A Scottish filmmaker trying to make it in the industry!

Here's an update with all the going-ons

2012-01-27T13:08:00.000Z

Hello!

A few people might be looking at this for the first time, or some of you have just forgotten who I am, and for this I forgive you. Regardless here's the quick skinny on me:

Fraser, 27, from Langbank now living in Glasgow, trained at the BBC on their E-Force Programme in 2004, studied TV Operations and Productions at James Watt College, Greenock, 2004-2005, started my own production company Silly Wee Films. Between 2005 and 2011 I have made 4 short films two seasons of a web series and I'm just about finished on my first ever feature film, "Night is Day", which is based on my 1st short film and my web series.

Here's a trailer for my movie, "Night is Day", which had a budget of £4,500 and 67 cast and crew all working on expenses and the hope of profit share for weekends in a warm summer in Glasgow in 2010.

Making a feature film in Scotland was extremely difficult, keeping in mind that it was my first feature, I had a competent cast and crew supporting me throughout the process as we hunted for the right locations, making the scenes work the best they could, finding a post production team to make things go zap, pow and most often, "BANG!" so that my vision of a Scottish superhero film could come true.

For the record I am so grateful for EVERYBODY who has every worked with me either on my short films, my web series and definitely on the feature film - THANK YOU. I am sorry if I was a complete pain in the ass to work with, but all I ever try and do is make a good, enjoyable project - web series, short film or feature film - I don't claim to be making high art or looking to sweep the board at the Oscars.

I've certainly learned from all of my experiences throughout trying to become a successful writer/director, and I hope that everybody who has worked with me has learned something useful too (and not just not to work with me again).

So despite our lack of proper funding, armed with a professional cast and crew of well known actors and people who are on their way up in the acting world, experienced filmmakers mashed with newbies cutting their teeth in the filmmaking world, we managed to not only shoot a feature film about a Glaswegian superhero with lightning powers who faces off against an ancient Scottish creature to save the world, BUT WE FINISHED IT!

No, seriously, right now it's transcoding into a blu-ray format so I can show it to the world and I'm proud of every minute of the 1hr 43 minute sci-fi adventure film.

The icing on the cake is that the Glasgow Film Festival, Yoda love them, has decided to premiere the film at the CCA on the 22nd of February at 6.30pm. This is fantastic news. My first film is being premiered in front of 150 people at one of the largest film festivals in the world. How lucky am I? Very! And I know this and I am very grateful.

However, when it was announced that my baby would be shown to the Glasgow world, an uproar (I say uproar, I mean a groan) came from a few people who hid behind a fake name and decided to go on to the ticket booking page (see it here in all it's glory) and have a pop at not only me, my filmmaking style ("it'll do" filmmaking apparently, which is what's wrong with the Scottish film making industry), my cast, my crew and my "half-baked" plot about a superhero in Scotland.

72 comments in total are sitting on there at the moment - 3 or 4 of them are people tearing apart the film based on trailers, a 10 minute sizzle reel and behind the scenes videos of how we made it - knocking me for not working with the same people who joined me in the beginning 6 years ago - and one individual even claimed that I took the money we raised for the film through fundraising nights, charity walks and beyond, and skipped off to Las Vegas with my girlfriend (would LOVE to see their proof of this).

I'm happy to say that the other 69 or so comments are those of support and admiration and I thank those lovely people who took the board and stuck up for me - thank you.

Yet I'm not about to go into it all again. All I've ever tried to do is make my feature film and I've had a great amount of support in doing so. We've got distributors in the States interested in putting the film out there (thanks to my trip to Los Angeles and The American Film Market) and all 150 tickets for the Glasgow Premiere sold out in 8 days!

I won't lie - the knocking and the non-constructive criticism did hit me hard and it did make me doubt my own skills.

Then it hit me - I'M NOT DONE YET! This is my first film - yes there will be mistakes in it, no not everybody is going to love it as much as I do and yes I have a LOT to learn about writing, directing and putting a movie together - but what I'm not doing is sitting on my ass waiting for it to happen.

Sure I've watched movie trailers and thought "Nah, that's not for me." but I've never went on to a public forum and torn it apart for the filmmaker to see - how totally disrespectful to everybody who has worked on it. Neither have I thought about emailing Steven Spielberg to tell him exactly WHY War of the Worlds didn't work for me (thankfully I love many of his other films).

Okay, this is getting a bit ranty even for me. In short not everybody will like me for my work, not everybody will like me for how I work, but I never go out of my way to offend or hurt anybody - I am not a bad guy - I wasn't raised to be an ass. I'm proud of my work and I intend to learn from everything I do so one day I will win an Oscar for my work. I CAN take constructive criticism and I will listen to what people have to say in hopes that it will help me improve my skills, and I thank those of you who give honest, constructive criticism on my body of work - but please remember, we're all still learning.

Blog over, thanks for listening :)

Night is Day at the Glasgow Film Festival

2012-01-19T12:52:00.000Z

It's OFFICIAL! Night is Day will premiere at the Glasgow Film Festival this year at the CCA, on Sauchiehall Street. Wednesday 22nd February at 6.30pm.

Tickets are now on sale at http://www.glasgowfilm.org/festival/whats_on/3616_night_is_day so please do come along if you can and support my Scottish superhero film that we shot for £4,500!

Thank you to everybody that has supported me through this crazy filmmaking obsession of mine. I am truly grateful for everybody's time, support and efforts.

2011 - An Amazing Year

2011-12-29T20:47:00.000Z

With only 2 days left in the year that I turned 27, I thought I'd do a small blog on why I think that 2011 has proved to be a great year for my filmmaking ambitions.

First of all I got to make a feature film, which was amazing. Rather than wait around for some big company to come along and give me lots of money to make a movie, I got up off my rear-end and found a willing crew and talented actors to put my movie together.

Based on my own web series which I started after leaving college, I took what I had learned from that and used my skills to make a feature length version.

It wasn't easy, we had no money, filmed at weekends over 3 months in the Summer and convinced some well known Scottish actors to join the film. We shot the movie in 2010 and then the hard work started in January once the producers had approved the edit. From there a lot of visual effects animators, sound designers and an extremely talented composer, worked very hard and put the film together.

We're now weeks away from it being finished and I couldn't be prouder of what we've achieved.

You can find out more at http://www.nightisday.net but in the meantime here is a trailer for our superhero adventure:

The film will be released early next year with a premiere coming up and screenings to be arranged.

With Night is Day deep in post-production and my corporate work keeping me (mostly) busy, I stepped into the world of the 48 Hour Film Project which launched in Glasgow this year. Teaming up with the wonderful Production Attic and writing a script with Mark Harvey (who has worked with me since I started making films!) we took 2 days and made a comedy.

I'm so proud of this film and I'd say it was one of the best pieces of work I've ever done, sadly, we didn't win any awards on the night, but that's the nature of the biz, right?

Now, looking on to 2012 I'll have "Night is Day" completed and released and looking forward to my next film - "Get Funded".

The synopsis is after the teaser poster -

"Get Funded is the brand new Scottish Comedy film from Silly Wee Films and Production Attic, following the adventures of three young determined filmmakers.

Chris, Katie and Mark take their blockbuster screenplay to investors, only to get the door slammed on their face again and again.

Determined not to give up and follow their dreams, our heroes are forced to question their morality

as they embark on a life of crime… robbing little old ladies tearooms and robbing small banks in the remote parts of the country!

After they accidentally try to exploit a film-loving gangster, Kevin McDade, quickly catches on to their scams and invites his business minded uncle, William to invest in their film.

At first it’s a dream collaboration until the investors demand re-writes of the script and that their nice-but talentless actress niece, Moxy, is cast in the lead role.

And then there's the small matter of the money.

Can our heroes complete their film without exhausting the patience of their investors and avoiding the law who are catching up with them, or will it all end up on the cutting room floor?

We're currently in the process of finalising the crew, seeking the funding we need, locking down locations and around February time we'll start auditioning for a 25 day shoot in Glasgow/Scotland. We've got a few big names interested in taking roles in the production so our fingers are firmly crossed.

With "Night is Day" I wanted to prove that Scotland could make an action-packed superhero film, and with "Get Funded" I want to make a classic comedy in the style of Superbad, Bowfinger with a Scottish twist. I want to make a film that we could show to an international market and show them what Scotland can do.

Here's to more regular updates in 2012!

Feel free to follow me on Twitter - https://twitter.com/#!/ecossefilmmaker

Night is Day VS America

2011-11-19T16:46:00.000Z

So I had the great pleasure, thanks to the cast and crew of Night is Day fundraising, to head out to the American Film Market in LA between the 2nd and 9th of November. The film market was held in the St. Lowes Hotel in Santa Monica. Not a bad place to be in November when the usual weather in Scotland is described as "wet".

Over the 8 days I met with over 13 distributors who were interested in my film, "Night is Day"and I showed them the 10 minute sizzle reel, which features completed scenes from the movie, hopefully giving them an idea of what the story is about, and why they should buy it and distribute it throughout the world.

It's an absolutely crazy place, but a wonderful place also. Everybody is friendly, optimistic and very happy to be there. It's a country that promotes films and embraces it. Even though 50% of the attendees are there to sell their films, there's no sense of competition or rivalry, everybody was genuinely happy to help one another.

While some of my meetings lasted 5 minutes, there were some that lasted an hour. The main feedback was that the film was the most original content they have ever seen from the UK, while others were very impressed with our visual effects. Sizzle reels were handed over and a lot of people told me to send them the final film once it was complete and they'd take things from there.

Meanwhile another distributor, who is also a filmmaker who has set up their own world sales for productions, contacted me two days AFTER the market and told me they were very impressed with my work and I was to send them the completed film ASAP to evaluate world wide sales.

All and all, a successful trip I'd say. I got to meet people I never would get the chance to in a normal situation - including a 60 minute talk with Lauren Schuler Donner, producer of the X-Men films (and much more!) and a random distributor who approached me in the lobby, handed me her card and told me she had to sell films in Brazil, Germany and Russia! So we'll see how that goes.

The three things I learned at the film market were -

Always make film. No matter what it takes, if you have the courage to do it, learn as much as you can and make it.
For the American market to be interested and make an offer STRAIGHT away (or as close to it) you need a well known actor or person (or as they described them, an "entity") attached to your film. I'll be calling David Tennant's agent asap.
Get to know EVERYBODY.

I feel completely rejuvenated. I have distributors interested in my film, there's a possibility of attending key film festivals next year and the ball is rolling nicely along.

Our once production manager (and captain of transport, props master and all around great guy) has been promoted to producer to help me get the film from the 90% complete stage it's currently at, to the 100% completed stage by the end of the year. We've got two brand new visual effects animators to finish the effects and the sound team are cracking on with the ADR mix and foley design.

There has been one sad moment during it all, but as you learn in this industry, things happen, learn from them, and carry on the best you can. And that's what I'm going to do.

Fingers crossed the film will be out for everybody to see early next year and I can start pre-production on film number 2! All I need (well, one of many things) is an experienced producer with financing skills so I can get the ball rolling...

Wish me luck, but so far, so good.

Thank you to EVERYBODY who has supported me and this mad cap career decision so far!

48 Hour Film Project - Glasgow

2011-10-10T13:40:00.002+01:00

Wow. Just wow.

On Friday the 7th of October, Mark Harvey, Bethany Apedaile and myself went to Trongate 103, put our hands into a canvas bag (thank you Mr. Minchin - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTQ9TpSSpF8) and drew the genre "Comedy".

