Cinematographer/director Fletch Power received the 2024/2025 Kickstart with Canva award from the Tribeca Film Festival for his documentary Call of the Jab. Fletch chose Zeiss Nano Prime lenses to tell this incredibly personal story of the filmmaker and his father intermixing Grenadian folklore and the story of the Grenada Underwater Sculpture Park.
This third annual development grant from Tribeca and Canva aims to empower visionary young filmmakers, providing them with $20,000 funding and further resources to develop and pitch their projects. An LA-based cinematographer, whose work has premiered at Tribeca, Power was selected as an award recipient for this year’s Kickstart with Canva grant, following the development of his film while taking UCLA’s directing and producing course under the guidance of documentary filmmaker/producer Priscilla Gomez.
In collaboration with the Grenada Film Company, Fletch forayed into filmmaking equipped with Zeiss Nano Primes and Sony FX6, to capture Grenada and its Underwater Sculpture Park. Created by renowned sculptor Jason de Caires Taylor and installed in 2006, the captivating array of sculptures is integrated with the coral reef, a fluid symbiosis of culture, art, and the environment. “Last year I saw the Jab Jab underwater for the first time,” says Fletch, describing scuba-diving through the Grenada shallows to find the “Coral Carnival”–a statue series of masqueraders, including the mythical horned figure of the Jab Jab. “It was like seeing the statue of David in Rome. That’s when I had the full picture of my documentary–about a father and son, Grenada, the folklore, and history of our family we uncover.”
Integral to the Call of the Jab approach is embracing both the island’s culture and natural heritage. “It was really shocking how cinematic the island looked through the Nano Primes. Grenada is so full of life and with the wide lens you can catch all that information in a frame,” he describes. “We’re shooting in the Caribbean, so once the sun sets, most of our light sources outside were natural ambient lighting. The fact that these lenses drop down to a T-1.5 meant we could shoot by actual starlight and still capture the natural beauty or even someone’s face. The lenses really complemented the environment.
“Thanks to Zeiss’ sponsorship, I was thrilled to share the Nano Primes with the Grenada Film Company. We all geeked out over the lenses and their compact and lightweight design,” laughs Fletch. “The image quality is on par with the Supremes, but the compact, smaller size gave us more opportunity to get intimate with people.” Taking advantage of this form-factor, local Call of the Jab cinematographer Teddy Frederick deployed a style that positioned the camera very near to a subject. “It made you feel close to them. If we had a bigger lenses or camera, it would be hard to get that close and still get natural reactions. With the Nanos we could get very tight, and people still felt comfortable.”
With Zeiss Nano Primes, the backing of Tribeca’s Kickstart with Canva fellowship, Fletch returns to Grenada this June to film the Carnival.
