Khara Per­sad

Khara Per­sad

"Pic­ture is up!"

"Qui­et on set!"

"Ok guys, that's a cut!"

The as­sis­tant di­rec­tor meant busi­ness when he warned po­ten­tial noise­mak­ers and ex­tras to keep qui­et on the set of Pan! A Mod­ern Odyssey, as cast and crew shot a scene at Uni­ty Church on Aber­crom­by Street, Port-of-Spain, a few weeks ago.

Mean­while, just up a flight of stairs, cos­tume co-or­di­na­tors busi­ly dressed the cast in cos­tumes de­signed by Meil­ing for the day's per­for­mance.

The 90-minute docu­d­ra­ma be­gan film­ing on Sep­tem­ber 14 and wrapped 13 days lat­er, us­ing sev­er­al lo­ca­tions through­out the coun­try, in­clud­ing San­ta Cruz, Bel­mont, and Laven­tille.

The film com­bines the his­to­ry of pan–from its birth to Panora­ma to even­tu­al na­tion­al in­stru­ment sta­tus–with a fresh, fic­tion­al twist.

It is set in Trinidad with a 1940s back­drop, and re­volves around the sto­ry of a young boy called "Gold­teeth," played by Re­nal­do Fredrick, who leaves a steel­band in Port-of-Spain and moves to Tacarigua, where he joins an­oth­er band and brings the two to­geth­er. The film com­prised 20 main ac­tors, 50 crew mem­bers, and de­pend­ing on the scale of the scenes, up to 200 ex­tras, all from T&T.

Jour­nal­ist turned scriptwriter, and brains be­hind it all Dr Kim John­son ex­plained that the au­di­ence will un­der­stand the main changes in the steel­band move­ment through Gold­teeth's jour­ney.

He said the movie had to be wor­thy of an in­ter­na­tion­al mar­ket, and a pro­fes­sion­al crew was there­fore nec­es­sary to en­sure a high-qual­i­ty pro­duc­tion. En­ter pro­duc­er Jean-Michel Gib­ert, the founder and di­rec­tor of the Caribbean Mu­sic Group, who re­cent­ly pro­duced a well-re­ceived doc­u­men­tary called Ca­lyp­so Rose: The Li­oness of the Jun­gle, an in­ti­mate por­trait of the leg­endary singer from To­ba­go.

John­son has writ­ten sev­er­al books on the his­to­ry of steel­band and said when Gib­ert ap­proached him with sim­i­lar as­pi­ra­tions to cap­ture the sto­ry and beau­ty of pan in film, the ball got rolling slow­ing but sure­ly.

"We start­ed off with a script two years ago...It's been re-writ­ten about 15 or 20 times and the sto­ry has changed com­plete­ly. It's sort of un­recog­nis­ably dif­fer­ent now. But that was the start."

The di­rec­tor of the fic­tion­al por­tion of the film was Bel­gium-born Jerome Guiot, while French di­rec­tor Thier­ry Teston di­rect­ed the doc­u­men­tary, which was shot dur­ing Car­ni­val ear­li­er this year.

The mul­ti-mil­lion-dol­lar film has had a con­tin­u­ous spell of good luck since pro­duc­tion be­gan, as many busi­ness­es have been char­i­ta­ble with their time and re­sources. John­son said Pen­ta Paints do­nat­ed old drums that were turned in­to an­tique pans, and oth­er agen­cies (gov­ern­men­tal and non-gov­ern­men­tal alike) have con­tributed mon­ey and free use of props.

"We just have so much love. Peo­ple have been work­ing 18-hour days–it is crazy how peo­ple have been work­ing. There is such a vast sup­port and to­geth­er­ness," John­son said, light­ing up as he de­tailed the gen­eros­i­ty of many. "I have to say, T&T re­al­ly come out to help us. Oth­er­wise we couldn't have done it."

He said scout­ing for lo­ca­tions was chal­leng­ing at times be­cause of the time pe­ri­od the movie por­trayed.

"The ac­tion of the film takes place in the 1940s, so lo­ca­tions are a re­al prob­lem. Every­where in Trinidad looks mod­ern. In the 1940s there were no bur­glar bars–now every­where has bur­glar bars."

Sim­i­lar­ly, old clothes and vin­tage cars were need­ed to match that decade, true to the movie's por­tray­al. Meil­ing cre­at­ed print­ed T-shirts with old band names, while vin­tage car-col­lec­tor Bramie Ma­haraj lent the pro­duc­tion three of his cars for a scene shot out­side Zen night­club on Keate Street.

The film will be launched at the Cannes Film Fes­ti­val in France with­live steel­band mu­sic in May 2014, John­son said, jok­ing that he promised to in­tro­duce his moth­er to ac­tor Brad Pitt. Al­so, Pan! was sold to the Pub­lic Broad­cast­ing Ser­vice (PBS), the US' largest pub­lic me­dia en­ter­prise with over 170 sta­tions, guar­an­tee­ing the movie wide­spread screen­ing and view­er­ship.

"Get­ting out there is the im­por­tant thing. We have the tal­ent."

He said just as this movie opened in­ter­na­tion­al doors and op­por­tu­ni­ties, per­haps it could pave the way for oth­er lo­cal films to re­ceive sim­i­lar recog­ni­tion.

On the set, the sense that his­to­ry was in the mak­ing was pal­pa­ble.

Dream come true

The pro­duc­tion of Pan! is not a dream come true for John­son alone, as many oth­ers have been touched by the op­por­tu­ni­ty to be a part of the pro­duc­tion.

In­gle Wat­son from the School of Busi­ness and Com­put­er Sci­ence (SBCS), who is do­ing a diplo­ma in cre­ative me­dia pro­duc­tion, gushed about get­ting an in­tern po­si­tion with the film as an as­sis­tant di­rec­tor.

"This is the first film set I am work­ing on. It has been a phe­nom­e­nal ex­pe­ri­ence."

Wat­son is work­ing to­ward her bach­e­lor de­gree in me­dia and com­mu­ni­ca­tions, as the diplo­ma is a pre­req­ui­site.

"For one of my cours­es, I was re­quired to in­tern in a cre­ative me­dia field. I was for­tu­nate enough through the T&T Film Com­pa­ny (TTFC) I was able to get this in­tern­ship. I'm en­joy­ing every mo­ment of it, and it's one of the great­est learn­ing ex­pe­ri­ences I've had."

She said she un­der­stood the val­ue of the movie, how it would rep­re­sent T&T, and im­mor­talise the coun­try's her­itage and lega­cy.

"We came up with the pan, yet we don't have a prop­er pan-mak­ing fac­to­ry. And you're watch­ing these coun­tries in­ter­na­tion­al­ly, they are man­u­fac­tur­ing our na­tion­al in­stru­ment...So we as Trinida­di­ans, we should re­al­ly take this se­ri­ous­ly."

Oth­er in­terns from the Uni­ver­si­ty of T&T (UTT) are get­ting in on the ex­pe­ri­ence too, as John­son ex­plained there was a "whole heap of in­terns do­ing dif­fer­ent things–We have pho­tog­ra­phy, sound en­gi­neer­ing, set de­sign and props."

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