We’ve heard it said many times in the last 6 months: “ Could you imagine living through a lock-down without the Internet?” By which people mostly mean ‘Could you imagine not having access to YouTube, Netflix, Spotify, etc?’ In the world prior to lock-down these sources of entertainment were merely seen as forms of ‘procrastination’ or ‘distractions’ from real productivity measurable by the clock. But Covid-19 really threw that modern world view out of orbit. Where what was previously seen as procrastination, was now a source of daily comfort, inspiration and distraction from the mass of justified hysteria enveloping social media and the world. We turned to films and Ted talks not in the usual multi-tasking format where it was simply background noise as we rushed around breathlessly between one job and another, but we now turned to films with pleading eyes, hoping that the picture would be enough to either immerse us deeply into a world of different ideas or better still, inspire us to change the view on what was an increasingly bleak situation.

But then, as a filmmaker or anyone working in creative media, how does one create this experience, when having to operate under the strict conditions of Covid-19? How does one portray a sense of love and connection, when a social distance must be respected, or how does one portray inspiration and reunion, when most resources and industry professionals were in some state of isolation?

Back in May, when Malta was beginning to raise its head out of the first serious Covid lock-down, the team at AirMalta wanted to announce a comeback for their operational flights. They wanted to respect the severity and the prudence that the situation demanded, but also they wanted to show a glimmer of hope for a post-Covid world, to share the idea that one day things will be alright, that we will be able to travel again, laugh again, dance again and see our loved ones again. But when this script requirement landed on Naomi Gradel’s desk, requiring an extremely fast turnaround, we were hardly out of the Covid danger zone yet.

Ordinarily, Naomi is the team’s camera department, but she’s also a concept developer and writer of her own. In fact, when it comes to writing under compromised conditions, which is to say when one has less at their disposal than more, Naomi knows how to do more with less. But it was the furthest thing from easy, she tells us. I sat down with Naomi and took a chance to pick her brain over the Air Malta ‘Let’s Go’ Advert she wrote some months back. Aside from the two to three nights of writing and culling, Naomi weighs in on what it was like to try to free her imagination in a world climate of fear and limited possibility. 

So Naomi, what was your general experience of filmmaking during the Pandemic? 

“Lockdown unfortunately postponed and cancelled all the jobs we had lined up for the foreseeable future. We didn’t have any work for weeks but then suddenly a request came in. They needed the job done in 10 days. Completely done. They were launching their campaign in less than a fortnight, which left me with 3 long nights of writing (and scratching out) ideas. I recorded the voice over on my phone at 4am, in bed, and then I woke up to a thumbs up from Andrew (DoP & Director). They approved the concept so we scrambled to get a storyboard and shooting schedule ready. It was the fastest turn around I have experienced. I guess it worked out that way because we were technically forced to work in small numbers due to social distancing.” 

Do you feel like the Cov-id precautions limited your creativity?

The job had its limitations in pre-production and during shooting, but I think they actually helped me stay focused. I didn’t have much room or time for my mind to wander. We got things done pretty easily because for a change the client had to leave things totally in our hands. That made the process pretty smooth flowing.

What was the biggest challenge? What did you take from that & how did it make you grow?

Because of social distancing we were quite limited in who we could work with. We ended up filming a lot of Andrew’s family at their actual residence. I think that’s a silver lining in reality. We got to spend time with his aunts and uncles, and his sister and niece. (Andrew usually wouldn’t work with kids, but this way it was easy!) I think the challenge made everything that bit more special.