We jumped up and down, shouting and cheering. What a fantastic genre!

And then reality set in. We're not funny.

For the next hour, from walking to the train station, walking up to the house, and even through a bottle of rose wine and chicken fajitas. We were stumped.

Then we got it. And it was good.

The script was sent out at about 10pm to all of the cast and crew, characters were assigned and then nobody slept. Saturday morning came and so did the cast and crew. Our first shot was in the bag at 10.47am at the SECC before driving back to the house and getting on with the rest of the shoot.

Everything genuinely went smoothly. I brought in Production Attic, a fantastic team of filmmakers from Glasgow, who arrived on the shoot with a shot list. They had someone logging each shot, clapping each shot, taking the sound, checking we got the take and everything. Utter professionals who I will definitely be working with again on my next feature.

Considering I assigned the roles the night before, it was a total gamble. We had to include a character, Norma Mackenzie, a cleaner, in the film. I assigned this part to Nicola Welburn who I had honestly just met a few weeks previous to put together her very dramatic, serious showreel. So handing her the comedy character in our film was a risk, but it paid off brilliantly.

Simon Weir (How Not To Live Your Life, Acid House, Monarch of the Glen) gracefully agreed to take part in the film after working with me on Night is Day, took the part of the very protective, very angry Dad, who goes berserk on Trey (Mark Harvey's character) after his little girl, Alice (played brilliantly by Elizabeth Bailie) is heart broken when she accuses Trey of cheating on her.

For a comedy there's a few dramatic, tense moments where Trey is put on the spot. Thankfully our fantastic composer, Philip Martin, who turned a score in within 12 hours of receiving the locked picture, turns the film up to 11 and did his job so well, the score is now on my iPod so I can listen to it later today.

Our make up girls, Jacqui Connor and Mila Dijkman, both currently studying Make up Artistry at college, showed up ready to go - they had makeup plans, hair ideas, and just went straight to work. A total delight to work with and they are going to go for in this industry.

We had a total of 5 locations around Glasgow. Our final shot takes place at the SECC on the pedestrian bridge, over our end titles, and it's one of my favourite shots. After the jib shots and glide-cam shots!

I can't finish this blog without mentioning the fantastic Nicolette McKeown, who plays Julia, a girl on her hen night. I won't say any more than that. But she puts in a brilliant performance that will make you smile.

And our producer, Bethany Apedaile, a trained psychologist, currently working in a bank, yet dragged in to this film industry (kicking and screaming) by myself, has been observing my other projects and took a shot at producing this film. And by goodness did she knock it out of the park (not just saying that because of our relationship). Every single piece of paperwork was signed, suggestions were made, she kept the production going, got all of our props (she even made a few of them!) and kept everybody happy.

24 hours passed, we stayed up all night editing, syncing up the sound as we shot on the Canon 550D, tweaking, grading, perfecting.

Bethany and I went to the GFT at 4pm and handed in our film a whole hour early and chatted to the organisers, Sam and Lou, who are brilliant people, and we had a great chat with them.

And now it's in the hands of the judges! The film will be screened at the GFT on Thursday 13th of October from 6pm and the winners announced on the 17th of October.

After that I'll put the film online.

Thank you to Bethany Apedaile, Mark Harvey, Simon Weir, Elizabeth Bailie, Nicola Welburn, Nicolette McKeown, Darren Eggenschwiler, Laura Chiverton, Matthew Cowan, Stephen Paton, Jacqui Connor, Mila Dijkman and the super talented Philip Martin. You are an amazing cast and crew to work with.

Do you think you know Scotland?

2011-10-06T10:43:00.000+01:00

Night is Day - Do you think you know Scotland? Trailer from Fraser Coull on Vimeo.

I've said this before, and I'll say it again. Filmmaking is hard. I've been involved in this film making malarky since I was 22 (okay, getting old now) when I studied TV Operations and Production at James Watt College in Greenock. Since then I've started my own company (Silly Wee Films) made short films (which you can see here) two seasons of a web series (again, here) and eventually, Night is Day, the feature film.

All of this has been made with no funding from support as I have been knocked back by funding bodies who have offered very little support to fill out the over complicated forms. However I've always found amazing people to work with, and I find that if I just ask someone for something, i.e. to use their location, they tend to say yes and filmmaking continues.

I don't know why, but I have ruffled a few feathers, and a few rumours have been going about how I mistreat my cast and crew and how horrible I am. I've also been told that I'm never going to make it in the industry *stares at my feature film with well known Scottish actors in it*... so yeah. All I've ever done is try to make good films, work with lots of different people and give everybody experience. I've always been up front about what money we had available and people know what they are getting into when they join my productions.

When I'm big, famous and successful (haha, he wishes) everybody will get paid and the people who want to work with me and who I want to work with, we'll sort that out and all will be good.

Anyway, I'm digressing slightly with this blog update. Night is Day is coming along nicely. Unfortunately as this is a non-funded production, some of our team have had to go and work on paid jobs in order to pay for the roof over their heads and, you know, to eat. So that's been a little bump on the road to finishing the film, however my excellent post-production producer Ross Hardie, has kept things moving along nicely. We've got new crew to pick up the jobs that need to be finished and all going well we'll have the film finished by the end of of 2011.

I'm off to LA in November to the American Film Market to meet with distributors and sales agents, so hopefully we'll find someone to buy the film and put it in the cinemas, on DVD and then iTunes! Cross your fingers for us!

And then I can continue pre-production on my second feature... "Get Funded"

Ciao for now!

Welcome to my blog, oh, and filmmaking is hard!

2011-08-15T14:05:00.000+01:00

I suddenly have a lot of new followers on my Twitter feed so I thought I'd do a small "intro" blog for those of you unfamiliar with me, what I do, and why I do it.

My name is Fraser, I'm 27 (closing in on 28, well, next March, but still, scary) and I live in the West End of Glasgow with my partner, Bethany. My imagination has always got the better of me, to the point where in primary school my teacher told my parents that I had an over-active imagination. Rather than take this in a positive way which I have done so for the past 10 years of my life, my parents saw this as a problem and tried to discourage me to use my imagination. It didn't work.

After a stint of being unemployed for a very long time, the job centre put me on a training programme at the BBC in Glasgow (this would probably never happen now) and so I got my first real taste for television on the E-Force programme at the old BBC building in the West End - Queen Margaret Drive to be precise. From there I went onto college and studied HND Television Operations and Productions at James Watt in Greenock. In 2006 I left college and started my own production company, "Silly Wee Films"

From 2006 until now I have focussed on making corporate videos, promotional videos, music videos, recording live events and generally filming whatever I can to make money to keep living in my lovely 2 bedroom house, keep the fridge full with food and feed by guinea pigs (Tegan and Maisy), my rabbit Barney and my hamster Donna.

I've also made 2 seasons of a low-budget superhero web series called "Night is Day" 5 short films which, you can watch at this page, and my first EVER feature film, based on the web series, "Night is Day" is now in post-production and we'll be taking it to the American Film Market in LA this November to seek a distribution deal.

After that? Who knows. Making a film, especially in Scotland, is a lot of hard work. The generally accepted genre is "depressing". If it's not got some sort of drug use in it, depression, neds, violence or domestic abuse or senseless violence, the people who hold the money don't seem to be interested. That's fine for those who feel the need to force 90 minutes (if you're lucky) of grainy, depressing story on to your eyes and ears, but for me I'm more of the Hollywood persuasion. I like comedies, action films, superhero films, sci-fi films, romance (well, mostly romantic comedy) and indie films - ala Moon, Source Code.

I'm trying to make "Get Funded" which is a comedy about 3 filmmakers who go to EXTREME lengths to fund their first feature, but I suspect I need "Night is Day" to be sold and make some sort of impression in the world before someone will part with their cash to help me pay a cast and crew to spend their summer filming a comedy in Scotland.

Apart from that I'm a happy-go-lucky person. I make no secret that I'm a geek, I love Doctor Who, Torchwood, Chuck, Castle, Burn Notice, Star Wars, Star Trek, Ghostbusters, How I Met Your Mother, Buffy, Angel, Firefly, Serenity, The Blues Brothers, Blade Runner, Batman, Superman, Spider-Man, Iron Man, just to name a few.

So, there ya go, there's my intro post.

Night is Day - First Official VFX Shot

2011-07-15T21:58:00.000+01:00

"Night is Day" is coming together nicely with the ADR almost finished, the special effects are coming in and the music is on the way. Scottish bands "A Band Called Quinn" and "Echofela" are joining the film's soundtrack with more artistes to be announced between now and October.

Please support the film by telling your friends and visiting the website.

Elaine C Smith stars as Katherine Munro, Inspector Rebecca Munro's mother, in Night is Day the movie.

Underrated Superhero Films

2011-07-05T15:24:00.000+01:00

(Chris Summers records his ADR for "Night is Day")

So that's the ADR (additional dialogue recording) for my first ever feature film, Night is Day, underway! Thanks to Gillian Glencross, our fantastic sound recordist and designer, along with William Cory, we'll be at The Hub in Glasgow for 3 weeks with some of our cast to re-record some of their dialogue and create some sound effects for the movie.

First up was Chris Summers, who plays our lead superhero, Jason Mackenzie. Despite a few teething problems at the start we managed to get all of his dialogue recorded as well as some sound effects of him punching and kicking (and grunting) for the fight scenes. So it was a very successful day. We're back on Thursday to re-record Mark Harvey's dialogue, so it'll be a lot of fun.

I really hope I've made an entertaining movie. It's my first ever feature film, with 4 short films under my belt and 2 seasons of Night is Day as a web series. At the moment the movie is 1 hour 43 minutes long but I may end up trimming it back to 1 hour 40. There's quite a lot of action sequences spread out throughout the film, backstories, flashbacks and story of Jason investigating the appearance of the Caillech, while the cops do the same and Mr. Philips tries to assist the Caillech in destroying the world.

Thinking about all of this, and my concerns that people will just not like it at all, I started to think of other superhero films that I've really liked, but are underrated with a general audience.

I'll start with two new films that haven't been released yet, in the hope that they won't be under appreciated. Here's James Gunn's superhero film, "Super" with Rainn Wilson and Ellen Page.

Here's an independent superhero film from the land of Oz, "Griff the Invisible", it looks really sweet, but really interesting too.

Now, back to underrated superhero films. This is "Push" which stars Chris Evans, who is the go-to guy for superhero films after being The Human Torch in Fantastic Four and he's playing Captain America in the movie of the same name. "Push" is sort of like "Heroes", but it's a lot better.

This one is a bit of a guilty pleasure for me, "Guyver: Dark Hero", is based on the Manga, Guyver, and the anime of the same name. The trailer is AWFUL - the main character is called Sean Barker, not BAKER as they keep saying. It's not a perfect movie, I won't lie, but it's a good superhero movie all the same.

Now, here's the film that inspired "Night is Day", it's Bruce Willis' film "Unbreakable" and it is a brilliant piece of filmmaking, acting and the music is so inspiring. Bruce's character can't be hurt or killed and it's how he copes with it.

It's a genius film.

And last but not least, The Rocketeer! An amazing Disney film. With a pretty good trailer too.

Another blog entry but with something different...

2011-06-29T14:46:00.000+01:00

Everybody and their mum's dogs have blogs these days, and it takes something special to stand out from the rest and I probably won't achieve such blog greatness, but blogging is a great method to release stress, tension, or just to get things off your mind.

Alas, I digress.

