Airship snags hit Guyana movieop appeals to Berbicians for help
By Jaime Hall
Guyana Chronicle
August 10, 2004
THE German movie company, Marco Polo Films, which did a shoot at the Kaieteur National Park during last month that could highlight Guyana’s tourism potential internationally, has left Guyana satisfied with its work.
But an airship flown here for use as a main highlight for the movie did not perform as expected.
Mr Ben Ter Welle of the German Development Aid Cooperation, who was responsible for organising the film team’s visit here, yesterday said the crew which left at the end of last month, was generally satisfied with what was achieved.
However, he said the team has indicated that there would have to be a twist in the way the movie would be produced since the airship was unable to perform to its full capacity.
He said too that the producers can no longer guarantee that the film, a 90-minute commercial movie, which already has premier billing at the `Wild Screen’ film festival in Bristol England during October, would still be on there.
Production of the movie could be completed by the end of November this year and a copy of the work would be sent here for screening by a select audience before being released publicly.
This change of plans is attributed to problems with the airship.
The specially built balloon-type airship, the first of its kind in the world being used for filming, was intended for use in bringing a new perspective to moviemaking.
But in Ter Welle’s view the problem with the airship was that the way it worked here proved to be different from the testing done under laboratory conditions.
The helium powered airship was designed to be able to travel above the canopy of the rainforest and to be highlighted in the film as the concept of a “flying dream”, Director, Mr Werner Herzog had said.
He had described the concept as an epic voyage around the world in 80 days, doing work nobody has done before from such a platform.
The actual shooting of the film was done over a period of four weeks.
The airship was designed to float silently above and around the forest, discovering plants and wildlife and is completely ecologically compatible. It had specially built remote cameras attached to it to do filming as well.
And Kaieteur was chosen as the location to film for the movie because it is an area that is totally unique.
"I have worked in many countries before and have seen many spectacular places but have never seen a thing like this", Herzog commented.
The movie would have given Guyana's tourism potential a significant publicity boost at the screening at Bristol. However, it would still gain publicity worldwide.
The idea of the movie is already sold to countries such as Australia and Japan, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) in the UK, and German TV, its producer Annette Scheurich said.
Even though it was not meant to be a public relations exercise by the film company for Guyana and Kaieteur, the film would be able to spark some interest abroad when production is done.
Herzog had estimated that about 100 million people would have seen the movie in the first round after screening at Bristol.