Cor - we’re pretty much always blown away with the updates from our Alumni but Prano Bailey-Bond is filmmaking tasmainian-devil! Two-time Underwire Alumni and Best Editor 2012, we’re big fan’s of Prano’s work and can’t wait to see her new projects.
Having your film ‘Unravel’ as one of the award winners of the festival in 2012, what did you take away from the experience of Underwire?
Being recognized for your specific skill and contribution to a film is massively encouraging. There are few short film festivals that give awards to “technical” departments (editing, sound, cinematography) and that’s one of the things that makes Underwire so special. Knowing that my editing work has been scrutinized by a jury made up of experienced people working in the field (such as the people at VET who sponsor the award) is a big confidence boost. Editing documentary can be a real journey even though you’re sitting in the same room day-in-day-out; you’re essentially finding the story of a film, but are also balancing the tone and overall meaning and you’re responsible for the representation of real people on screen. This process comes with good days and bad days, and a great deal of thinking, but when it all takes shape it’s so satisfying, and to have that process recognized and rewarded makes all the hard work even more worthwhile. The award also comes with a real feeling of support from Underwire, VET and WFTV; it feels like they’re all behind me now and that’s invaluable in this industry. As part of my prize I will soon be receiving training from VET, but they’ve also been really supportive in terms of my professional development; I feel like I’ve made a connection there that will be really helpful in my future career as both an editor and a director.
What have you been getting up to creatively since Underwire?
Straight after Underwire I shot a short documentary in Florida about an artist who creates portraits out of junk – I also directed and edited the film, which was made for The Woolff Gallery. Although my directing work is predominantly fiction, this gave me a real taste for self-shooting documentary so I’m keen to do more. I’ve been editing a feature doc called Guerrilla ER, which is another Soul Rebel Films production (the company who produced Unravel) – it’s a really exciting on-going project about Burmese medics working clandestinely in the jungle – real life heroes and a whole new look at medical practice. Currently I’m in post on my latest music video (as director/editor) for Brazilian-UK folk artist Mariana Magnavita – it’s really VFX heavy so we’re at that stage now and very excited about releasing it to the world soon. I’ve just been commissioned to make a short film to raise awareness about human trafficking, so I’m in research-mode on that, focusing on forced labour within criminal gangs – pretty dark stuff. Luckily I have some editing work coming up on some short comedy content with my friends at Kill TV, so that will break up the heavy subject matter that comes with Burmese conflict and human trafficking – got to find a balance! I’m also working on another short film script at the moment, which I’ve been developing for a while and am extremely excited about shooting towards the end of the summer. It’s set in the early 80’s and centres around a mother-son relationship torn apart by the video nasty craze; it’s a reflection on the social hysteria that was born from these wonderful early-80’s horror films. The project is very close to my heart and will be a visual treat! Editing-wise I’ll also be cutting another documentary soon, which will be entirely crewed by those of us who made Unravel. The director and cinematographer are currently prepping for a shoot in Bangladesh – this time we’re looking at solar power on a small island isolated from mainland Bangladesh, also cut off from mains electricity. I’m looking forward to us all working together again… Alongside all this I’m also developing a feature film, so am keeping pretty busy!
www.pranobaileybond.com