My blog is for my filmmaking journey, hopefully highlighting the road from my sleepy hometown of Langbank in Scotland to the twinkling lights of Hollywood within the next 5 to 10 years when I'm sitting late and night in my production office writing the script for "Night is Day 3 - This Time Jason Might Not Save The Day"...

However, I spend a lot of this blog complaining about the state of Scottish filmmaking (I'll save you the hassle of finding it, but basically I complain that there's too many films focussed on one or two genres, mostly depressing drama or zombies). So after seeing "Fast Romance" (click above, watch the trailer, be impressed) last night at it's Cineworld premiere (and Twitterer http://twitter.com/#!/Cnuneen telling me to do so) I decided to write a small review of this film.

So "Fast Romance", here we go. Starring Jo Freer, William Ruane and Lesley Hart. Directed by Carter Ferguson and written by Debbie May and James McCreadie. 93 minutes with the certificate TBC - I'd go with a 12A.

First things first, this is a low budget movie, shot on a microbudget (yet more of a budget than Night is Day) but that doesn't matter. This isn't a film concerned about over-the-top robot fighting destruction, or green aliens with decoder rings that can take on anything you think of (i.e. a toy car ramp or a machine gun), this is a film about love in Glasgow and how a group of friends try to find romance.

Big budget is not required to tell this story. So, that's out of the way.

Gordon (or "Gordo" to his friends), played by William Ruane, is a gamer who likes to play online with his friends and his brothers (nice little scene here to introduce his game-loving obsession btw) and works at the post office. Despite being constantly late, his boss, Kenny Cairns (a touching performance from Derek Munn) looks out for him and protects him from the main boss, Mr Braithwaite (played by Dave Anderson of "City Lights" fame).

Gordo is in love with Nadine (an energetic Jo Freer) who works at her family's Italian restaurant in the city and is looking for love, both for herself and to silence her overbearing mother who reminds Nadine on a daily basis that her sisters have found love no problem and that people are starting to talk about her.

Meanwhile Lorna (a flawless Lesley Hart) is having doubts about her upcoming marriage to her fiance, Terrence, and "copy girl" Fiona (Lynne McKelvey) is struggling to get the words out in our place of work thanks to man-eater Susan (Sarah McCardie) who is definitely the office bitch, and she plays it brilliantly.

While delivering the post, and avoiding spooky neighbour Mrs. Livingston (a nice cameo from Barbara Rafferty), Gordo finds a pen from Nadine with the words "Fast Romance" on it and discovers it's a speed dating club. Figuring Nadine will be there, Gordo sets out to go and find the courage to ask out Nadine once and for all.

Nadine convinces her friends Lorna and Fiona to keep her company on the speed-dating disaster.

I won't go into any more of the story from there as it'll spoil it, but everything changes from the speed-dating night. There are some great cameos in there and characters you won't forget. Our heroes lives are thrown upside down and events twist and turn before reaching a satisfying conclusion.

Additional props go to Simon Weir who plays Nadine's disastrous date at the start of the film, and James McCredie as Carlo, Nadine's confidante.

"Fast Romance" moves along nicely for it's 93 minute duration. It's got nice music from bands such as A Band Called Quinn and an original score by Nigel Dunn and Stephen Wright, which suits the movie's tone perfectly.

It's fun to spot places you actually know from living or have visited Glasgow but it doesn't detract from the film itself.

Yes there are a few problems with the movie, some of the sound is out of sync here and there, it's a bit too dark in places and some might say the story is wrapped up too quickly, but it's still a really good, enjoyable movie.

It's funny, it's heartwarming, sometimes genuinely sad and most importantly it's Scottish. Thankfully there are no neds in the film, for which I'd like to thank the filmmakers for, as Scotland isn't all about neds, zombies and ancient Scottish warriors fighting for freedom.

Hopefully this film will pave the way for a new generation of comedies, romances and maybe an action film too.

9/10.

The Show Must Go On

2011-06-06T13:20:00.000+01:00

(Cast and crew hard at work on the opening scene of the movie, "Night is Day")

I've not wrote a blog entry on here for such a long time, whoops! Time to update I suppose.

"Night is Day" is progressing well. I don't think everybody understands just how hard and time consuming making any sort of project is, let alone a feature film, let alone a feature film that has lots of special effects, let alone a feature, with special effects and no money.

I wrote the script for the film two years ago now, completing it in September 2009 - when I was living with my now-ex-best-friend in Ibrox, where I had nothing but time to make up a story about a superhero fighting an ancient Scottish creature on the streets of Glasgow. By December 2009 we had the majority of the crew, and by January we had our cast. Then by June 2010 the film had started filming. Come August 2010 the film had wrapped and I threw myself into editing the film.

Finally in October the film was "locked" - as in myself and the two producers, Lindsay and Gavin, had approved that we were happy with the film and how it ran, then it was sent off for special effects (Mat), sound design and audio replacement (Jack and Gillian) and music (Philip).

Since then we've had to bring in a few extra pair of hands to help out with sound and special effects as festival and film market deadlines are approaching and I'd quite like to take the film to the American Film Market (November 2-9 2011) in California this year, so having a completed movie by then would be fantastic.

Our budget is so non-existant that our crew are working other paid jobs and working their way through university in order to live and survive, devoting all of their other spare time to Night is Day, which I am truly grateful for. At the start of July we'll be bringing some of the actors back to re-record parts of their dialogue for one reason or another, to ensure we have the highest quality sound for our low budget feature.

While this is going on, Jack, our sound designer, is working on sound effects, tidying up sound problems here and there, and hopefully putting the movie into a 5.1 surround sound mix, which will be brilliant for the cinemas.

Mathew is working on hard on the visual effects and in the next few days he'll be joined by Tinko, another excellent visual effects animator, who will assist in creating the many effects we have in the film (demons blowing up, lightning being thrown at people, force-fields and exploding vampires).

Finally we've got Philip who has already sent me the opening titles theme, which gave me goosebumps, working away on the score which we hope to release on CD for people to buy and download.

Why are we doing this? Because we love making films and TV. In Scotland there is no industry. Unfortunately there isn't very much money being put into TV and films here, and what we do have is going on the same projects again and again - depressing, dour dramas. While I'm happy that these films are at least getting made, I'm saddened by the representation this country has to the rest of the world.

Right now in the cinemas in the UK the top two films are The Hangover Part II and X-Men First Class. Yes, both sequels/prequels - but the genre is making them LOTS of money. Everybody likes a comedy, so they go see Hangover. Fans of comic books, sci-fi films, superheroes or people who want to perv on James MacAvoy or Jennifer Lawrence, are off to see X-Men. So a comedy and a superhero movie.

What was the last film from Scotland? Oh yes, NEDS. A drama about a boy in the 70's who becomes a ned. Well, I think that's what it's about, the trailers and reviews point to that storyline. I couldn't bring myself to see it. I spend most of my day avoiding REAL neds in town, I didn't want to see them on a big screen.

I'm sure the film is very good and it's well shot, acted, etc, again I'm happy it's being made. But can we PLEASE put the little money we do have into something else? A vampire movie perhaps? Outpost 2 has the zombie corner covered (with some Nazi's in there for good measure) and that's great. There's a romantic comedy with David Tennant coming out at some point (The Decoy Bride), so I'm happy that a comedy is on the horizon, but we could tackle the superhero genre no problem - there's 3 in the works right now (Edinburgh based "Electric Man" has a superhero in it, in comic book form, there's my own Night is Day and Kick Ass creator Mark Millar is working on "Miracle Park") - action films like Scott Pilgrim or Die Hard could be approached too.

Christopher Nolan, the lovely man behind the new Batman films was in Glasgow last week filming exteriors for The Dark Knight Rises - which is brilliant - so can we get our own superhero film here now please?

What genre is left to tackle that we don't? Oh, romance! We could do a great romantic comedy here, again we've got the Decoy Bride, and starting on the 1st of July in Cineworld itself, is "Fast Romance" by my good friend Carter Ferguson - but I know he battled against it all to get that film made.

It is so hard to get a film made here at all. Not to sound like the struggling artist, but I know I'm not alone. We've got so much talent and creativity, yet we're ignored. To this day, our funding body, Creative Scotland, and even worse, Bafta Scotland, have yet to return a single email to me when I asked for advice and help.

I physically cannot make another film the way we did Night is Day, our budget is well under £5,000, and I'm still fighting to raise enough to take it to the American Film Market (fundraisers in pubs, walked 22 miles in return for sponsorship) while trying to keep myself financially afloat with corporate work.

I've got two films written (well, 1 and a half), 1 is a comedy called "Get Funded" about filmmakers going to extreme lengths to get their film made (semi-autobiographical) and "Fair Canaigh Valley", which is a monster movie set in a fictional Scottish village where a young American honeymooning couple get attacked by an ancient Scottish monster.

Yet I cannot even begin to touch these until Night is Day is sold one way or the other (hopefully in a cinema somewhere, even for two weeks would be lovely) and I can then say to potential investors "I made a superhero film for £5,000, it was in the cinema for 2 weeks, I've wrote a comedy/horror (delete as appropriate) please give me money. I'll cast lots of super stars as long as I can have real Scottish actors who are talented involved."

Is that too much to ask?

Night is Day Series 2

2011-04-10T22:19:00.000+01:00

Here's the first episode of series 2 - shot in 2009, we've made 7 episodes, 25 minutes each. We'll be releasing an episode every month.

Enjoy!

Night is Day and The Sizzle Reel

2011-04-01T17:20:00.000+01:00

"Night is Day - The Movie" is steam rolling ahead with post-production in full swing. We've got ADR to do, special effects and music. It's all very exciting and we hope the movie is ready for September where we've been invited to participate in two film festivals in Glasgow.

Our main goal is still to the take the film to the American Film Market in November and we recently held a fundraiser at The Ark Bar on the 29th of March where Reggae band "Man at the Window" and "Echofela" performed along with comedian Stevie Pollack. We raised a lot of money and we're getting closer to taking the movie to the States to meet Sales Agents and distributors.

We also showed the 10 minute sizzle reel we've made to help promote the film, with 5 scenes from the film for you to see. We're keeping it online until Monday so check it out and let me know what you think.

Thanks to Fizzylight design we've got a brand new poster -

This is our main promotional poster at this time so we hope it creates a lot of interest.

Finally, David Fergusson is working on a web comic called "Lexi" which delves into the backstory of our vampire Lexi, who features both in the web series and in the movie. Here's a peek at the front cover:

And finally, finally please do donate whatever you can to the movie at http://www.nightisday.net/donate.php - you'll be credited on the website and on our film's end titles. All donations are appreciated!

Scottish Screenwriters and the quest to get to America continues

2011-03-15T15:40:00.001Z

Last night I went along to the Scottish Screenwriters Group as I was invited by John McShane, one of the organisers, to show our Night is Day sizzle reel and hold a Q & A after. I went along with one of our producers, Gavin Orr, and Kenny Boyle who plays PC Douglas in the film.

Everybody laughed at the right bits and seemed genuinely interested in the 10 minute piece, so we hope they enjoyed it. We had a lot of questions after about funding, equipment, who are target audience is (geeks really - people who like comics, superheroes and sci-fi - aged 15 and older!)

There was a lot of positivity from the group which is always encouraging. We shot the film for three months during the Summer last year, then locked away in a room editing it and reviewing, editing, reviewing, editing and reviewing before sending it off to the post-production team - so thankfully our 10 minute sizzle reel gives us an indication of what people think about the movie.

So far so good.

I suggest anybody with an interest in screenwriting should have a look at the group as they are very encouraging and after their first part of the night everybody splits into groups and you can workshop your scripts, which is very useful to a lot of people.

