INSPIRATION BEHIND FIDDLER'S WALK

In the early 1980s George studied Film & Television at Bournemouth & Poole College of Art & Design. In 1983 after a short stay in London he went to Manchester to become an assistant film editor working for Inhouse Productions. This gave him the opportunity to work in BBC Glasgow and BBC Belfast. Enjoying his stay in Belfast George eventually gained a postion as a trainee assistant editor in BBC Belfast and spent four years working on current affairs and feature documentaries. In 1988 George and his wife moved to Norwich where he spent nearly a year working for Anglia Television as a News Picture Editor. With their first son, the couple returned to Belfast where George freelanced for various productions companies.

By 1995 George became staff editor for Callister Communications Ltd in Lisburn, using an Avid Media Composer. While there he edit a feature film that had been shot on Betacam SP, edited in Avid and after being on-lined was transferred to 16mm film. Called It's Your Choice, designed as an AIDS awareness film for Zimbabwae and Uganda, reaching nearly 4 million people via jungle cinemas. The film was then bought up by many of the television stations in the surround African states. Unfortunately, many of the cast have since died.

The film inspired George to make low-budget films, so in 1998 he began to produce and direct a series of short digital films and help set up the first couple of Belfast Independent Filmmakers' Festivals. 'One Night' was a short film he made at that time based on a script by Aaron Fitzpatrick completed in 2001 and was selected for the 47th Cork International Film Festival in 2002.

With much of the editing becoming less challenging George began to look for other areas to pay the bills and began to commute between Newry and Birmingham every two weeks to work as a Senior Lecturer at the Technology Innovation Centre, part of the University of Central England. While there he undertook a PGCert in Digital Telvision Technology & Production which helped to develop his producer skills.

In 2004 George returned to Northern Ireland to work at Newry Institute. Within a month he had begun to develop the script for 'Fiddler's Walk'. The courses he delivered on the BTEC National Diploma in Media Moving Image also help to push him forward with his ideas. Preproduction and scriptwriting ran parallel with the students on their own projects.

Initially, George had intended to shoot on a CP16-R 16mm film camera he had purchased off ebay but he soon found the image to be too grainy. After attending a seminar by cinematographer, Paul Wheeler, George was impressed by Paul's enthusiasm for the Sony HDR-Z1 and FX1. Opting for the FX1 it was decided to recorded separate sound originally on a Sony miniDisk Walkman. However, half way through the shoot the Walkman went down and we replaced it with a Marantz PD650 compact flash card recorder.

Lawrence Kavanagh and George first met on a Raindance course, then collaborated on a feature script, The Icon. Lawrence also acted in a short film George produced and directed called The Pane of Life (2003). As things were going slowly with The Icon Lawrence suggested he help George with Fiddler's Walk.

The shoot for Fiddlers' Walk lasted 24 days with 5 days in Boston. The budget was estimated at roughly £250,000 but the actual spend was £14,000 as George managed to negotiate most of the cast and crew so that nobody did more than three days on the film. The lead spent twenty days which was covered in the budget.

As the shoot had occured during the seven week break from college it was easier to do full-time. Most of the cast were teachers of lecturers also so didn't miss out on any income. Once the holidays were over, editing had to be fitted in around marking student papers and writing course notes. By Christmas 2005 we had a rough edit, including addition material shot during the October mid-term break. Audience feedback indicated we had a missing scene, where the characters of Aoife and Declan had to kiss. So we abliged. ADR work started in January 2006 and the tracklaying continued on until June.

The producers of Fiddler's Walk have decided to release the film on DVD ourselves. So far audience reaction at Armagh City Movie House, Ti Chuilain Cultural Centre and various screenings with college students have proved very favourable. The film is being promoting the film on MySpace and also the Sandhill Community College in Pinehurst, North Carolina have screened Fiddler's Walk to two audiences while George was on an exchange programme during October 2007.