I was working as a lighting assistant on a TV series called Ngempela, which was screened on SABC every Sunday. My friend hooked me up with that job. He was head of lighting.
I had no experience working in film before, so I was nervous on my first day – very nervous, to be honest.
At first it was very hard. I didn’t know what to do, what I could touch. So I always had to wait on instructions from my friend. Also, the call time was, like, 6am. So waking up that early every day was very frustrating.
But I ended up really loving it. At the end of that first day, I was relieved it was over, but I also couldn’t wait for the next day’s work.
That day I realised that this was the career I was meant to be pursuing – not working with lighting; carrying those heavy lights is too hard. I want to be a director of photography.
Now I am doing odd jobs here and there on sets to try to save up to go to film school.
I want to make a film about life in the townships: how difficult it is and the struggles we go through.
My mother doesn’t really understand why I want to have a career in film.
You know how parents are, they want their kids to become doctors or whatever. So I think this path I’ve chosen is a bit disappointing for her. But one day … one day I hope to make her really proud. – Lutendo Mametsa (22) as told to Carl Collison, the Other Foundation’s Rainbow Fellow at the Mail & Guardian.