The Bahamas Film Commission is surging ahead with its plans to position the islands of the Bahamas as a premier filming location in 2006.
To this end, the commission is making the most of the fact that four major films were shot here in 2005.
Commissioner Craig Woods said the country was also fortunate to have had 50 fashion shoots conducted here, as well as 28 documentaries, 47 television productions, six music videos, and 51 still photography and catalogue shoots.
The commission handled about 195 projects last year, with a new one popping up about every nine days.
Lecturing at one of the Ministry of Tourism’s master classes hosted at the Wyndham Resort yesterday, Mr Woods said the commission plans to re-launch itself globally.
Other objectives for 2006 include the further development of its website, bahamasfilm.com.
The website, launched in 2006 in the Hollywood Reporter, Variety, and Locations Magazine, now gets 258,000 hits per month.
The commission would also like to develop a Bahamas film production guide this year, and co-ordinate an ongoing project with Film Florida, with whom the Bahamas is the only country in the region to have membership.
Mr Woods said the commission is vigorously seeking to generate a TV network series in the country, to “make the Bahamas a household name”.
Objectives
Other objectives of the commission include: to have a more aggressive presence in Hollywood, the UK and Europe; to create more opportunities with the commission’s consultative agency; to liaise with Bahamas Film Studios; to offer more support to the Bahamas International Film Festival (BIFF).
In order to enhance film and television in the Bahamas; commission representatives plan to attend a number of trade shows in 2006.
These include the NAPTE conference in January, the Florida Film Legislation session in March, China’s film market in March, the London Broadcast Production Show in May, the Cannes Film Festival in May, and BIFF in December.
The Bahamas Film Commission is also set to participate in an important declaration signing, in which film piracy will be addressed at the United Nations Film Convention in Rome in June.
Mr Woods was addressing the subject: “So You Want to be in the Movies?”, which was just one of numerous master classes offered during the BTC Hello Card National Tourism Week.
Other panelists included consultant Morgan O’Sullivan, Tara Walls of Rogers and Cowan, Pamela Poitier, a producer from Cat Island, and producer Art Smith Jr.
For the first time ever, the Ministry of Tourism offered specific tourism subjects as classes, in conjunction with the College of the Bahamas. As a result, delegates who participated in the classes earned continuing education credits towards future certification courses at the college.
The ten master classes offered were: energy conservation, human resource development, branding, event management, information technology, transportation, film production and e-commerce.
Addressing the topic of energy conservation was international environmental expert, Roger Ballentine. Mr Ballentine is currently the president of Green Strategies Incorporated, a Washington, DC based company that provides advice on energy, environmental and conservation matters to government and non-profit agencies throughout the United States.
By FELICITY INGRAHAM, Tribune Staff Reporter
