And We're Off to the Races

Hi all, Robbie here with a blog from the Big Book Media office, I am blogging today as our website is fully up and running and from today you can buy our films online. I am also including with my blog some of our press coverage that we have had recently, links to the longer articles and clips of the shorter ones.

The articles written by Bess Twiston Davies from the Times Supplement and Toby Cohen from The Church Times have both been published and we have also had articles in a few other publications and mentions in the Guardian.

The website is now up and running and you can buy downloads or DVDs of our films www.bigbookmedia.com and see sample clips and our Christmas cards etc..
We have been busy in the office sending out stock, marketing the films, working with Big Finish Media who are marketing our products in the US, sending out Big Book Media information packs to people interested in the company and the films, press, churches, etc.. and planning our next shoot which will happen early Jan.

The film crew are going to be going out to Morocco again at the beginning of Jan to film Shoot Three for us and we will have the films from Shoot Two up on the website in the new year.

I will be working hard with Alec for the rest of Dec and then in the New year on our Marketing and support for the films, website and ideas for 2010.

The photos in my blog are me at the top at my desk in the Brighton office! Then photos of our DVDs - The Nativity main version on the left and children's version above.

I will blog more in the new year.

Robbie

The Launch Party

Hi all, Maddy here blogging about the Big Book Media Launch Party. We had our launch party on Tuesday night in London at St Matthew's Church, Westminster.
The photo on the left shows Diane Louise Jordan with Hannah at the party and on the right David doing his speech with Hannah and Tim at the side.

The whole Big Book Media team traveled up for the day to arrive at the church at midday to help with setting up and all the preparations for the evening function. I traveled up with Hannah's sister Jill from Sussex, Charlie, Robbie & Tim drove up with cars loaded with drinks, screens, glasses etc! We also had David, Hannah, Alec, Amory, Katy (photographer from shoot one), Kathy (photographer from shoot two), James (Pro Asst from shoot two), Peggy (Hannah's Mum!) all there to help out with the many jobs setting up and making sure the night went smoothly.
We made up canapes from some lovely Moroccan food bought in Goldborne Road London and from a couple of other places - we had little kofta skewers and chicken kebab skewers, stuffed vine leaves, spicy Moroccan pastries and also olives, stuffed apricots, salted almonds etc.. The food must have been good as a few people asked who the catering company was! We had champagne for guests and a pomegranate and sparking water drink as the non alcoholic option!
The photo on the left is Charlie working hard at the launch but smiling as ever!
The photo on the right is Hannah, Trevor and guest at the party.

We took display screens to the church and put up stills photos from our two film shoots, examples of Guy's 3 Wise Camels Sunday School materials, information about Big Book Media and Hannah and David. So that people could see and read about the background behind the company.
We also had TVs showing our filmed footage on a loop and a large projector and screen to show the main filmed clips on. Amory had put the music he created for the film onto disc so that was playing when the films weren't showing.
Robbie was doorman with his guest list which he knows by heart! It's going to be his specialist subject on Mastermind!!
Then when the evening started we had drinks and canapes at 6pm while people arrived and mingled. Then at 7pm we had three short speeches from Hannah (Producer), David (Director) and Trevor (Consultant) giving information on Big Book Media, the filming of the productions in Morocco and the use of the films in churches, Sunday schools etc..Then the films were shown we showed the Annunciation, The Blind Man, The Magi, plus our promo film which is on our website www.bigbookmedia.com.
Then more of our films were showing on the smaller TV screens on a loop - eg The Nativity.
The last photo below shows Selva our actor who plays Jesus in the films with another guest, Selva has our Big Book Media folder with company information and DVD of the promo on his lap!
After a successful night it was back to Sussex to get some sleep. Maddy

It's a Wrap for Shoot Two

Hi all, Charlie here with my last blog from Big Book Media Shoot Two - it was our last day the shoot today!

James finally managed to pull himself from his bed today, he was adamant that he wasn't going to miss the last day of filming!

In addition to it being the last day of our shoot Hilary Clinton was due to visit Ouarzazate today to meet with the King. There were flags absolutely everywhere and lots of security - Ouarzazate was under lock-down, they even turned off all internet connections in the whole of the region for security reasons!

I feel much better today which is a big relief as there is plenty to do today and lots of filming to get through so we can wrap and finish with everything completed.

We started off filming back at the barrage, we were working with fish today - not the best of animals to direct but we did well and got the shots! Unfortunately due to the very thick weed in the water one of our boats got tangled up and the dingy boat we had could not get the main boat out of trouble, it just wasn't big enough. Both myself and Hamid spent some time sourcing another boat - which is pretty hard in the middle of the desert! Luckily we found a bigger and more powerful boat from the golf club a few miles up the barrage but alas whilst it was traveling to our location it too got stuck in weeds! In the end our boat managed to come unstuck and filming was resumed!

After we wrapped at this location we then went to a small oasis where we did a few pick-up shots in the olive grove with Jesus and his disciples. It only took an hour to get the shots and then we finally wrapped Shoot Two which I found very euphoric and satisfying as all had gone very well - I even shed a tear of happiness!

