The Covies Film Production Company
Making drama out of a crisis.
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In the early part of the summer Danny McLaughlin from the Westport Chamber of Commerce approached me with regard to the question of attracting filmmakers and TV companies to use the town as a location for their productions. It had been mentioned before, but I always seemed to be busy working on this or that and everything was put on the long finger. However as Bob Dylan sang, the times they are a changing. The TV industry had been hit very hard in 2009, with advertising revenues falling and many indies going to the wall. For the first time in nearly two decades I found myself not only unemployed, but having to claim benefits. So when Danny raised the question again an idea occurred to me that the best way of attracting Fimmakers and production companies to Westport, would be to actually make something. I came up with COVIES. If we could raise enough money and sweep into production early enough it would be the world’s first online multi-stranded drama – or to use the more familiar term - soap. |
 Len Collin |
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Although there have been many pretenders to the title of world’s first online soap, most have been stand alone, single stranded pieces aimed at the teenage market. We would have eight episodes of approximately 12 – 15 minutes in length. Almost two hours of episodic storytelling, that demand just as soaps do, a continuation of loyalty. Boasting a cast of over forty, and some of the best locations on the planet. It was ambitious and completely mad. |
 Above from left to right: Len Collin, Dave, Sneddon Rob Coakley, Brian Durcan
Below: "Nellie" and Brain in Toby's toilets
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Meetings were held in and around the town with the involvement of the local council, the Chamber and local businesses such as destination Westport and The Mayo News. It seemed I was on to something as everyone believed in the idea, but in a recession money is tight so pretty soon the initial budget that I had proposed of sixty thousand euro got whittled down to twenty thousand. That would be enough to buy us equipment and keep cast and crew fed during the three week filming period. However all our cast and crew, including myself, would have to work for nothing. I should have called it a day then and there. Had I managed to secure the initial €60k it would have been tight, now it was near on impossible, but once a story starts formulating in your head then it haunts you until the ghosts of your characters are exorcised only by commitment to script. In other words I’d already started writing and recruiting. We reached the point of no return when we held the first auditions in Dublin on the 18th August, followed by further auditions in Westport on the 21st August. We saw nearly one hundred and fifty auditionees. Thankfully the standard was very high, even though the level of experience ranged from the seasoned old pro, to the complete greenhorn. We were to start shooting ten days later, which must be the shortest pre-production schedule ever. Especially considering that only half the scripts were written by then and we had only received one quarter of the promised funding. |