We met up with the organisers of Glasgow's Comic Con which is being held in June, so hopefully we'll get the chance to do another workshop there and discuss the film.

One thing I did pick up on last night is the general feeling towards our funding body, Creative Scotland, formally Scottish Screen. Nobody likes them and they feel like they are a waste of time. I mostly agree. In the last few years there have been so little Scottish films produced and released in the cinema - such as Hallam Foe (2007) a drama set in Edinburgh - flopped at the cinema. Red Road (2006), a drama/thriller set in Glasgow only made around $866,000 back of it's £1 million + budget.

Valhalla Rising (2009) a historical film set in Scotland had a budget of £4 million and didn't even get a cinema release over here and it flopped in America, despite having Casino Royale's Mads Mikkelsen in the lead role.

"Donkeys" (2010) a rough follow up to Red Road but more a dark comedy, came and went without
doing much business at any box office.

And then there's "Neds" (2011) a depressing drama set in the 70's - which had two weeks in the cinema
then vanished.

I haven't seen any one of those films that I've mentioned - and I am not attempting to review or place any
blame on them, I just find it curious that the big money is going to the same genre of film, or worse,
the same people AGAIN and AGAIN, and we're getting flops.

A true independent film, "Fast Romance", had a very small budget of less than £100,000, no support from
Creative Scotland or Bafta Scotland (the filmmakers were snubbed and told there was no money for them)
and yet this romantic comedy has secured a cinema release in Cineworld Cinemas this Summer for two weeks
at all cineworlds throughout the UK.

Early reviews from the WORLD (France, Canada etc) are very positive and people are wanting to snap it up.

This year will also see the release of "The Decoy Bride" which stars David Tennant - Doctor Who himself.
It's a romantic comedy and I can promise you it's going to do very well.

Comic-book comedy film "Electric Man" shot in Edinburgh for around £35,000, is also getting some very good
vibes and previews and it isn't even finished yet!

So I'm glad that so far Creative Scotland have snubbed all of my emails, letters and phone calls asking them
for support with "Night is Day", as I have made a superhero film, with elements of humour, lots of fight scenes,
special effects, drama, death and some good ole fashioned violence, and I plan to sell it anyway I can.

From there I will have a track record of writing and directing a film that's been released and I can start plans
to find funding for a second feature and hopefully my career will step up a little.

The same goes for the Fast Romance guys and the Electric Man guys - we're doing it without the "big boys" and
we're doing just fine. Creating films that don't stick to one genre which so far as proven to fail in the box office.

Hopefully we're the first of many filmmakers who decide to go it alone and make the films WE want to see.

And just before I get off my soap box, here's what Creative Scotland claim to do according to their website:

"Creative Scotland is the new national leader for Scotland’s arts, screen and creative industries. It’s our job to help Scotland’s creativity shine at home and abroad.

We invest in talented people and exciting ideas. We develop the creative industries and champion everything that’s good about Scottish creativity.

Scotland boasts an incredible range of talent, from award-winning directors and writers to widely recognised actors and internationally renowned visual artists, architects and digital companies. As a result of the wealth of indigenous talent, Scotland produces a huge volume of home-grown productions and products each year.

We think Scotland’s arts, screen and creative industries are worth shouting about. We’ll lead the shouting."

Hmm, sure.

Edging towards the middle of post-production...

2011-03-09T17:45:00.000Z

(The Caillech, portrayed by Catriona Joss - Night is Day, Feature Film)

The 5th edit of "Night is Day" has been approved by the two producers, Lindsay and Gavin, and as such has been sent off to Jack Ashley and Gillian Glencross to work on tidying up the sound, adding in sound effects and re-recording any dialogue which needs done to ensure we have the highest quality sound.

Meanwhile Mathew Crisp along with Tinko Dimov and Ewan Smith are in charge of the special effects which will be seen throughout the movie - including Jason's lightning powers, demons being blown up, factory's being supercharged with electricity, floating creatures etc.

We shot the film on digital HD on a Sony EX3 - which is pretty high quality, but shooting on digital is obvious to the human eye so once the film has all the effects completed we will need to grade each scene, giving each scene it's own tone and making it look like a film. Examples of this can be seen in the trailer, and our ten minute sizzle reel.

The final piece of the jigsaw is Philip Martin - our film's composer - Philip scored series 2 of the web series on which the film is loosely based on - he will be working on the themes to the characters and the overall score, as well as introducing solo artists to record live instrument sessions to make the score more professional and cinematic.

Our goal is to take the film to the American Film Market in November so we're frantically trying to raise £3000 so we can pay for flights, passes and accommodation. There we can meet with hundreds of distributors and show them the movie in hope they will want to buy it off us and put it in cinemas in America and maybe in the UK too.

And then? Hopefully what everybody wants - funding! Proper funding, real money to buy props, locations, kit AND pay the cast and crew a wage to work on my next project!

...which is one of two films, but we'll get to that later.

Night is Day and the Glasgow Film Festival

2011-02-24T20:51:00.000Z

Tomorrow I'm showing a preview of Night is Day (the movie...) at Comic Camp, which is part of the Glasgow Film Festival. It's being held at the CCA from 11am until 1.30pm where some of the biggest names of the comic book industry will be in attendance.

I'm really happy with the preview, as the post-production team have put together amazing special effects, sound design, music and grading and colouring the shots - so I hope everybody likes what they see and want to see more!

After the preview I'll be giving a Q and A with my producer Gavin, so I'm feeling good about that, but still pretty nervous.

Fingers crossed, yeah?

One Step Closer To Completing The Film

2011-02-12T17:33:00.000Z

(Lexi the Vampire, drawn by David Fergusson)

As of yesterday the 4th edit of "Night is Day" was complete. I took the train to Falkirk so that I could go through the 3rd edit with the producers, Lindsay and Gavin, and our co-producer Andrew. There weren't many changes at all - just tweaks here and there - we've cut a couple of scenes down just to keep the pace of the film tight.

Everything could change once the music, special effects and sound effects are done - plus we'll need to bring some of the actors back to re-dub their dialogue and I'm working with a comic book artist (or two, or three!) to work on a web comic for http://www.nightisday.net that will explore the characters of the movie a bit more so potential fans can become invested in them, a sort of expanded universe in a way.

All going well we should have a version of the movie to show to distributors and fans in the Summer before taking the movie to the American Film Market in November.

Cross your fingers for us!

And on a final note - here's a trailer for a film called "Sucker Punch" and I really hope I get to make a movie this awesome one day soon.

Scott Pilgrim is quite possibly one of the most important films in the world to a filmmaker

2011-02-03T14:46:00.000Z

A couple of days ago I went out and bought "Scott Pilgrim VS The World" on Blu-ray. I'm not going to lie to you, this is one of the reasons why I bought a Blu-Ray player (that and Iron Man 2). While my blu-ray collection is less than impressive (Scott Pilgrim and Beauty and The Beast... yep, I admitted it), Scott Pilgrim is so many levels of awesome.

The synopsis for the film is simple - Scott Pilgrim is a slacker who plays guitar in a band. He starts dating a 17-year old high schooler, Knives, but then he has a dream about a cool girl called Ramona and starts to date her instead. Yet, Ramona's most recent ex, Gideon, wants Ramona all for himself, so sets 6 evil ex-boyfriends out to kill Scott.

It's directed by Edgar Wright - who is best known for making "Spaced" here in the UK - "Shaun of the Dead" and "Hot Fuzz" - two brilliant UK films about zombies and the police in a sleepy town in England. They are American movies, set in the UK. Strangely, Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzzed were loved and adored in the States, yet Scott Pilgrim just didn't set the box office alight over in the US. However Edgar is now apparently working on Marvel's "Ant Man", so fingers crossed that works for him.

"What's your point Coull?" you might be thinking. Well, I'll tell you. It's all about special features baby. Scott Pilgrim VS The World on Blu-ray have THE most amazing special features ever. Ranging from pre-production (animatics, storyboards, casting tapes and rehearsals) to filming the movie itself (video blogs from cast and crew, outtakes, behind the scenes) right through to post-production (how they did the special effects, sound design and editing) - everything you need to know about making a movie is RIGHT here.

Yes, they probably had MILLIONS of Dollars, a ton of crew and yes their cast is amazing, but that doesn't mean that independent filmmakers who are still trying to crack the industry shouldn't use these special features as a guide-line, a template, on how to approach making a film.

Sadly not everybody goes to film school (or a TV production course at college) and just think they can hop into the director's chair - resulting in a poor final product, if the project is fortunate enough to get that far. This can be damaging for the industry at this level for many reasons - a lot of people will spend a lot of their time, energy, and even money (travel costs, costumes, props, missing days of paid work to be a part of it) only for the final product to not go anywhere because a distribution company will not take sub-standard work.

So go work on someone else's short film, make your own short film, keep it simple, learn how to do it, and make each project better than the last one.

Before I made "Night is Day" I went to college and studied TV operations and productions, I then made a short film, then 13 episodes of a web series, followed by three short films - just making sure I knew what to do and what crew and cast were best to work with me on them. Only then did I put my foot into the feature film world.

Despite being so proud of the movie, I know my next film will be better, as I understand it all better now, and I know how to work the industry a little bit better. My next film (which might be a comedy called "Get Funded" or a monster movie set in a remote Scottish village) will not be made until proper funding is in place so the cast and crew can get paid and we can pay for locations, the proper equipment etc, and do it right.

In short, go out and buy a Blu-ray player and get Scott Pilgrim. You'll thank me.

Drowning in an industry that's circling the drains...

2011-01-23T16:12:00.000Z

This post might seem downbeat and pessimistic, so to balance it out, here's the shiny HD-version of the Night is Day trailer - enjoy!

Did you all enjoy that? It was made from early footage of the film, as we made it for an event called Collectormania which is held in Glasgow every year. Stars of sci-fi in TV and Film go to an ice rink and people from all over the country come and meet them to get their autographs and here them tell their tales. We were honoured to have a stall at the 2010 event and we debuted the trailer, it got some great feedback and a lot of people had their photos taken with our cast and crew.

That trailer is just over 2 minutes long - I edited it, then sent it off to our visual effects animator who added all of the special effects (even the hundreds of demons at the end) then he graded it to make it look like a film. While he was doing that my sound team, just two of them, were making the sound right, adding sound effects and mixing the music that my composer made for it. It took weeks and that's the final product. And it's beautiful.

These four people, Jack, Gillian, Mathew and Philip, all worked on it for free. Why? Because they are passionate about the film. It's something different from Scotland. I have nothing but RESPECT for those in the country manage to say "I have an idea for a film" or "Here's my TV show idea" and get it from there, right the way through to the end. It takes an amazing amount of balls, talent and skill to find a crew that are capable and willing, locations, props, equipment, actors, etc, for either no money at all, or very little money.

Yet, the same product seems to be coming out of Scotland - dramas and horrors. And they aren't doing too well at the box office over here. Is it because they aren't very good, or because there isn't a professional body willing to put some money into advertising the films? In America this year there are 8 new movies being advertised at the Superbowl - each with a 30 second slot, and it's $3 million each!

The last film I saw from Scotland being advertised on TV was "N.E.D.S.", while not my cup of tea, I tip my hat to the cast and crew to getting their film made. However the writer and director is well known in the UK, and he's already made a couple of films and been in quite a lot of films too, so it's no surprise that what little money our professional bodies are giving out, went to that director and project.

