The Crew

Crew - New Zealand
Alun Bollinger - Film Director, DOP
Bronwen Christianos - Co-Producer
Kathrin Simon-Photographer

Crew - Ireland
Donal Lunny - Musical Director
Judy Murray - Irish Production Manager

Directors Intentions: Alun Bollinger

The Green Fire Islands project has grown out of a long association between Bronwen Christianos and Donal Lunny. Bronwen approached me about the project over a year ago now. My interest was immediately aroused.
This is an opportunity to explore and record some of the world’s finest musicians from opposite sides of the world working together in a unique collaboration, a meeting and mixing of two cultures who have met and mixed in many ways in days of yore. As well as the musicians there will be an Irish poet, Cathal O Searcaigh, a Kiwi poet, Glenn Colquhoun, and a sm all but vital kapa haka group involved. This is a significant opportunity to explore with the musicians te mana o Taonga Puoro.
I hope to spend some time with a “small crew” recording the Kiwi artists preparing for the performance tour. Watching them closely as they work, finding out as much as possible about Taonga Puoro. This will be a time of exploration for the artists and for us as doco makers. It is an opportunity to record the ensemble of musicians, vocalists, poet, kapa haka and Taonga Puoro working together: designing, building, and working-up their contribution to the Green Fire Islands tour. I envisage a “small crew” as sometimes one, sometimes two small HD video cameras, (myself being one of the camera operators), a soundy, an on-set assistant and appropriate production support.
We will greet the Irish when they arrive and from there will follow proceedings pretty much day and night right through the final preparations and rehearsals for the tour. This begins an intense shooting period which will run on through the performance period until the Irish contingent head for home. Donal Lunny is not only a highly respected and very accomplished musician and arranger, he is also a generous musical collaborator with many previous collaborative encounters under his belt. As one of the key initiators of this project Donal will expect to have a strong hand in shaping the show. The Kiwi contingent will be less experienced than their Irish counterparts, to a large extent because Taonga Puoro are very newly rediscovered and hold a special status above and beyond their entertainment value. These instruments have a unique history, a history unique to Aotearoa, and they make unique sounds.
I hope to watch and learn as the musicians explore and develop their performance.  I do see this as a challenge to us Kiwis. Donal prefers to call it a conversation and that is of course what it will be, a conversation between two musical cultures as well as a blending and a harmony I’m sure. But it is a challenge to us and our culture. We are less experienced, and when it comes to Taonga Puoro we are still in the nurturing stages of these instruments’ rebirth. It is in the nature of both the Irish and the Kiwi cultures to rise to a challenge. We will not be subsumed by the Irish input! All of the Kiwis involved in the Green Fire Islands project will want to rise to this challenge. We will be in for a highly creative and exciting rehearsal period once the two groups of musicians get together; perhaps it will get fiery. Having now met many of the key players in this project, I feel sure that we’re in for a magnificent and (I’ve used this word before) unique musical experience.
To top off this musical experience I hope to record up to three performances with multiple HD camera coverage. During these performances the two doco cameras will continue to record events back stage. During the rehearsal stages we will closely observe the interaction between people and follow the development of musical and performance ideas. As well as following the exchange and dynamics between people I will be looking closely at the instruments themselves, particularly Taonga Puoro, observing how they are handled and the sounds that they make. We will be following the exploration of musical ideas and will include some musical history from both cultures, particularly our own Taonga Puoro. There are some fascinating stories to be told. Glenn Colquhoun will work with us as the conversationalist who will help draw these stories out of the people we talk to.
Then there are the performances. We will shoot the performances with multiple cameras with the aim of capturing the elegance of the staging and the energy and excitement of live performance. We will also enhance the live performance footage with detailed insert footage by re-staging some sections of the performance for camera. I imagine the doco finishing with a tightened version of the performance, though I also imagine sections of the performance slipping in throughout the doco as punctuation or as illustration or for emotional impact where they can comfortably find a place in the structure as it emerges. Structure is not something I would attempt to impose before getting into the editing room.  I can foresee “definite possibilities”, but I would not want to determine final structure before gathering the material.
  One never knows what might come up.There is more research to be done before making full and final decisions about our shooting format and post production work flows but I do know that we will be shooting on HD for practical and cost reasons. We will ensure the quality is such that the project can be transferred to film for cinema screening. With the calibre of the many and varied artists involved in this project, we should end up with a thoroughly entertaining documentary, inspiring even.

To quote Fats Waller, “One never knows, do one”.
Alun Bollinger