November 20, 2008

This summer Film & Video major Brian Johanson spent his co-op on the set of Neil Jordan's latest film while it was shooting in Ireland. Neil Jordan, the director and producer of The Crying Game and Interview with a Vampire, recently completed production on Ondine starring Colin Farrell. Any ideas Brian had about seeing the Irish countryside were quickly erased with 6 AM calls and 14 hour days.

Brian told us that he worked with a crew of top film professionals "who had worked on everything from Lawrence of Arabia to the Harry Potter movies. I was the video operator and my responsibility was to record everything the camera sees so that the director and crew could get a sense of how each shot is working." Brian was first to the set every morning and quickly found his services in demand. He worked at ten different locations and fifty sets in Castletownbere and West Cork Island, shooting in cottages and fields in these small Irish villages. He even shot in the cabin of a fishing boat at sea. "Working in Ireland on a Neil Jordan film gave me the opportunity to work closely with highly instructive people," said Brian. "In Europe there is an apprenticeship style, so that the next generation learns from the current one."