Remote filming has become the answer to many of the issues in the film industry brought by the coronavirus pandemic. The global shutdown has dishevelled the film industry, with the shutting down of public gatherings in theatres, press gatherings, and social restrictions being imposed. It has also further exacerbated the effects that internet streaming has already caused.
The industry itself is a living organism that changes and adapts to its environment; a fight to stay relevant, and so remote filming is being adopted by many. This is an industry-wide mass rebranding to stay alive. There is already a lot of industry pressure to turn out content for the public. And with this pandemic leading to remote work, how this affects the quality of the production without compromising too much on the cost will depend largely on how we adapt and stay relevant.
So how do you stay relevant?
Technology
The technology is there, quite simply put. It has been there for years; we just have not found the need to do it on this scale and for this purpose. With remote team calls on zoom, cloud storage for data and online project management platforms have made it possible to assemble and manage a production team you have never personally met, in a place you have never been to, and it has made the world a smaller place for production companies. It is possibly time to expand operations as a company and adopt these remote-filming protocols.
Healthy Relations
In our experience, developing and maintaining a healthy relationship with the country and the people have been the deciding factor in our success. Part of what makes us who we are, as Film Fixers Africa, is our attachment to the country. We started off in the tourism industry, building and maintaining healthy relations and getting to know the country like the back of our hand. This allows us to deliver time and time again, building trust with our clients. Relationships that fixers maintain with key-players are often what allows production companies to reach beautiful places without physically being there.w
The Fixer Factor
When filming in another country, whether it is remote or whether you are there, the one thing you need is a good fixer. Fixing, as we always say, is a dark art. It is mystical alchemy that transmutes expectation from behind a desk into a reality on screen. Fixers know the rules, know the people, and they find all the loopholes. And with remote filming comes a smaller workforce getting the same quality of work done. Remote work has created a higher demand for fixers quite simply because the trust is needed most at this point. The biggest question is how this will change when (if) we come out of this pandemic and how this will impact the scale of future productions.
Us as a company
We are very happy to have been entrusted with the various remote shoots that we have done, and we look forward to pushing our limits and expanding our field of operations as the time comes. Locations management is a big part of who we are, and it is such a pleasure to be able to provide quality work in such strange times. We love the work and challenges it brings us.
