Working abroad

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Arriving in a new country and building a new client base and work flow is harder than you can imagine. Especially in a country where the language is not English.

Accordingly My strategy, was invest time and effort back into myself and the art of making films, this meant the need to find stories that I could tell without needing the massive infrastructure of a film crew.

The first story that attracted me was Ana Silva, our neighbour. She is a photographer & entrepreneur with a highly successful business who has a desire to test herself in the ring. This I thought was a an intriguing story as the end of the story is not written …..

Ana was sponsored by Adidas for the shoot, which was really great as their brand is so suited to what she is preparing for and the activities we shot.- We cant wait to show them what we did. Having the freedom to tell this story without constraints has been liberating and the end result showcases excellence and success.

For me this was a real growth as I normally direct and utilise crew and post production houses to complete films. This time, it was my concept, which I filmed and edited. – A daunting task but highly rewarding.

Lesson learnt : You never too old to learn and if you willing you can adapt to new circumstances and build afresh. In the creative world one needs to constantly re-invent oneself.

My other investment has been into Douro rugby club, their aim is to grow not only rugby in Porto but also their club. To stretch myself out my comfort zone, I offered to do their social media and see if innovative campaigns conceived by myself would work to build their followers and club.

We all know that humour pieces get attention and can become viral if they r. These spots have worked a treat, they filmed with my IPHONE, and done quickly at practice. The clubs followers have sky rocked and we now have the biggest following in our area. These investments I am hoping will result in others needing innovative social media and content and in-between films I will be able to keep active and earning and building Boomtown in Portugal.

These are all for social media. A media outlet that gobbles up content, it’s a machine and you need to feed it, so every week I conceive a new idea, shoot it , edit it and upload it. Thereafter we watch with excitement how the audience reacts to our endeavours.

Coming from a world where I have had crews of up to 300 people supporting my vision to a crew of zero has been a tremendous jolt to my thinking and an awakening to equip myself with new skills so that I can achieve my goals relying on less yet still retaining the integrity of the concept and message.

George Clooney say’s ‘ it’s possible for me to make a bad movie from a good script, but I cant make a good movie from a bad script.’

With a plethora of communication out there, and formula’s film makers devising formula’s to attract Netflix, Google and other portals we are becoming programmed to write what we think the readers want to hear. I like what Quentin Tarantino say’s ‘Don’t write what people want to read. Find your voice and write about whats in your heart.’ And my biggest successes have been doing just that, doing the Covid campaign was birthing and executing a thought, the thought became a short and the short won numerous awards as it had its own voice.

I am finding this voice again, even if they baby steps doing small projects for no money, these are the most valuable steps as they will determine the next chapter of my career which seems to be evolving.

Life is what you make it to be, Clint EASTWOOD said ‘ If you think it’s going to rain, it will’………..

Bruce Mac from Porto the City of Angels