Florence : Frank, Greg, what is your most beautiful memory of your stay in Turkey during the shooting ?
Frank : For me, the scene that inspired me the most is the pursuit on the roof of the ''Grand Bazar"shot with the Birdy...
Greg : The sunset over the roof of the ''Grand BAZAR of Istanbul.
Florence : What do you keep in mind from Turkey ?
Frank : A kind of exoticism and welcoming people.
Greg : A memory of the city and incredible natural locations, the extreme kindness of the Turkish people and their devotion to their work.
Florence : Bruno, you stayed in Paris to prepare the departure, from a french point of view, what are your best memories on this movie?
Bruno : I found it was great to take care of the initial negotiations concerning the shipping of the cars for the stunts. the preparation of the stunts and the coordination between the unit managers of special mechanical effects, you and the Turkish coordinator of the vehicles.
Florence : this was your biggest problem for the organization of the transports ?
Bruno : Yes indeed, we did not know whether it was best to send French vehicles or use Turkish cars, and whether we should bring the cars back to France or not. Information coming from Turkey and administrations were very different and complicated so that we had hesitated a long time before taking a decision. Finally, for reasons of costs and shooting, we sent every car from France, and brought them all back even the wrecked ones destroyed, because the shooting continued in Bry sur Marne.
Florence : Franck and Greg, what was for you the most difficult part during your stay or during the transports ?
Frank : From my point of view, the most difficult part concerning the transports was to follow the shipping of all kinds via Fedex and Ups.
Turkey is a difficult country in terms of administration and customs clearance. Every arrival created a problem and we had difficulties to get our goods in time. Every Fedex parcel or envelope was opened by the customs agents or checked. For instance, we had trouble with a jewel that travelled through so many countries before arriving at destination in Turkey.
Greg : The local Infrastructure, very limited for such an ambitious movie like this one. It was difficult to organize the daily operations with famous actors and very few facilities at the locations.
Frank : Weapons also were complicated to import, but weapons are a classical problem, and here we had you to look after the turkish administration.
Florence : Bruno, Turkey, what does it make you think of ?
Bruno : It makes me think that we are very lucky to be in Europe and that the European community allows us free circulation of people and goods without customs problems. Turkey still has a very complicated administration,customs and transit systems , and is a very protectionist country.
Florence : Why did you choose CINEMATRANS for the shippings ?
Frank : Of course because you knew Turkey very well and we were aware of the fact it was a difficult country regarding the customs and transit equipment. We had no trouble concerning the transports, whatever they were, cars,decoration material, equipment,and costumes.
At last we did the movie .
Bruno : A logistic support and help regarding information concerning a country you were used to, to help me make the best decisions and save time.
Florence : Anyway, thanks a lot you three, having trusted us for this first collaboration.istanbul and its exoticism, a city we do know well, stunts, destroyed cars, convoys of all sorts, everything we like to do. We loved doing this movie with you and we hope to renew the experience. Thank you to Olivier Mégaton, Luc Besson and Liam Neeson for offering us a super movie. We are very proud to be mentionned in the credits of this opus number 2 and to have been involved in the shipping of all types of equipment for the crew, wether they were: cars, deco, costumes, firearms and dangerous products.
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