ENTERING THE FOREST: Paperwork

Everyone's favourite thing, especially when you're a creative has to be paperwork right? I know it's not the most entertaining thing to consider but in filmmaking, it is one of the most important. As Production Manager and Co-producer, I was tasked with the nitty-gritty dotting of I's and crossing of T's. Luckily for me, our Director and Co-Producer Will did most of the leg work in regards to contacting our subjects and locations which just left me with the logistics.

The first thing I looked at was organising the crew in regards to travel, accommodation and food (See 'Beds, Budgets and Breakfast') before addressing any of the actual filming paperwork.

Clipped wings had three definitive locations, the Ounsworth's home on Love Lane, the Veterinary Practice at College House and the bus route between the two. The risk assessments (see below*) for the three were fairly straight forward with the only minor complication being that we were working with animals due to the birds, but group members knew to listen to Kay and Anthony at WOLLYAWOL (the Love Lane rehabilitation) in regards to correct behaviour around different birds.

Kay hadn't 100% confirmed where she would bee releasing the birds so I was unable to do any paperwork for this location that turned out to be a local cemetary and I had bought spare location copy forms so we were able to get this signed off on site. All of these along with the crew logistical and insurance forms were printed and put in a folder that was kept with the main camera crew at all times. As you can see it's peeking behind the camera as

Robyn takes five on the hour 1/2 long bus journey (don't worry the camera was attatched to the easy-rig so it was perfectly safe).

During the Vetinary shoot the B-roll team, consisting of myself and Stanley had digital copies of all the forms on our phones.

Overall the paperwork was really simple, it was just a big rush at the end as there were some delays from contacts relying to us and this added to the stress of the posibility of filming on the arranged dates beeing a bit up in the air due to a deterioration in Gary's health but ultimately it was all complted on time and eveerything was signed off within plenty of time before shooting.

*Some information is omitted for the safety and privacy of the crew