Pirate theme for beer commercial

The nearly sole use of local cast and crew for the shooting of a Corona beer commercial at the Rinella water tanks last week heightened the attraction of filming it in Malta.

The commercial of the Mexican product is to be aired in Mexico - one of the only three countries in the world to have water tanks - but was, nonetheless, lured to Malta.

"Flying to the Mexico tanks on the border with the US was not necessarily economical and importing technicians from nearby San Francisco would have been more expensive," said the executive producer Massimo Martinotti of the Miami-based Mia Films.

Mr Martinotti's relationship with Malta dates back around 10 years when he shot a mega commercial for Repsol Oil and another for Renault. The fact that he knows what to expect, the environment, the people and how they operate is an added incentive to shoot here.

But one of the major selling points was the fact that "most of the stuff we needed, including miniature replicas of the life-size pirate ship, was already available at the tanks".

Only three technicians were brought in from overseas, said the Producers Creative Partnership, the local production company that worked on the shoot.

"Instead of bringing in a wardrobe master, set decorator, fight arranger, armourer and pyrotechnic special effects rigger, we maximised on local human resources, giving many of them their first and deserved credit, after having acquired a good amount of experience working with professionals," said the PCP. "They have helped form a 'new wave' of enthusiastic and reliable support crew.

"This strategy helped considerably to produce the commercial in Malta, while the Mediterranean Film Studios, which was instrumental in attracting it to our shores, helped with its existing models and sets.

"The advantage for Malta in the case of tight-budget productions is that its drive to maximise local resources is stronger and has helped build a local support team.

"We could never have had the costumes made here, considering the time and money available, so we got them from a top rental house in London, selected by the Maltese wardrobe master Ernest Camilleri."

Some swords, daggers and guns were rented, while many were manufactured in Malta, and a number of locals were trained to fight with swords.

Casting coordinator Edward Said was faced with no mean feat to select 48 pirates and British sailors over an intensive two-week period. The problem was that they did not only have to look the part, but they also had to have sword-fighting skills. Over 250 people were auditioned, and the two leads came from Hungary.

This was thanks to the collaboration between the PCP and Hungarian Mid-Atlantic Films, which have been discussing the creation of a synergy to attract productions that could make use of the resources of both countries.

Preparation for the two-day shoot began at the beginning of August, and the idea behind the commercial was to recreate the look of the movie Pirates of the Caribbean, complete with battleships, firing canons, swashbuckling pirates dangling in mid-air and wind billowing into large, ripped sails.

Mia Films has other projects for Malta in the pipeline and has just presented a proposal to shoot a Sony commercial for an LA agency, even though it is not related to the tanks.

This time, Malta has been proposed for its locations - Mia Films is looking for a long street that is a cross between Beirut and Istanbul, and Mr Martinotti is confident it can be found either in Valletta, or The Three Cities.

Malta is competing with Costa Rica and Buenos Aires, "which is very inexpensive at the moment". But Mr Martinotti feels Malta is a better solution - "the location is way superior here" - and the agency is keen on it too.

He is particularly impressed by the lack of visual pollution in Malta and the "consistency" of the architecture, which he claims is probably due to the stone.