Other Voices (Blog 4)

 

My search for a composer has been a mixed success. I reached out to my friend James Gair, who I had previously spoken to about this film when I made it in a different form in film society last year. He had expressed interest then but was unable to work on it due to other commitments. This time I haven’t heard back from him for several days, which is a shame, but I hope doesn’t mean he’s not okay. With the shoot looming closer and closer, however, and the bulk of the remaining time until then needing to be focused on securing locations, the budget, and equipment, on top of meetings with cast and crew members, including a composer to discuss ideas for the music and themes, I made the decision to move onto finding someone else. Thankfully I was mistaken last week, and do know someone in Bangor with experience in music and composition; I met with Sophie Ashitaka, a second year with a background and passion for film composition, to discuss themes and ideas for the film. It was hugely successful and leaves me very excited for the outcome once shooting as finished.

It also became clear to me that in order to film on the pier, I would need to require permission to do so first. I contacted the Bangor City Council and explained the situation to Martin Hanks, who appeared to be in charge of the whole operation. He said he’d be happy to approve it if I could email and make a good argument as to why, which I have done. It’s been a few days and am still awaiting a response, so will get back in touch by next week if I don’t hear from them sooner.

I’ve prepared complete rough drafts of my three central pieces of paperwork, namely my budget, treatment, and risk assessment. I’ve divided up my risk assessment folder, filling in a form for each of my locations. There’s a lot of overlap in the kinds of risks that could occur but I have thought outside the box and addressed what I believe to be every possible issue that could occur on shoot at each location, however minute. Most specifically is the possibility of infection or illness, related to covid-19, which I have addressed through the inclusion of face masks and hand sanitizer incorporated into the budget.

The treatment had a lot more information put into it with all the updates coming in over the last couple weeks. I’d forgotten how much the plot had changed despite the story remaining the same. Due to this, some of the production implications had also changed, which meant recalculating new additions to the budget and visualisation ideas.

Things have quickly sped up as we near production, as pieces start to fall in place. I’m excited to assemble everything over the next few, and confirm everything, everyone, and everywhere related to the shoot as soon as possible.

Estimated shoot dates – 8-10^th October 2020