Mud Mud Glorious Mud

Well not the title I thought I would be using for my first blog for the second Big Book Media film shoot in Morocco but given that I have been the wettest today that I have ever been in my life it is definitely the most appropriate! James here (Big Book Media Production Assistant - photo of me on the left with clapper board) blogging and trying to dry out after a wet day in the desert!

As well as getting soaked through I am also as red as a lobster, so have managed to get both soaking wet and sunburnt all on one day - I've done well! We got caught in two monsoons while shooting today - we spent all day jumping over rivers of rain working their way through the once dusty now muddy landscape and sheltering under trees when the rain got really heavy to try keep out of it a little bit (not that it worked really as we all still got soaking!). The photos above are Ouzazate and the mud before the rain and on the right hand photo rain clouds gathering above our team!

The weather put filming behind a bit so we had a quick ten min lunch and then Deane our DTI guy, Charlie and myself put together a second unit for filming to go out and re film an earlier scene which needed a re-doing. While the first unit carried on shooting through today's script. It came out really well.
The children who are amongst the extras on set seem to be having great fun - the donkeys and pigs however not so much! Yet again whoever was responsible for casting the donkeys has given us another set of absolute Divas, they are terrible at taking direction from David (our Director!) and are making the usual outrageous demands (fresh lillys and all white scented candles in their dressing trailers - the usual diva stuff!). As for the pigs, well, it took ten guys six hours to catch them and there has been a lot of infighting so Charlie has had to have words with them all and threaten the end of their contract with us if there are anymore problems on the rest of the shoot. The photo above is of some of our Moroccan crew with all the pigs finally in a cart being moved to the set.

All in all I had a great first day, and even though everyone got very wet and muddy spirits are high and the footage looks great. My last photo shows Kathy our photographer's foot covered in mud having taken off her shoe at the end of the day!
I will e-mail again tomorrow with more shoot tales but for now I desperately need to wash off my days mud and get ready for a potential lot more tomorrow!

Breakfast At Ouzarzate

Hi Maddy here, I have just started working in the Big Book offices as their office assistant helping out with all sorts of tasks - so far today I have proof read the invites for the Big Book Launch Party which is in November, been looking at glass hire, display board hire and other things needed for the party. I've also been helping get a lacie drive and a transmitter for a microphone from Richmond Film - both need to make it to Hannah who is flying out to Morocco at 6pm this evening. Finally I am writing today's blog!

James our Production Assistant sent an e-mail to us yesterday, with a little bit of their pre shoot info, James, Charlie and the rest of the team flew out to Morocco on Friday and have had a couple of days prep in Ouzazate before filming which starts tomorrow. Yesterday James was with Mike Fowlie Art Director (photo on the left of Mike) and got to dance on a giant stage in Atlas Studios where Mike was building our Egyptian set for the shoot.


Then James was out in the dessert with the film crew who were doing their GVs for the shoot (general views) getting ready to start filming today (photo above right of David and a couple of our crew out planning their shots in the desert). He says that David our Director is one of the fastest people he has ever met and he was trying to keep up with him all afternoon out in the sands!James has seen his first dead snake (photo right!) and a lot of animal bones in the dry dusty sands.

Today here in the office Liz, Alec and Robbie's day has been spent trying to get a forgotten lacy drive and a mic transmitter out to the shoot. Neither of these tasks has gone smoothly as that would make life far too simple! Our courier picking up the lacy drive for us from Blackboys in East Sussex, went awol for quite some time and took several hours to do an hour and a half journey and the transmitter isn't quite at Alec's home address yet where Amory is waiting for it. Robbie is now on the train to Clapham Junc with the lacie drive where he will meet Alec, Alec is on his way to his house in his car where he will pick up the transmitter, then will drive to meet Robbie and then drive to the airport with both to meet Hannah who is flying out this evening. It also looked for one horrible moment like Hannah's flight booking had an error in the name but after a panicked call to Air Maroc this was not the case - so a lot of e-mails, texts and phone calls later it looks like this might all actually work out and we might get Hannah on the plane with the lacie and the transmitter on the way to Morocco.The photo to the left is of Robbie before he set of on the train for Clapham with our Lacie.

The next blog will be coming from James's first shoot day in Ouzazate.

From Dusk Till Dawn (Production!)

We are currently finishing up our pre-production for Big Book Media's second shoot - the production team are flying out this Friday leaving the non production people here! Charlie our Production Manager and James our Production Assistant for this shoot have been working really hard with the planning of the shoot organising everything needed from our end, equipment, team, shipping, hotels, flights etc and liasing with Hamid in Morocco who is our Line Producer out there and is organising the Moroccan things needed for the shoot from his end. They have just a couple more days then they are off back to Ouzazate to start filming our next script.

I will be staying in the office again to manage anything that needs doing from here - hopefully a lot less than needed doing last time! Also in the office will be Tim who is completing some final post work on our filmed footage from Shoot One with Amory, they'll be spending most of their time up in London with Halo who are doing the final post stuff for us. Then Alec our Sales and Marketing Manager who has the building of the website to oversee, launch events for the first lot of films in Nov and about 100 other tasks to do. He will be here in the office with me and also Robbie who has just started working for us as Sales & Marketing Assistant - thank heavens he's here to help Alec there's a lot to do (there will be blogs to cover all of it)!

Shoot Two is going to last two weeks (the last two weeks of October) and we'll be back shooting in Ouzazate in the desert and a couple of nearby locations.
Deane, DTI came down in the week to bring over red camera equipment and accessories to be taken out via a shipping agent going out ahead of us to Morocco - Dynamic International Shipping. Left is Charlie's map of Morocco which is stuck up by her desk!

It has been the usual busy busy Production time in the office but James has been amazing and has made a huge difference to the production work load. I haven't had to get involved with shipping, lens orders, flights etc etc.. this time which has been wonderful! There are so many phone calls, e-mails and admin involved in getting a production off the ground, for the last shoot there were days I was on the phone arranging things from when I arrived in the morning to when I left at the end of the day!

The first thing I will be doing once the Production Team set off for Morocco is finalising our Launch event which is going to be at the beginning of November up in London. I'll blog about plans, plus more on 3 Wise Camels and Christmas Cards shortly.