Again, the Scottish film industry is putting out the same films again and again - dark comedies, or kitchen-sink dramas - "Donkeys" (which had a big hoopla, then vanished!), "Red Road", "Wild Country" (although that was a werewolf horror film that didn't quite work, but Peter Capaldi was excellent) a few years back, Gamerz (a nice original idea yet just vanished after being in Cineworld for two weeks!), "Valhalla Rising" didn't even get a cinema release in it's own country! Hallum Foe flopped, and I'm struggling to name other Scottish films in the last 5 years.

Surely it's time to try different genres? Where are our "Back to the Future", "Ghostbusters", "Scott Pilgrim", "Inception" and even the re-booted version of "Batman" which is filmed in the UK yet, known as an American film. At least "Kick Ass" had a go at it (and again, suffered at the box office, but DVD sales have secured a sequel, "Balls to the Wall").

The UK (or, England) has two massive franchises - James Bond (23 films and counting!) and Harry Potter (I think there will be 8 films by the time the last part is released) and they have made billions and billions of pounds worldwide.

In Holland in 2009, 66 films were made. In Scotland there was about 6. Can you name them? There needs to be a change - different genres, that might be a bit more affordable, to be explored. Romantic comedies like "The Decoy Bride" with David Tennant and Kelly MacDonald, and "Fast Romance", a low-budget romantic comedy with some well known names involved. I just hope for the sake of the latter, a distribution deal within the UK can be found, but I don't doubt for a second they'll get picked up in Europe.

I was told by the head of Creative Scotland in a recent radio interview that I had finished my first film, Night is Day, and what could they do to help me and I was told right now they have no money and that when my movie was finished, it would be my calling card and I was to pitch another movie idea to them then and they'll see what they can do. So I need to make a film first, before they'll help me make a film? So how do I get money to pay all of my cast and crew? Lottery funding? Nope. Max out my credit cards ala Kevin Smith? Nope, not in today's financial market. Give the script to a casting agent and hope that Harvey Keitel reads it and part-funds it and stars in it ala Tarantino? Or make a shock-horror film about zombies in the woods in a cabin and hope that it gets banned in cinemas so a low-key UK distributor buys it and then I'll go on to make Spider-Man 10 ala Sam Raimi?

There is so little support and affection for new talent in Scotland, anybody trying to break through the ranks are stopped at the first hurdle and forced to go think of something new to try. Well not this filmmaker. I've got ideas for films that international audiences will lap up - not ground-breaking, thought-provoking, award winning movies - but fun films where you can go to the cinema for 2 hours (well, an hour and a half, if I have my way...) and forget what's going on outside in the world. Then hopefully like the soundtrack enough to go out and buy it!

So tell me Scotland - what does it take for a rising filmmaker in this country to make it? Will I be forced to move country just to get some recognition?

Surely, I'm not alone in thinking there needs to be a change?

But rest assured, I am not giving up.

How to make a film in Scotland - or "Watch a group of indie filmmakers have a go at it in the form of a video blog"

2010-12-21T23:51:00.000Z

With "Night is Day" at the middle of production, moving into the 2nd edit, I thought it would be a good time to post all of the behind the scenes videos that the wonderful John G McCall has put together so far.

So please enjoy and meet the wonderful cast and crew of our little superhero movie!

Sci-fi Mafia is out to get you, well us, well, they said nice things about Night is Day

2010-12-21T23:45:00.002Z

Our first proper piece of net-attention thanks to a wonderful site called "Sci-Fi Mafia" - check it out -

http://scifimafia.com/2010/12/night-is-day-glasgow-needed-their-own-superhero-and-fraser-coull-is-bringing-them-one/

Silly Wee Films Updates

2010-12-13T12:31:00.000Z

My official site - http://www.sillyweefilms.co.uk - was moved to a new server a couple of weeks ago, and since then I've been unable to edit the site properly and there are a lot of code problems...

SO I'm having the site re-designed - it'll celebrate 4 years of Silly Wee Films.

As part of this I'd like to produce some 3-5 minute short films in 2011 - as well as releasing my debut feature film "Night is Day"...

So if you want to write a short film, direct, work on camera, be a runner, production assistant, costume person, makeup artist, actor, editor, grader, colourist, boom operator, sound designer, composer, get in touch with your CV and samples - we'd like to give everybody a chance to make an affordable short film that can be shot in a day.

Email contact@sillyweefilms.com and we'll be in touch in the New Year.

Thank you.

Silly Wee Films Project Slate

2010-12-06T23:06:00.001Z

Just a quick update on what Silly Wee Films is up to at the moment...

"Night is Day - The Movie" is our debut feature, starring Chris Summers, John Gaffney, Kirsty Anderson, Clare Sheppard, Steven McEwan, Tam Toye, Mark Harvey, Catriona Joss, Colin McCredie, Elaine C Smith, Tiger Tim Stevens MBE and Simon Weir - Night is Day is an action drama superhero film set in Scotland. The film was shot between June and August 2010 and is currently in post production with a 2011 release date earmarked.

Visit http://www.nightisday.net/ for more information.

"Night is Day - The Series" is set BEFORE the movie - meet the characters from the movie, as Jason learns to deal with his powers and fights the evil businessman Mr. Philips. Series 1 was filmed in 2007 and can be seen for free at http://www.sillyweefilms.co.uk/nightisday.htm.

Series 2, which has 7 episodes lasting 25 minutes each, is nearing it's post production and will be online soon!

http://www.nightisday.co.uk/ for more information.

"Get Funded" - Working Title - is a comedy focussing on three best friends, Katie, Mark and Chris, as they try to find the money to make their first feature film - even if that means robbing people! The film is currently in pre-production with the script being completed. We will then seek funding and start auditioning, finding the crew, locations, props etc. Hopefully shooting in 2011.

Apart from that we're still working on promotional videos, corporate website adverts, music videos and showreels. 2010 is nearly over but 2011 is going to be filled up with great videos, movies and memories.

Bring it on!

To be a part of Silly Wee Films please send your CV, headshot and details to contact@sillyweefilms.com - we can't promise you anything but we do consider everybody!

Fraser

The difficult second movie, and maybe a third to be optimistic.

2010-12-02T22:58:00.000Z

Whoops! I've not made a blog entry in around a month, that's bad. I've been so busy with actually working on promoting "Night is Day" and corporate video work this kind of slipped my attention. Sorry! To be fair I don't even know if anybody reads this, or if it's even useful for anybody.

Just in case I'm going to make this a three-point blog, so I hope you enjoy it.

NIGHT IS DAY THE MOVIE

Recap: "Night is Day - The Movie" is a Superhero movie set in Scotland. It follows Jason Mackenzie (Chris Summers) as he uses his powers of foresight and lightning to protect the city against demons, gangsters and villains. The Caillech (Catriona Joss), who once formed the hills and landscape of Scotland, returns to the world and tells us that in 3 days everything will end. Jason has to team up with cops Superintendent Sloan (John Gaffney), Detective Chief Inspector Mullan (Steven McEwan) and Inspector Munro (Clare Sheppard) to stop this from happening, while evil businessman Mr. Philips (Tam Toye) and his assassin Frank Stone (Mark Harvey) will do everything they can to help the Caillech destroy the world.

The film started pre-production in January 2010 and with no funding whatsoever, using support from friends and family as well as sponsorship of our main characters, we cast the movie in January and shot it at weekends in the Summer from June until August.

The movie is now complete and the first edit is finished. The movie is currently at 1 hour 52 minutes, and going by the notes from our producers the movie should go down to 1 hour 40 minutes. We then plan to send it off for special effects, sound work and scoring. We will then take it to festivals, film markets, conventions as well as holding special screenings to secure a sales agent or a distributor - whatever comes first.

A 10 minute "sizzle reel" has been edited together and being worked on so we can show it at the Glasgow Film Festival in February. For more information go to http://www.nightisday.net and the trailer is at http://vimeo.com/14298694.

We have a Facebook so please join us at http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=237674711930.

Here is a production still from the movie involving Jason protecting a young girl from an attacker:

All going well, we will sell Night is Day and people will be interested in our future projects, and on that note...

THE SECOND, AND MAYBE THIRD, MOVIE

Any filmmaker worth their salt, or at least in my case, won't just have one movie in them, or hopefully the experience of making their first movie wasn't so terrible that they decide to back in filmmaking and decide that a career in the circus, fast food industry or window selling industry is where there destiny really lies.

So of course I've got ideas for more movies. Ideally I'd LOVE Night is Day to be a trilogy. I wrote the characters and I love them all dearly (even those who don't survive to the end of the first movie!) so I would love to carry on with them and see where they end up...

Just not yet. I need out of the Night is Day world to prove to myself that I'm not just a Night is Day writer, but I am in fact a credible filmmaker that makes movies that people enjoy.

Even before Night is Day I wrote two film scripts - one called "Space Defence" which is about three normal people from different planets who get super powers and become the protectors of the realm (aka the universe) and it was all about how they got their powers and became the protectors. I really liked that script, and I think I've lost it forever now.

The second was "The Journey" in which sword fighters from all over the world were given sponsors to back their campaign to enter the tournament - the last fighter standing won a 50 million pounds and got to walk away with their lives. My script focused on 3 of the fighters - we started pre-production, filmed a trailer and it was going well - but the funding never showed up and the film fell apart. Then I got ran down by a car and broke my leg and arm... I'm glad that happened - in a weird way - because then I made "Night is Day - The Series"

Now I'm writing a script that's going through two/three name suggestions but the working title is "Get Funded" and it's about 3 friends who went to a TV production college course (just like me) and they have the perfect script, but nobody will give them money, so they decide to rob and exploit people - yes, it's a comedy. So I hope, HOPE, that come next Summer, "Night is Day" will have been sold or close to it, and private investors will get on board "Get Funded" and we can shoot it next year.

I know you are all thinking "But Fraser, isn't two movies enough?" well, maybe, but not for me. I LOVE writing, I LOVE filmmaking and it's what I want to do! (For now anyway, ideally I'd love to be a showrunner for the BBC or STV, writing and executively producing a TV show ala Russell T Davis, Steven Moffat, Joss Whedon et all) and about a year ago I was in a computer game shop and I saw an X-Box game with the most brilliant title.

I'm not going to reveal the title, it will give too much away - but I racked my brain to see if it was feasible, and if anybody had done it before. Google tells me that a low-budget indie movie has attempted the genre, and it got pretty bad reviews, and sorry to the filmmaking team involved, but it sounds like cheesy b-movie porn.

My filmmaking influences are Sam Raimi's "Evil Dead" and Quentin Tarantino's "Reservoir Dogs" (or as my girlfriend said to me "Reservoir Puppies", which was genius) - so one day I hope to do my Tarantino film and maybe with this 3rd film idea, I'll get to do my tribute to Sam Raimi and attempt two genres I never said I would do.

But first, I'll finish "Get Funded" and try to get...the funding I need to make it, while completing Night is Day and getting it sold, and writing my third, as of yet, untitled film.

Now on to my final point of this unnecessary long blog post...

JUST DO IT (this one gets a bit ranty, sorry!)

Disclaimer - I am not claiming to be a filmmaking genius, I am not claiming to have made award winning masterpieces of cinematic history.

However I must, must say this. Recently a lot of people, well a few, okay, one or two people have been asking me how do they go about getting involved in films, how do I do it, can I give them work experience, or a full time, fully paid job on a film, or can I produce and make their film scripts for them.

No.

Is the short answer.

