun says, “and it’s the most precious thing that’s ever been given to me.”
Arriving
Jeff Okun started in an area called the Kwazulu-Natal coast in a town called Port Edward. It was quite a journey. He flew from the US to London, to Johannesburg, and then on to Durban, South Africa. Several hours drive from Durban he arrived at a resort called the Wild Coast Sun that comes with a full casino and dozens of bars and swimming pools and a giant hotel.
As he traveled, he realized every house was surrounded with a 12 foot wall and electrified barbed wire, and a security guard carrying an AK-47, and began to understand things were not quite what the Wild Coast Sun would have you think.
Okun and the film crew went on a location scout in Mozambique, which recently suffered through it’s own revolution and is among the poorest countries in Africa. Relative peace is still new to them, making Mozambique radically different from the other areas. Okun hadn’t seen much joy in South Africa, but in Mozambique there was live music everywhere. “Everyone was out in the streets, dancing and
singing,” explains Okun. “It didn’t matter what color your skin was, everyone was seizing their destiny.” But as they scouted further outside the tourist bubble, the crew found shanty towns similar to South Africa with the population still living in little shacks with corrugated tin roofs piled with stones to hold them in place. The streets were dirt with open raw sewage where children played and bathed, and everyone wore old T-shirts emblazoned with familiar western logos. Still, “there are no nightmares involved in this situation, the people carry none of it with them.” Okun could not find the words. “They are living in the moment. They don’t suffer a loss for what they do not have, and they’re amazingly happy. They are happier than you or I. That’s part of what makes the whole thing so poignant.” Okun was unable to capture the emotions that rolled through him from all sides, remembering his attempts to take it in, while trying to do his job. “It turns your head around so far, that it actually made me confused. How is it that I have so much and may be so discontented and they can have so little yet have an inner peace and joy that I’ve never even dreamt of, even though their life expectancy is only 37 years?”
