TVC - post 4

Lisa and I went location scouting on Wednesday. I feel a bit sorry for Lisa being my producer; in fact I feel sorry for anyone whenever they are my PM or AD, because I'm generally too ambitious and demanding and the shoot always seems completely unmanageable until the last possible moment.

Anyway, we went down to Blockhouse Bay, to a big park with another big Scout park across the road from it. The first park had quite cool patches of bush in it - Lisa and I took a little track through the densest parts - however the bush was dotted all through with pine trees (ie non-native) and had absolutely no native trees in it. It had native bushes, and tree ferns, but no native trees unfortunately. The Scout camp was almost all native, except for the odd few pine trees, and would have been quite convenient to film in as the undergrowth was mostly cleared away. It also had a great view, which our script calls for - however the view was over a bay, not a forest. All water, no trees. Boo! The other problem was that all trees were pretty small and crappy. They were too young, not enough thick trunks, and there was no undergrowth to film at all. I really want to emphasise the majesty, nobility, timelessness, grandeur and beauty of the native forests, and this one had some beauty but none of the other characteristics. I'm becoming increasingly convinced that we are going to have to film in the Waitakeres, but is this logistically possible??? Our budget is small, and they take a long time to get to, which is a lot of petrol money. Will we be able to park close to where we want to film? And will we be able to find toilets where we want to film? And we will just have to accept that there will be no power. And even more scary, how can we relocate from city to bush (or vice versa) in one ten hour day? The city will be a mission to film in, just because parking is such a pain and so inaccessible.

Anyway, I told poor Lisa that I'm not convinced and I want to keep looking. If we're desperate, we'll go to Blockhouse Bay, but... I really think we can find something better out west.