I realized again this week that no-one in my family and only a few in my circle of friends actually has much of a clue what I do for a living. This video on the making of The Hobbit in New Zealand I think offers a first class insight into the requirements of filming on location. Now film commissions don’t actually organize the logistics of on location filming themselves – that’s the production’s job. What a film commission does, on behalf of the local community, is to promote their specific locations as a great place to film, and then ensure that it actually IS a great place to film – by coordinating and promoting available crews and equipment and services and labor and permit issuing bodies, so that filming is easy and the maximum amount of money is spent in local area. And at the AFCI, I now coordinate between all of the governments in the world who offer this unique service to the film industry – we also provide the definitive training for Film Commissioners, and we host an annual event in LA where film commissions gather to market their destinations to Hollywood.