Another Shoot Birthday - Selva's Today

Today was a great day. I managed to learn how to fold a reflector. Now this may sound simple but trust me it's a skill! I've been working on my technique for the whole week and I've finally perfected it. We were shooting all exterior stuff today. Mike had created the most beautiful market scene. We also had the Donkey's back on set, although I don't think they were the same ones. I think these guys were new on the scene, much more relaxed and completely happy to pose for pictures and be interviewed!
Photo on the left is a piece of film memorabilia at Atlas Studios.


We then had lunch and another amazing cake (it was Selva's birthday - though he wasn't really celebrating it as he's saving it till he gets home and is with his family) and then continued with the exterior scenes. It was super from my point of view, seeing how the big productions are made. I'm used to shooting in a single room so to have all this amazing space to play with just seemed too much. I don't know how David decides where to put the camera because there are so many beautiful positions to choose from. However the position that was chosen for the last shot of the day quickly got scrapped when David realised (by testing it himself) that the place he wanted to put the camera was on top of a very suspect fibre glass room, which you had to climb an even more suspect ladder to get to. We wrapped half an hour early. The Photo above shows Ben, the camera and some crew in the Ouzazate countryside setting up a shot.

In the evening we all went out to this funky little restaurant on the edge of a cliff. As you walked in there were pictures of all the famous people who had eaten there, including a photo of Laurence Fishbourne (the actor who was in the Matrix)! We had dinner on the roof terrace with a little speaker to provide music, we all had a fantastic meal and celebrated a great first weeks shoot.
J

One Shoot Ends And Another Begins

Hi all, Liz here in the Big Book Media office with a concluding blog from our first shoot.
Charlie (Production Manager), Vicky (Production Accountant) and I are meeting this evening to go over the actuals from the budget for BBM Production One and get the final cost of the shoot!!! Hopefully none of us will suffer an actual heart attack when we total it all - I might have a first aider on stand by just in case!!!

Everyone has returned home safely from the first Big Book Media shoot and has time to recover before the second shoot which we are planning for mid October 2009.
Deane and Charlie arrived back at the Big Book offices last week in their desert wear looking exhausted (Charlie especially!!) and with tons of camera equipment in Deane's Landrover. Deane left Charlie with me and then drove off home with his red camera and other gear. The lenses and filters we hired went to Pinewood and were collected by London Filter Co, Take Two, Richmond etc..

The shoot lasted a total of two weeks in the intense summer heat of nearly 50 degrees out in the desert - hopefully the temperature will have dropped a bit by mid October so it won't be so sweaty! We had a camera fan melt at one point on the shoot!!
Various of the team are having a holiday to get over the shoot!! David our director is in the south of France, Tim our editor is in Croatia, Deane, DTI Technician had a few days rest in the Oxfordshire countryside and Robin, Focus Puller went away to Scotland straight from Marrakesh! Charlie our Production Manager hasn't gone away she is just enjoying getting some sleep in a bed which is rest enough for her!!

Charlie has been back to work in our office in Brighton and has started planning the next production
'The Bible Project Shoot Two' which is scheduled in for 19th October (at the moment).
We are just planning our recce trip first to check locations, then we can get fully organised for this next shoot. David (Director) and Trevor (Consultant) are going to go out the first week of September to check out the east of Morocco - Essaouiia Region to make sure the places we are planning to shoot are right and then Mike (Art Dept) is going to go to those locations and start his set, costume and props planning.

Hannah (Producer) and Amory (Music and Post Production) are coming down to the office tomorrow to get some work done on our post production projects - Promo, Cards, Demos, Readings etc.. I'll blog again after that meeting with an update on what we cover.

Until then.....

Cutting Crew

Hi all, my name is Tim and I am the Editor for Big Book Media.
I have been out on the shoot since last week, I am based in Ouzarzazate and have set up an edit suite in my hotel room. I am been working on the shot footage while the rest of the crew have been down in Tamougalt filming more footage.

When I am with the crew on set my work day starts with chatting with David the Director and Ben the DOP about the best camera angles and cut point options on what we will be filming that day. I then check the grading of the film with Deane the DTI and the wild tracks with Karim our Sound Recordist. I also help hump the camera gear and other set equipment around and have also done a bit of French translation where needed!

Where I have been working on the shot film in my portable edit suite! I have spent my time assembling the footage, added some guide music to give an idea of what the final footage will be like once completely edited back in Brighton. The footage is looking REALLY good - the faces and locations have a real authenticity and charm and i think the feel of the cut piece is already startlingly good.
My photos below show our Moroccan Crew (and Katy) in a couple of group shots at the end of a days work. The shot in the back of the truck is 'The Grips' dancing and waving from the back of their truck! The days are so hot and heavy here and everyone is doing a great job working in this intense heat into the evening.

Tomorrow we are going to shoot in the oasis where Jesus is being baptised.

Thanks for reading, Tim.