After lunch

After lunch we surveyed the coast north of Essouria. Above are pictures of a south facing sheltered bay on the coast. This location was better than the previous one, there were green hills in the background and plenty of boats. On the downside there was a large sandy shore, there were lots of boats, possibly too many to make a shoot economic, all of which would need repainting and there were white painted houses in the background. There was also a swell from the ocean. I'd question if this location was significantly better than Ouarzazate.

Break for lunch

After over 6 hours in the car and only one location actually seen we had a break for lunch in the hope that it might change our luck. We had a nice seafood lunch at a beachfront restaurant near Essouria.

Starting at 7am on Tuesday morning, David, Hamid and I drove west from Marakesh to the Essouria region which is alot greener and cooler than the rest of the country. We then headed south to a sea inlet of which we had seen promising pictures. However after 45 minutes off road it was clear that we couldn't reach the location in a 4x4, so the chances of a film crew, lighting equipment, actors, extras reaching the location were slim. We turned back and headed north. We found a sea front fishing village, see the photos above, but frankly it looked nothing like the sea of Galilee;- the sea was just too rough, there was tons of rubbish every where (plastic bags) and the background was not like the green hills that surround the Galilee.

OMG

We spent 13 hours in the car today and covered 756km in search of a greener sea of galilee. We looked at around 300km of coast line, fishing villages and lagoons, it was a long day.

Later (on Monday) we visited a local Sherifs (ruler's) house. The house dates from the 9th Cen and the wood work and tiling are amazing. That's David in the photo sitting where the old Sherif used to sit and rule !

By then it was about 5pm and David had arranged to meet Salah, the casting director in the hotel. When we got back I went off for a shower, after 8 hours in the car. The temp today started at 22c at 9am and rose to 36c by lunch time, it rained about 4pm and the temp dropped. I joined in a discussion about casting and interviews were arranged in Casablanca and Marakesh. I had a pleasant but not spectacular Moroccan dinner with David at a restaurant in the old city, which included a belly dancer ! And as it's now midnight and as we start again tomorrow at 6am I'm going to get some sleep. More tomorrow.

We had a very nice lunch of lamb & chicken kebabs, David said he felt a little guilty as it's Ramadan and everyone else is fasting from dawn to dusk. In the afternoon we headed out into the dessert to see more locations for the wedding feast.

After lunch we went looking for a location for the Wedding Feast at Cana and the feast for the Prodigal Son, see above. Basically if we film the Galilee section here in Marakesh then we also need the option to film other scenes here.

With me today (Monday) are Hamid, our Moroccan Producer, that's his car in the picture above and David, the Director, that's him taking a picture of the lake.

Just when I was feeling a little negative about this location (lake near marakesh) we happened upon building on the lake side, which if framed properly, could pass for Capernium, from the outside. The pictures are of the building looking up from the lake shore and towards the lake.

So I woke up early to a beautiful sunny day in Morocco and after a quick breakfast we hit the road with Hamid. The pictures are of a lake near Marakesh a possible location to shoot Galilee. It looks OK but I wonder if it's significantly better than the lake near Ouarzazate.

Location Scouting

So it's Sun 6th Sept and having presided at the parish Mass this morning I've set out again for Morocco. This time I'm travelling with David, the Director, and we're looking at locations that look like the sea of Galilee. Interestingly there is a lake near Ouarzazate, where we filmed in July, but it is less than ideal and will take alot of work to make it look similar to Galilee. So here we are looking at other areas of Morocco. The pictures are of the Easyjet flight, which was surprisingly good and my hotel room in Marakesh, which is all I've seen so far, more tomorrow, when the real work starts.

and finally

and finally .... below is a picture of the very nice hotel pool, which sadly I saw very little of because we all worked from dawn to dusk, incredibly hard. I know working on a film sounds very glamourous but I can tell you that it's hard work, yes it's in some beautiful locations but the work came first and that was true for all the crew and cast. Above is a picture of Tasha and me in Casablanca, we had some free time on our way out of the country so we did a little shopping and sight seeing.

These are some photos of the on set catering, as you can see there was a large colourful tent next to the shoot where food was cooked and served. There was also a refigerated van which was just to provide everyone with chilled water, which at over 40C on most days was absolutely essential. You can see from the photo at the top that this particular day, Selva ate with his disciples; now that's what you call getting into the part !

What are you doing ?

For those of you who asked what on earth was I doing ? The answer is that I was the assistant producer because Hannah (the Producer) was away for part of the shot in Spain, and the pictures above show me assistant producing !! The bottom picture is me watching the filming on the monitor, we filmed with a high definition digital camera, the end results were amazing and of course availalbe immediately; infact whilst were in Morocco some of the editing was already being done and I saw the nativity scene which was beautifully done. When you see it I promise you'll be truly amazed.

John baptises & the baptism of Jesus

Then we shot John the Baptist, see above, looking rather splendid in his camel hair clothing, at the river Jordan baptising people. And also Jesus being baptised, which as you can see used a camera on a long counter weighted arm, which gave a shooting zooming up as Jesus came up out of the water. I can't wait to see the finished and edited scene of this I'm sure it will be absolutely amazing. I thought I'd also tell you that the actor playing John the Baptist has, over the years, played every part in the biblical story, including Jesus, except John, so now he has the complete set !

It suddenly got very busy

Well as you may have noticed there wern't any live blogs after Tuesday PM because it suddenly became very busy indeed and I just didn't have to time to post anything. So to finish off I thought I'd post the remaining photos and describe them. Above you'll see Selva, playing Jesus, in a wilderness scene which is going to accompany the John 1 reading. The same location was used for the preaching of John the Baptist. You can see how many crew are working on the project and you can see the track which the camera runs along to a moving perspective.

Tuesday AM / PM

It been a bit of a strange day today, I've been shorting out problems whilst everyone else has been on set. I certainly didn't appreciate how many people actually work on a film behind the scenes, literally. See a picture of Vicki our production accountant keeping the books and payments in order with Tasha. There's also a picture of some extras waiting around a street corner for the shout of 'action'. I also took a picture of the extras waiting for thier call in the town square. All this has given me an appreciation of what a collaberative / team effort making a film is, everyone playing thier part.

Monday PM

It's been a very busy day, although the crew take it all in thier stride, I'm really impressed with thier professionalism. The was a fabulous shoot at the city gate with lots of action and extras, see picture. The animals in any scene are hard to control, see the picture of the sheep and goats, very biblical. There was also a scene of Jesus as a young boy talking to the teachers in the temple, see the picture of the boy playing the young Jesus. There was some great hand held camera work by Ben our Director of Photography, following Joseph and Mary, see picture, pushing thier way through the crowd.