The long answer is sorry, but I just don't have the time to help everybody. The filmmaking industry in this country, particularly Scotland, is in a really bad state of affairs. Yes, there are a few good films coming out every few years, but when you look at countries like Holland, Sweden and America, they are making 60 films a year - we're making around 6. And some of them stink. But give them their due, they are still making movies and in a way that's great.

So here's my advice to anybody who wants to write a movie, direct a movie, star in a movie, produce a movie - just do it. There's nothing stopping you. A lot of people are saying "But I'm too old to get started now" or "I don't have the training" etc.

I didn't make my first short film until I was 21 - I didn't go to college until I was around 19/20 years of age, and I have just made my first feature film. Yes, have your influences - Sam Raimi was 19 when he made "The Evil Dead" but that didn't put me off filmmaking because I was older than he was and there are filmmakers now who are 17 and winning awards, and I haven't won ANY awards, but this doesn't bother me. Your audience is out there, somewhere.

Here's how I got started in this industry...

2003 - I was accepted onto the E-Force Training Programme at the BBC in Queen Margaret Drive in Glasgow (I really, REALLY miss that place). I learned to be a "pleasant pest" and to stick in people's minds.

2004 - I was accepted on to the HND Television Productions and Operations course at James Watt College, despite not fulfilling the requirements of higher education certificates. I met a lot of like minded people and I attended the course for a year.

2005 - I wrote, directed and edited my first short film, "Night is Day - Dusk" - it was terrible but I learned SO much from that. I also made a lot of enemies unfortunately as this industry does create terrible egos in people, but we live and learn.

2005 - I went to Business Gateway with a Business proposal and was awarded grants and funds to start up "Silly Wee Films"

2006 - I had my road accident and my first feature film, "The Journey", folded. I then wrote and directed "Night is Day" series 1 by going on Mandy.com and looking for the cast and crew.

2007 - Due to lack of business experience and work, Silly Wee Films folded and I worked as a website admin assistant in Stirling and learned how to run a business. I then made Night is Day series 2 and several short films.

2008 - Silly Wee Films came back with a vengeance. I made another short film, wrote a movie script and moved to Glasgow. Business continued and life was good. Unfortunately any hint of success - articles about yourself in newspapers, your TV show being shown on the TV, will create a bit of jealousy towards you, spite and people bitching behind your back. People will take incidents that they weren't even involved in and spin the rumours out of control and sadly, even to this day, there are a lot of people who dislike me for what I do - but I have NEVER lied nor have I messed people around. I will always be honest and treat people the way I expect to be treated back.

There will always be negativity in this world and especially in this industry - ignore it - do your work, keep your head down and keep on going. If you are going to make it in this industry then the bad press, negativity and "enemies" don't matter in the long run.

And to be super cheesy and quote "Angel", - "If nothing we do matters, then all that matters is what we do."

And I'm spent!

Post production continues - pre production begins... the filmmaking circle just goes around and around

2010-11-05T22:20:00.000Z

Not much of an exciting blog post, I will admit, but I felt it was time for a small update.

The producers of Night is Day - The Movie, have now watched the first cut and have told me that they are happy with the flow of the story but they have notes on changes they feel will benefit the movie, so I look forward to reading them - although I am slightly terrified too haha.

Then again, anything that does get cut-out will likely go on a DVD as "deleted scenes", so nothing is lost forever, which is nice.

It feels like a life time ago since we started making the movie - in fact I've moved house twice in that time - and I already miss it. We only wrapped in August and my life has been a mix of editing the movie, promoting the movie and working on corporate video work to pay the bills.

I've started writing my next feature, well, I started writing my next feature a year before I wrote Night is Day, but I've went back and chipped away at the script for "Get Funded" (working title - other favourites are "Go Fund Yourself" and "Fund It!") which is a comedy about three filmmakers who are so desperate to make their movie that they resort to robbing people and exploiting them - only to get mixed up with gangsters and the police.

"Night is Day" is a miracle, really, because we're in Scotland and it got made. We didn't wait for someone to give us a big wad of cash to make it, and we were VERY lucky to find a cast and crew who understood that it's far more important to make a movie, rather than wait until someone gives you the money to do so.

I'm not saying the movie is going to win awards for being clever, thought-provoking or ground-breaking but I am DEFINITELY saying that if you like Doctor Who, Angel, Buffy, Spider-Man, Torchwood, superhero movies, Scottish movies, then you will (hopefully) enjoy this movie.

Now that we've made the £3,000 movie, we can take it to investors, distributors, sales agents, private sources of funding with a pitch for "Get Funded/Fund It/Go Fund Yourself" in the hope that they will give us enough money to pay everybody, get the equipment and whatever costs come up along the way (locations, props, costumes etc) and that we can make a Scottish comedy next Summer.

Once "Night is Day" has been "locked" (where the actual movie itself won't change shot wise) we then take it to the composer, sound designers and visual effects artists who will work on it and then it will be coloured and graded.

Whoever says making movies is easy is lying, but it is a LOT of fun.

That's enough of a blog post for now...

Later folks.

We have a movie!

2010-10-23T11:44:00.000+01:00

Mark the date and time - Saturday the 23rd of October 2010, 11.40am. Fraser Coull completes the first cut of "Night is Day - The Movie".

I sat down this morning and blitzed through the last few scenes, having spent a week editing 3 fight scenes that intercut.

I am so unbelievably happy that the first cut is complete. It's 1 hour, 52 minutes long, at the moment. The cutaways are still to go in, and then it will be sent to Lindsay and Gavin, my brilliant producers, and we will sit through the movie together and suggest changes, maybe trim the length too.

Then once we're all happy we can send the movie off to be scored, have the special effects worked on, sound effects and probably some ADR too.

The movie will also need to be coloured and graded to match up the two different cameras we used, and then we can organise a cast and crew screening before deciding what to do next and trying to get the movie sold!

Thank you SO much for everybody who gave up their time and used their brilliant skills to make this movie.

Here's to it's success!

Night is Day The Movie officially becomes a movie

2010-10-15T23:52:00.000+01:00

The 70 minute mark!

Night is Day - The Movie has officially become a feature. In order to be classed a film, the feature must be 70 minutes or longer.

And a week ago we hit that mark with the first cut of the film, and a screencap of the scene that made it, is above. No spoilers of course. Please note that this scene is ungraded with no widescreen bars etc etc, it's just for a bit of fun.

I'm now fast approaching the 100 minutes mark too, as I head into the final section of the movie. I've got to move house in 4 days, so that will hold up getting the first cut finished, but as I won't have internet for a week, I've got plenty of time to get the first cut finished and onto a DVD to send to my producers for feedback.

All going well we'll be able to take the movie on a tour next Summer for fans, sci-fi and superhero fans and movie goers to see the movie before we take it to distributors.

Wish us luck!

Also, be sure to see the latest Night is Day Confidential at http://www.vimeo.com/15136619

Enjoy!

Edit, write, edit, write, edit, write...

2010-10-08T21:53:00.000+01:00

Making a movie in Scotland is much like hanging from a ledge. You keep holding on, hoping something will happen and save you, and then you realise it's not going to happen. Regardless, failure is not an option as this is a path I have chosen to go down.

I've worked as a cashier in Ikea, a sales representative in GAME, a junior administrator in an office and a BETA tester for computer games. Oh, and I worked as a web content developer for an SEO company.

But NOTHING compares to filmmaking.

You get to do something different everyday, meet a lot of like minded people who become your family, and there is something so amazing about seeing your words being acted out on the screen, and in front of you when you are actually filming it.

Scotland has a LOT of talent. I know, I've seen it. A lot of my friends are filmmakers, writers, actors, directors, editors, camera operators, special effect geniuses, composers, makeup artists, costume designers, producers, the lot, and they are all amazing.

All they want to do is make films and TV - Monday to Friday, from 9am til 5pm... but of course that can be 7am til 12am, depending on the shoot :p

It's just a shame that there doesn't seem to be too much support for filmmakers at the level we're at. Nobody seems to want to take a risk on our level of filmmaking where people are making romantic comedies, gangland dramas, superhero movies just to name a few.

Instead the money goes back to those who have already made their big movies, made their money, and would have no problem getting backing elsewhere to help them.

Congratulations to Shed Media, whose web series, "Being Victor", was picked up by STV and is now being shown on a Thursday night. If there are any STV people reading my blog I've got a web series too - 13 episodes to be exact, two seasons, with the 2nd season having 7 episodes running for 25 minutes each and you can find out more at www.nightisday.co.uk.

I've now edited 61 minutes of Night is Day - The Movie! 7 more minutes and it becomes a feature film officially (for a film to be classed as a "feature" it must be 70 minutes or more - "Jonah Hex" starring Josh Brolin, made it, just and no more with a run time of, yep, you've guessed it, 70 minutes!) and there's a LOT more editing to do.

Without giving too much away I'm at a scene where Mr. Philips (played by the brilliant Tam Toye who channels a little bit of William Shatner) is discussing the world of demons to his demon-racist assassin and I suppose closest friend, Frank Stone (Mark Harvey, who can flawlessly impersonate Johnny Depp, Eddie Izzard and Mr. Mackay from South Park - trust me - we've got it on film!) when The Caillech (the wonderful Catriona Joss) appears and asks Mr. Philips to assist her in her earth-shattering scheme.

The Caillech however only speaks Gaelic. So that'll be fun for me to edit :p

Once the film is edited I'll send it to my lovely and talented producers, Lindsay and Gavin for them to go through it and suggest changes and then it's off to Philip Martin who will start to work on the score with live musicians, Jack Ashley will start to look at the sound and what needs fixing with Gillian, and Mathew Crisp will start the hard work of special effects, making it a superhero movie with special effects.

All going well we can take the movie on tour of Scotland - Glasgow, Aberdeen, Stirling, Edinburgh, Inverness, Dundee, Greenock - for all the fans, movie buffs and sci-fi fans to come and watch it - before taking it to the film markets and trying to sell it so it can be released in cinemas and on DVD world wide.

While this is going on I'm writing my next feature which has a budget of around £50,000, so I may pay my cast and crew. Now, to find the budget...

I hope the filmmaking industry in Scotland gets better.

Post production begins! Sci-fi legends support Scottish superhero movie Night is Day

2010-09-13T20:58:00.000+01:00

Annnnnnnnnd we're off!

"Night is Day" The Movie became a reality in September 2009 when the script was completed and pre-production began. What followed was a long process of assembling the crew, auditioning the cast, rehearsing the script, fight rehearsals, location hunting.

On June 5th 2010 the cameras started rolling.

On August 28th 2010 we wrapped.

After immersing myself in a LOT of superhero movies (The Dark Knight, Spider-Man, Iron Man, Unbreakable, and Push) the editing process has began. So far 28 minutes of "Night is Day" The Movie is laid down in the Final Cut Pro session. Once a rough cut is completed it will go to Lindsay and Gavin, my two wonderful producers, who will go through it again and again and from there we can start to shape the movie the way we want it to look.

Everybody is working hard already - Philip Martin has started to think about the score, contacting world famous musicians to work on the score with him - contacting upcoming singers and bands to contribute their work to our soundtrack.

Ash Loydon is working on pieces of art for the opening title sequence while Jack Ashley and Gillian Glencross starts to think about the sound design and so forth and so forth. It will be a long process but we hope to get the film ready in time for a Summer 2011 release.

With Mark Millar, creator of graphic novels "Kick Ass" and "Wanted" has now started filming his own Scottish superhero movie - he watched our trailer and said it looked fantastic, also stating that his film was different, with a darker tone - so you're in for a treat.

