jamarchKingston, Jamaica: – Firefly Films, organisers of the annual Flashpoint Film Festival, seeks to set the standard for upcoming Jamaican Filmmakers. Creative Director of Firefly Films, Paul Bucknor sees potential for filmmaking in Jamaica. “Excluding the 3 films Firefly presented at our last festival, we showcased 7 original Jamaican films by emerging Jamaican filmmakers. The talent in this country is both remarkable and encouraging”.
And Bucknor wants to develop and encourage such talent, “Flashpoint Film Festival is intended to encourage and educate upcoming Jamaican filmmakers and for them to have a forum in which to showcase their work, but we don’t plan to stop there, we plan to have workshops in Kingston throughout the year working closely with Women in Film, Carimac and JAMPRO. The thought is: If people understand filmmaking and how it can be done, we can produce Internationally renowned filmmakers; we’ve succeeded in music, now its time for film.”
Firefly Films offers advice to future filmmakers on the 9 key elements of filmmaking:
1. Script writing
2. Casting
3. Costumes
4. Production design
5. Cinematography
6. Directing
7. Editing
8. Music
9. Producing
Firefly Studios also offers post-production services such as editing, music, sound effects and special effects for Jamaican filmmakers who may not have the tools to do it themselves. “Post-production is the most time consuming part of filmmaking” commented Paul Bucknor.
“Firefly Films develops films from the idea stage into scripts, skeleton budgets, and production, while Firefly Studios handles post-production.” Bucknor explains. Bucknor started Firefly Films in 2002 and Firefly Studios was completed in 2003. The Firefly Films team was complete when young Jamaican filmmakers Storm, Joel Burke and Nile Saulter joined as directors.
In 2005, Bucknor, by way of Firefly Films, produced 3 original Jamaican films for the 1st Flashpoint Film Festival: 2 short films, ‘Bad Lucky’ (Joel Burke), and ‘Forward’ (Nile Saulter), and the feature film, ‘Twang!'(Storm). An early cut of the Jamaican romantic comedy: ‘Goathead’ was also premiered at the festival.
For presentation at the 2nd staging of Flashpoint in 2006, Firefly Films produced 3 short films: The 1st half of the feature film ‘The Candy Shop’, a sexy coming-of-age comedy written & directed by Joel Burke; ‘Scoundrel’, a romantic comedy written & directed by Nile Saulter, which is the pilot for a future TV series; and the 1st chapter of the gritty urban 70’s action adventure feature film ‘Better Mus Come’ written & directed by Storm. Production was also recently completed on ‘Pothole’, a romantic thriller, written & directed by Bucknor, currently in post-production.
Bucknor is encouraging all filmmakers in Jamaica to start preparing for this year’s Flashpoint Film Festival now, in order to make the November 1 st deadline. Bucknor hopes that there will be more Jamaican films this year than last and that the numbers will keep growing each year. Interested filmmakers can contact Firefly Films at [email protected] for further information.
For interviews, pics or additional info, please contact:
Alison Young
[email protected]
876-365-3734
Media Writer
