Day 5 - Sudden Pitch to Business Bank Executives

More egg, toast and beans for breakfast this morning and I'm not complaining, they cook the eggs well done here which is a way I've never tried before, I'm easily pleased I guess but It's been good to me this week so far before heading out each day. Another surprisingly good thing about the trip so far is no upset stomachs, fingers crossed this lasts.

It was an earlier wake up call this morning at 08:00 in order to prep and leave the house for 09:30, our driver was outside ready to go as always with his straight, focused face we're so used to seeing, he is quite simply the best driver I've ever seen behind the wheel, what he does and what tricky situations he gets out of, (which happen a lot in Lagos' traffic) take a lot of skill in such a big car (Toyota 4x4). Sam couldn't help but take more photos of him today during the times we were waiting in the car. 

Photography by Sam Davis

Today's itinerary was a bit of a late notice one to Sam and I, Dayo didn't have much time to prep us for our important pitch to business executives representing some of Nigeria's most popular banks. We had two scheduled, one this morning at 11:00 and another at 14:00. Ultimately due to traffic we arrived late to our first one, the waiting time we then had till we could get another slot would have meant missing the second one which was a preferred potential client for Dayo, so we left Diamond bank and headed for Eco bank taking another while in the car. My favourite point throughout each day so far has been in the car shooting slow motion of the activities going on in traffic and of the public in street markets, the traffic may annoy the hell out of Nigerians but to us, the slow driving speeds can be perfect for a tracking shot of outside at up to 400 frames per second, a frame rate we shot a lot on today looking better than expected.

Photography by Sam Davis - An angry taxi driver at rush hour

Fortunately we arrived at our second meeting on time. As I have been on the project for only a short time I played a very small part throughout the pitch yet an important one for representing the western population who would be interested in our film. We met with a few men including the head of corporate sponsorship and brand manager and overall head of corporate communications, slightly intimidating but Dayo did well in his presentation pretty much pitching alone throughout, Sam had a few words to talk about his role and what he has done and learnt so far. As I said, I have only just joined this project with this trip being my first time to Nigeria so I shook their hands, sat down and smiled looking quite strange at the end of the table I'm sure. It went well though, they were very interested in the project and want to have a further meeting with Dayo early next year, he did well although they can't help with sponsoring anytime soon due to their bank shutting down with no left over budget to spend around November time each year. 

Dayo took some good constructive criticism and feedback back home with an earlier return time at 16:00ish. The rest of the family were still at work so the generator was off till 18:00, this seemed a good excuse to jump back in the pool for a while and cool off. Dayo was chuffed this evening, tomorrow's schedule has become a busy one with our first pitch rescheduled, another interview planned and our behind the scenes of a Nollywood film reset for the afternoon. Pretty excited for it! 

I blogged the last two days this evening and caught up with logging before heading to sleep at 00:00. We learnt our lesson for heading to bed later last night when we realised the generator turns off at 01:00 so all fans stop, we hoped to be asleep by then tonight.