Sonja Blietschau and Dougie Coull were both at Collectormania Glasgow this year taking lots of photos - documenting the two day event where Danny John Jules, Chris Barrie, Dominic Keating and Sylvester McCoy visited our stall and gave us two thumbs up for our movie. Check out some of the photos below!

Star Trek: Enterprise and Heroes star Dominic Keating with cast and crew

Red Dwarf and Tomb Raider star Chris Barrie supports the movie.

Sylvester McCoy, who played the 7th incarnation of The Doctor in Doctor Who popped along to say hello!

Danny John-Jules, who played The Cat in Red Dwarf supports the movie too.

There's lots of work left to go but we'll get there and all going well this will be the start of a prosperous film and TV career for us all.

Night is Day at Collectormania Glasgow Braehead 2010

2010-09-07T17:59:00.000+01:00

We were lucky enough to be able to attend and promote the movie at Collectormania in Glasgow this year.

Star Trek: Enterprise star Dominic Keating, Red Dwarf legends Danny John-Jules and Chris Barrie along with Doctor Who alumni Sylvester McCoy all supported the film by watching the trailer and going on camera to support us.

Check out a small highlight of our weekend fun!

And that's a wrap!

2010-08-30T19:40:00.001+01:00

Frank Stone (Mark Harvey) has no idea that vampire Lexi (Nicki Fleming) is in for the kill. Photo by Dougie Coull Photography

This is a little bit of an emotional entry to write, so I am listening to the WONDERFUL soundtrack from "Scott Pilgrim VS The World" - a great movie from Edgar Wright, who is definitely an inspiration for me, starring Michael Cera and the lovely Mary Elizabeth Winstead. If you've not seen it, please do. It is awesome.

It was about September last year that I finished the first draft of "Night is Day: The Movie" when I was living in Partick and it was a pipe-dream that I would actually make it. Thanks to a fantastic crew made up of Lindsay Dowell, Gavin Orr, Andrew Dougal, Ross Hardie, Simon Ferguson, Adam Wardrop, Gregg Houston, Gillian Glencross, Leigh Butler, Bethany Apedaile, John McCall just to name a few and an AMAZING cast, we wrapped filming on the 28th of August.

We started filming on the 5th and 6th of June, oddly enough, in my flat in the city centre of Glasgow, followed by what was one of our biggest days in The Hub in the South Side, filming with Colin McCredie and Simon Weir and a room full of supporting actors playing journalists. Even now it only feels like a few weeks ago.

On the 21st and 22nd of August we were lucky enough to be at Collectormania Glasgow in Braehead promoting the movie - showing our brand new trailer (which I'll get to at the end), selling a limited edition comic book by the wonderful Ash Loydon, postcards from the movie, t-shirts and badges, and meeting a lot of wonderful people. And some seriously strange people too.

Thanks to Lindsay and Gavin we were able to give a talk as a guest had dropped out due to work commitments, and maybe one day someone will put a video of that talk online, it was certainly an experience and I loved every minute of it. I could get very used to a convention life style as long as I had enough money to pay my bills.

Chris Barrie and Danny John-Jules who played Rimmer and The Cat on Red Dwarf came along to watch our trailer and they were very supportive. As was Dominic Keating who played Malcolm Reed in Star Trek: Enterprise and Sylvester McCoy who played the 7th incarnation of Doctor Who. Again we've got video footage of all of this somewhere.

Okay, so getting carried away in convention land...

On Saturday we started at 8am, travelling in convoy from Glasgow to Airth in Falkirk, to a beautiful farm (thank you Angie!). We filmed some of my favourite scenes from the movie, where Jason, who has just taken a serious beating from 3 scavenger demons, wakes up in the cottage to be greeted by his long lost uncle, who he believed was dead.

I won't say anymore as I don't want to spoil my own movie, but it was sort of my tribute to the movie, Teenage Mutant Ninja/Hero Turtles - so if you know the movie, you'll get the reference.

Back in Glasgow and on to the patio of my building to film a fight scene between Jason, vampire Lexi and Frank Stone. It was a brilliant shoot and we managed to wrap in time. In fact, an hour early. So well done to everybody.

Now the hard work continues. Both Lindsay, producer numero uno, and myself will be editing the movie. I'll be laying down a rough cut and handing it to Lindsay to go over, correct, tidy etc. Then it will go to Mathew Crisp for special effects, Jack Ashley and Gillian Glencross for sound correction and design and Philip Martin for scoring before all coming back (hopefully) in time for the festivals.

In the meantime it would be great if you could watch the first official trailer for the movie and let me know what you think.

Until then, this is Fraser Coull, a low budget filmmaker from Glasgow, saying "I've made a feature film" and I am damn proud.

The interview with Elaine C Smith

2010-08-09T10:06:00.002+01:00

We interrupt this blog with the latest episode of Night is Day The Movie: Confidential - by John G McCall.

In this episode Scottish superstar, Elaine C Smith of "Rab C Nesbitt" fame is interviewed and tells us her views on filmmaking in Scotland:

Enjoy!

Lack of a filmmaking blog due to the actual filmmaking!

2010-07-29T15:06:00.000+01:00

We're getting really close to wrapping principle photography on Night is Day - The Movie now. We're filming this weekend and then we've only got the 14th/15th and 28th and 29th of August to go and then we're WRAPPED!

It's been an amazing journey, filled with lots of ups and a few downs along the way. Like everything I've done it's been a massive learning curve though. It lets me see which crew members work well together so when it comes to making my next film (whenever that may be!) I'll know who to bring back to the team. I've also worked with some fantastic actors on Night is Day and I don't think we've seen the end of their stories so I really hope I get to continue them.

Since my last post we've been to the Caledonia Club House in Falkirk and filmed a LARGE chunk of the movie involving the evil Caillech who wants to destroy mankind and start again, while poor Jason got the living snot kicked out of him.

Sean Clancy, a professional cage fighter, joined the film and he has co-ordinated every single fight that you'll see. And they are vicious. Jack, our sound designer, has a lot of work ahead of him with adding in cracking bones, punches and kicks, but it'll be brilliant.

We were filming in a warehouse in Falkirk, and it was mostly Sunny. Mostly. When it rained, IT rained. The wind pounded against the warehouse, birds chirped, the sound was almost impossible and everybody had to try to understand Gaelic. To top it off we then had to film the final fight of the movie. Jason VS three scavenger demons - round 2.

My hats off to Chris Summers, Sean Clancy, Sean Anderson, Crawford Young and Graeme McIntosh for working so hard to get the fight filmed. Well done to Adam Wardrop, Simon Ferguson and Gavin Orr for filming the fight. I can't wait to edit that section.

We wrapped two hours later than planned, which, in the grand scheme of things, wasn't that terrible. Well done to everybody - you worked your hearts out.

The previous day was lighter in comparison, but only just. We had to film Jason's first encounter with Lena, resulting in a mind-numbing (with a little help from CGI!) vision of Lena being attacked by scavenger demons. A nice relaxing scene of conversation between the pair, and then off to the Botanic Gardens for the third and final time to film Jason VS the Scavengers round 1!

The following weekend was hectic too.

We filmed scenes with Nicki Fleming, who plays a 197 year old vampire, Lexi, who wishes to help Jason's quest to stop the Caillech, in return for a little help in stopping the bad guys along the way. Lexi leads Jason to a warehouse where ancient daggers are being stored for the war, resulting in a fight with Jason and Frank Stone - official assassin and psychopath for Mr. Philips.

It's hectic to say the least. In Scotland we've got two types of weather. Wet and Dry. When it's wet there isn't much you can do - and when it's too sunny we can't film without white-out and shadows messing with our continuity. Weekend 5 and 6 consisted of filming in the Hub again - with Gavin creating an art gallery for Lexi to peruse, and the warehouse foyer for Jason and Lexi to investigate, Mr. Philips and Frank to arrive in to meet the Caillech and kick-start the apocalypse.

Miss Jones arriving to help Jason after finding herself on the wrong side of Frank, and Lexi getting shot.

Oh and there's a box in there too ala Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Arc.

Next up is a scene that my special effects guy Mathew is dreading. Taking 3 actors in Scavenger demon makeup and turning them into hundreds. But there will be a BBQ so it's not all that bad!

So yes, I had to finally bite the bullet and buy an iMac. a 21.5" bad boy. It's powerful, it's fast, and it edits HD footage like you wouldn't believe. And it's DAMN expensive! I'll be paying this one back for quite a while so I need Night is Day The Movie to be sold and go into the cinemas, and I need a lot more paid corporate work.

Or you'll next see me at Macdonalds asking if you want your double cheeseburger to be upgraded to a meal with fries and a drink...

Next up on the old filmmaking blog is weekend 7's adventures, a look forward to the final days shooting up north in a cabin with a man called Angus, and the beginning of post production. All going well the movie will premiere at the Edinburgh Film Festival in 2011 and rumour has it we might be off to Comic Con next year too.

But for this year we'll be happy with Collectormania in the Braehead Arena in Glasgow. 21st and 22nd of August we'll be there with scavenger demons, sexy girls, a vampire or two, a brand new Night is Day comic, pictures, postcards, and a brand new trailer exclusive to Collectormania.

See you on the other side!

An earthquake comes to Glasgow - superhero action film

2010-07-06T21:52:00.000+01:00

(Super)natural disasters hit Glasgow!

I completely forgot to post about Sunday 27th June's shoot on my blog as I was too busy recovering from it all and then it was suddenly the 4th and 5th of July, but we'll get to that later.

On the 27th the crew headed off to Muse, a bar near Queen Street Station in Glasgow. We'd been given permission to film in their downstairs bar to film a scene early on in the film (scenes 6, 7, 8 and 11) where we catch up with Detective Inspector Iain Mullan (Steven McEwan) for the first time since series 2. He's on a blind date with Mandy (yes, a reference to the filmmaking website Mandy.com) played by Rachel Loughran.

The date is going well until Mullan goes to get another drink and there is an almighty earthquake!

Queue 20 or so extras flailing around the bar on my command (Bang! I believe was their queue) as Simon our camera guy shook his camera around each group of extras, creating the desired effect.

The extras take a break while awaiting their next stage of direction

Eventually we would ask everybody to close their eyes while we brought in our villain of the movie, The Caillech, a Gaelic speaking old hag in battle armour, screamed at them in Gaelic. It was wonderful. Everybody reacted brilliantly and the footage looks brilliant.

John G McCall took the extras up stairs and filmed each of them for his Behind the Scenes blog (which you can see here http://www.vimeo.com/user4040085) so everybody will get a little bit extra screen time which is nice.

It was then on to the task of smashing glasses, bottles and shaking tables safely with the extras away from the bar to add to our earthquake.

Smashing! (Yes, I went there)

It was then on to the next scene, one of my favourites, where Mullan's colleagues, Superintendent Sloan (John Gaffney) and Inspector Rebecca Munro (Clare Sheppard) find him and he tells them about the Caillech. Confused, they decide that Mr. Philips (Tam Toye) could be involved. Jason (Chris Summers) arrives and they have a heated argument over their involvement with the supernatural.

With the scenes wrapped we took a break back at the base (aka my flat) and I took the footage from the cameras and edited the earthquake scene together quickly and it looks brilliant. Once it has proper special effects, sound effects and music - it will be fantastic.

Off to the South Side of Glasgow we went to film the last scene of the day - Scene 10 - where Sloan and Rebecca arrive outside the Night Club and meet PC Douglas (the fantastic Kenny Boyle who runs his own web review show called Queens of the Pawnage) before going down into the club.

