Our advertising and film production teams are all working at full steam despite entering our 8th week of remote working.
In fact, some aspects of production have improved during confinement: the daily video meetings with the full Polar Star Films crew is giving team members an insight into production areas and projects that they wouldn’t necessarily have come into contact with on a day-to-day basis. When confinement ends one of the priorities and challenges will be to maintain this gained insight and improved coordination in the team.
On the advertising front we’ve completed several campaigns for Media Markt, a company that was quick to respond to the need for a new tone for its commercials during the health crisis and subsequent confinement. Drawing on archive material and responsive, high-end motion graphics, Polar Star Films’ Head of Post-Production Alexis Gallardo has been responsible for no less than 7 advertising campaigns since the beginning of the Covid-19 crisis. There’s no stopping content either, Producer Rose Kowalski and Graphic Designer Clara Pons are being kept on their toes with several creative, communication videos for clients.
Our current feature film in production at the hands of Executive Producer Belén Sánchez, DÚO, has been forced to split the filming in half and begin preliminary editing. Post-production Technician Júlia Roses is busily synchronising material and creating proxies for the editing team. Bringing forward this editing phase may well improve the second part of the shoot currently planned for later in the year. Feature film in development Entreactes is close to completing scriptwriting and should go into production in 2021.
For documentary there has been no down-time either with numerous projects to oversee for Acting Head of Documentary Alba Forn who is covering Marieke Van den Bersselaar’s maternity leave. Feature documentary The Steve McCurry Project is in the final stages of editing, and Production Assistant Chloe Atkinson is putting together a full festival calendar for our latest documentary The Secret of Doctor Grinberg. We also have a full slate of films in development, so Head of Administration Joanaina Font is working several budgets at once.
Managing Director Carles Brugueras’ unstoppable optimism and pragmatism underlie Polar Star Films’ work philosophy, something that’s proven necessary and vital in keeping our productions on target during confinement. Lucky for us we’re getting some great help from our new intern Paula González who has taken to remote working like a duck to water. And not forgetting our office staff Mònica Milan and Cristina Borici – we’re missing you!
Looking forward to seeing each other soon in the flesh, but in the meantime all systems are GO!