After we had finished up we all met up in the evening and Hannah took us all out for dinner at a lovely French restaurant and we ate delicious food and had toasted the success of Shoot Two - my toast was with water (still in recovery!). Tomorrow its the long haul trip across the Atlas Mountains which takes four hours to get back to Marrakesh and then back to the UK until the next time!! Charlie

Water Water Everywhere

Hi all, Charlie back on set still feeling pretty rough but over the worst of the illness. James is still ill and unfortunately it looks like Deane might be getting ill so we're really hoping the whole team doesn't go down with this bug.
Shooting has still been going really well, so apart from a few of us getting sick things are going really well this shoot. Bess and Toby are out here for a couple of days from The Sunday Times and The Church Times respectively. It's exiting to have press on the shoot this time.

Today we were filming on the barrage which is a reservoir just outside Ouarzazate, the photo on the right shows this and the one above shows one of our boats - we had two boats on the water courtesy of Mike in the art department that look fantastic. We also had a floating pontoon built for filming on the water which meant we could be flexible with our angles for shooting and get all round the water scenes.

In addition to this we filmed using a smoke tent for close ups of Jesus, Moses and Ellijah. This was done by our Second Unit which was Deane (DTI), myself and one of the Moroccan Gaffers. James was too ill to make it back onto set and it looks like Deane is coming down with whatever we have caught.
As for the mosquitos which have been really bad on this shoot they must have been feeling sorry for me as I didn't even get one bite today - but everyone else got really really bitten - even those who had used whole cans of insect replellent to try and keep them at bay!!!
The photo on the left is one of the actors in the smoke tent!

There was a beautiful sunset today which Ben caught on camera as we were packing up - the whole sky went red! Photo below. That's it from me today, going straight to bed as still feeling very run down having been ill so a good nights sleep will fix that. Charlie

The Press Gang

Hi all, Liz here with some news from the shoot. I have been told that today two journalists, Bess from The Sunday Times and Toby from The Church Times have arrived in Ouarzazate to see what our shoot is like and will write an article about it on their return.
I'll post the articles on the blog as soon as I get them. I am blogging today as unfortunately Charlie and James are still ill and off the set at the moment. They have both been quite ill so our first proper illness on a Big Book Shoot, we got away with no bugs last time we were here.
The photos above and right show Hannah our Producer with Toby and Bess watching filming from the side of a set and also the team on set on the easyrig shooting a bit of our film.

Trevor our consultant has arrived out with Toby and Bess to accompany them on the shoot and show them around and they'll be here for a few days. Then we'll have articles in both the Times and the Church Times.
Trevor, Bess and Toby will be on the shoot for three days, watching filming going on, speaking to the crew and cast and generally taking in the shoot experience.

In the meantime here in the office we are all working hard getting ready for the Big Book Media launch party which will be happening as soon as this shoot is over, Alec, Amory, Tim, Robbie, Maddy and I are all working on invites, projectors, screens, food, drink, displays, filmed footage to show, music, press packs, BBM folders etc.. all for the night.
The launch party will be in St Matthew's Church, Westminster, we'll show three of our short films on a large screen, Hannah, David and Trevor will speak about the company, the ideas and the shooting of the films. We will also have
some smaller screens playing more of our footage on a loop so it can be viewed as guests walk round the church. We'll have photos from the shoot, behind the scenes and shots from the films up as well as information on Big Book Media and Three Wise Camels and the Sunday school support tools.
Then we'll be serving Moroccan themed canapes and nibbles and champagne of course! Hopefully it will be a great night.

The photo in the text above is Toby holding the red camera under Deane's (DTI) guidance, having a look at what taking a shot looks like from behind it. The photo on the right is David our Director and Ben our DOP (Director of Photography) on the side of a set having a quick break between shots.

Well that's all for now, sending best wishes over to Charlie and James and hope that they get better soon and when they are able to they will blog with more news from the shoot.

Liz

Ouarzazate Belly

Hi, Maddy here again blogging from the Big Book Media office in Brighton. Unfortunately Charlie spoke way too soon in her blog about how smoothly the shoot is going as both her and James have come down with what looks like terrible food poisoning. So I'm going to blog about the launch party and Christmas cards and hopefully they'll be on the mend soon and will send more shoot news.

Liz has asked me to put the final Christmas card art work in my blog as she has been meaning to post on this but the office has been really busy and she hasn't got it up yet. We have the actual cards in the office now! They were delivered last week and our first box is going out to Bristol Cathedral to go in their shop this week. Their are four cards in our box with a picture from the last shoot on each and gold foiled text over the picture with the quote from the Bible that the image depicts. Then the quote is mirrored on the back of the card in grey on black,they look really beautiful. I have put the artwork for each card on the right of this blog so you can see what they look like, then I will blog with a photo of the cards in my next blog.

In the office everyone has been working really hard on preparing for our launch party which is next week at a church in Westminster. At the launch three of the films we have made will be shown and champagne and canapes (Moroccan themed!) will be served. Robbie has been working the hardest of us all posting and e-mailing out invites and following up with phone calls. We have invited clergy and religious media groups who will hopefully love the films and think the products are great! We will also have displays up showing photos from each of our shoot of shooting and behind the scenes also the Three Wise Camels products that Guy the Illustrator has been working on - Sunday school packs and support tools and information on our website. So we have lots more to do before next week!

The final photo in my blog is our invite which we have been sending out for the last couple of weeks. Maddy