On the next blog I'll talk about how I've had to succumb and buy an iMac to edit the film in all it's HD glory and how I'll be in massive amounts of debt thanks to it, the stressful weekend which was the 4th and 5th of July when we filmed a large chunk of the end of the movie (where Jason fights three scavenger demons...twice) and our plans for the film when it comes to conventions.

Scottish feature films - Sci-fi superhero movie in production

2010-06-22T16:05:00.000+01:00

Scottish feature films - Sci-fi superhero movie in production

The second weekend of filming our Scottish superhero movie "Night is Day - The Movie" came to an exhausting end on Sunday evening at around 11pm.

(Superhero's Jason and Caitlyn, played by Chris Summers and Anna Walseth. Next to supervillains Gwen and Angel portrayed by Kelly Love and Liz Strange)

I've made around four short films in my 4 year career, as well as two seasons of "Night is Day" as a web series, all with very little money, but this movie is tough. That's not a complaint - if it was easy then everybody would be doing it. It's just a lot of work and time goes into making sure everybody knows what they are doing, where to be, when to be, what to wear, etc etc. And then you need to make it look brilliant. We're shooting on two HD cameras, Sony WEX3 to be precise. We've not got a £50,000 or a £1 million budget, we've not even got £2,000!

Let's just say I'm very glad to have a fantastic production team and a wonderful cast around me - that keeps me going. I love making the film - it's a huge step for me - and I've got a lot further this time than I did with my first attempt at a feature in 2006 - so I am grateful.

The footage is looking great and three scenes have already been edited together and coloured - I am definitely very happy with how it's going.

On Saturday the 19th we filmed a LOT of scenes. We started at 8.30am outside the Pitt Street police station, waiting for Elaine C Smith to arrive to film her cameo scenes. In the movie she plays Rebecca Munro's mum. Rebecca is a new character to the Night is Day world, working with Superintendent Sloan and DCI Mullan in their F-Division group for the police.

(Clare Sheppard on set with Elaine C Smith)

Elaine was lovely, a real pro and very, very funny. Her and Clare worked really hard on the scene together and we got the result we wanted in the end. It's only a shame Elaine is only in two scenes of the movie. I hope I can work with her again one day. We wrapped her scenes and headed back to the Base (aka my flat) and we filmed another scene with Clare before taking a break for the day.

(Fight director Sean Clancy takes the girls through the fight)

Thanks to Glasgow City Council we've been given permission to film for three days in the Botanic Gardens, with two scenes shot over the two days, the first was a fight scene between Caitlyn (Anna Walseth) and Gwen (Kelly Love), which was directed by cage-fighter and fight director, Sean Clancy. Everybody worked really hard, and the last part of the scene was DAMN impressive. Well done to Anna and Chris for that brilliant scene.

We wrapped just before 10pm and the next stay started at 9.30am again as we filmed two scenes with Mark Harvey and Tam Toye, who play villainous assassin Frank Stone and corrupt businessman, Mr. Philips respectively. Mr. Philips has genuinely no connection to our main villain, The Caillech, but that doesn't stop him from wanting to share in the havoc that she is creating. Leigh Butler, our makeup artist, did an amazing job on The Caillech. We are NOT releasing ANY photos of the Caillech at all, not until the next trailer is created, and even then we might not. All we can say is that she is really freaky. In a good way.

With those scenes filmed we wrapped until the evening when we had a few problems with timing. We needed to film a scene where The Caillech summons her soldiers, vicious Scavenger Demons (Cat Joss, who plays the Caillech, referred to them as "her puppies"). The makeup for the scavengers is long and complicated, but scary and fantastic at the same time. Back to the Botanic Gardens we went to the abandoned train station there to film that scene before heading up the road to film a scene where Sloan, Mullan and Rebecca are confronted by the Scavenger demons for the first time. I can't wait to see the footage!

We wrapped at 11pm, which totally wiped me out and I'm sure the cast and crew are exhausted too.

Sunday the 27th sees the next day of filming until the 3rd of July - we'll be in Muse near Queen Street to film 5 scenes of the movie - some involving The Caillech again. Can't wait to get started!

Night is Day - Confidential - Behind the Scenes of Night is Day The Movie

2010-06-13T22:28:00.000+01:00

Thanks to John G McCall I can now show you the first behind the scenes video from making "Night is Day - The Movie".

Warning - I'm in this video :p

Next weekend we're filming with Elaine C. Smith who played Rab C Nesbitt's long suffering wife, Mary, in the long-running BBC Scotland comedy of the same name. We're in talks with a few more well known actors to take cameo roles in the film to help boost the profile of what we're trying to achieve.

On the 18th of June we're holding a Superhero Costume Party in Karbon Night club in Glasgow City Centre from 7pm which is free for everybody to come to (18+ only I'm afraid) and on the 2nd of July we're holding a sponsorship party to help us raise the funds we need to pay for expenses, costumes, makeup, and yes, locations.

Despite being granted access to film in places such as The Botanic Gardens and The Hub for free, we're still struggling to find a big enough office to film Mr. Philips (Tam Toye) office scenes. The cheapest we can find is £300 for a few hours in an office in the city centre, but that's still a nightmare!

Wish us luck on our 2nd weekend of filming!

Night is Day The Movie: Filming Blog - 1st Weekend

2010-06-07T18:52:00.001+01:00

Filming for Night is Day: The Movie has started! Woo hoo!

Things have really stepped up a gear this time for the production, giving it a proper movie feel. We have proper departments dealing with hair, makeup, costumes, locations, production, producing, assisting etc, and it's brilliant. We're filming on two Sony WEX3 cameras - which are giving us brilliant HD quality.

On day one we started a bit later at 3pm, where we filmed three scenes. Two right at the very start of the film where we have news reporters working on the story of a lightning-powered vigilante fighting crime on the streets of Glasgow. Unfortunately the sound for the first scene we filmed didn't work out, and we had to re-film it on the Sunday, but regardless it's in the bag.

We had Lynne Hoggan who presents the breakfast show on Real Radio with Robin Galloway and she was a pro. Really lovely girl and her acting was spot on. Simon is going to add in special effects to make it look she was in a news studio.

DCI Iain Mullan (Steven McEwan) gets caught snooping around by Taylor (Colin McCredie)

After which we took a break from filming and once Chris, aka Jason Mackenzie, arrived on set, we filmed a scene which sets up the story, driving Jason to the heart of the film - the villain! It took a little bit longer than we hoped to film that scene, but we got there in the end.

Day 2 started MUCH earlier, arriving at the Hub at Pacific Quay at 9.30am and setting up to start filming at 11am. We were given access to what I can only describe as a hanger at an airport. A massive open space which we transformed into our press conference where the evil Mr. Philips is opening a new medical centre, only to get interrupted by our police heroes who think he's been up to something dodgy.

We had around 15 extras playing journalists, as well as a real journalist from the Evening Times showing up to interview us. The scene wrapped and then we moved on to the interrogation scene with the cops and Mr. Philips. A much smaller office made the scene feel really tense and atmospheric and it looks brilliant.

We were very lucky to have Simon Weir (The Acid House, Taggart, Monarch of the Glen, Take the High Road) step in to play CS Carlisle, Sloan's superior. The two of them acted out a scene in the hallway of the medical centre which blew everybody away. The entire cast and crew stood to watch and it was something special.

Simon Weir wrapped his scene and then we quickly set up for the scene with Mullan and his informant, Taylor, played by Taggart actor, Colin McCredie. Again another tense scene where Mullan has a gun pulled on him and it's all very exciting. At the end of the scene the cast and crew applauded, which was brilliant.

While our great team tidied up the offices and restored it to the way we found it, a few of us went downstairs to re-film the scene where Sloan is hounded by a TV news journalist played by our very own producer, Gavin.

With the filming wrapped at the hub it was back to the flat to debrief and eat some pizza. Yum! We all took a breather before heading to Kinning Park to film Jason's first scene in the movie. Wow is all I can say. We had already filmed the scene once (it's in the trailer) but we really upped the game this time. There was far more electricity (no pun intended) between the actors and it was so good to watch.

We finished just in time for the rain to come down and I got home, collapsed on the sofa and fell asleep.

9 scenes filmed, 59 to go.

Next Saturday we've got fight rehearsals as we continue to fight with Glasgow City Council to find an office to film in which won't cost us £1,200, and permission to film in the Botantic Gardens on the 20th of June.

Ah, the joys of being a low budget filmmaker...

Simon Weir (CS Carlisle), Clare Sheppard (Inspector Rebecca Munro), Steven McEwan (DCI Iain Mullan) and John Gaffney (Superintendent Sloan) prepare for "Night is Day: The Musical"

Pre-production of a Glasgow film - Shooting starts on our sci-fi superhero film project in Scotland next week!

2010-05-28T22:04:00.000+01:00

LOW-BUDGET WEB SERIES BECOMES SILVER SCREEN ACTION MOVIE THIS SUMMER!

Who is Jason Mackenzie? That's the question you'll be asking next Summer if all goes to plan for Silly Wee Films and their associate production companies Goldray Productions, Artist Media Ltd and FK1 Productions.

Originally a low-budget web series shot in and around Glasgow city centre for less than £5,000 using local actors and filmmakers from all around Scotland, "Night is Day" follows the adventures of Jason Mackenzie, a man in his mid-twenties who has the power of foresight and lightning thanks to a good demon, Ames, who believes Jason is the man to fight crime on the streets and protect us all from evil.

Series 1 was shown on the Sky Channel Propeller TV in 2007 and featured "Sweet Sixteen" legend Martin Compston as a gangster while series 2 is going to be complete in 2010 and features Colin McCredie who is best known for playing DC Stuart Fraser in long-running crime drama series "Taggart".

Now armed with 5 years of experience making short films and promotional videos for local companies in Greenock, Glasgow and beyond, I'm turning my attention to feature length films in the hope to advance my career and let people see how serious I am to succeed at putting my ideas on the big screen.

The script features a brand-new exciting story with Jason having to use every ounce of strength he has to find and stop a mysterious entity only known as the Caillech, who is determined to wipe out mankind in three days. To make matters worse a corrupt businessman, Mr. Philips, is in league with the Caillech in hope that he can benefit from their mutual arrangement. Meanwhile tough city cops Sloan and Mullan, teamed with the latest member of their team, Inspector Rebecca Munro, have to investigate who and what the Caillech is and the connection she shares with a young highland girl, Lena Dwyre.

Producers Gavin Orr and Lindsay Dowell of Goldray Productions have locked down the schedule which will see the team film in Glasgow and surrounding areas at weekends from June until August, with the hope they can take a completed cut of the film to International film markets next year in order to find a distributor and a Summer premiere is currently planned.

Joining the current cast of Chris Summers, Steven McEwan, Clare Sheppard, John Gaffney, Kirsty Anderson, Tam Toye, Nicki Fleming, Alexandra Mackenzie, Vharri Lavery, Kenny Boyle, Mark Harvey and Anna Walseth is Rab C. Nesbitt legend Elaine C. Smith who features as Rebecca's mum. Taggart star Colin McCredie plays Taylor, Mullan's informant, and Simon Weir who starred in "The Acid House" and "Monarch of the Glen" plays CS Carlisle - Sloan and Mullan's boss who isn't too pleased with their recent methods of police work.

Filming starts on the 5th and 6th of June with sponsors such as The Hub at Pacific Quay, local bar Muse providing the nightclub locations, West Beer providing the on-screen alcohol and locations and props gurus The Quickening backing the first Scottish superhero film.

If you want to get involved visit http://www.nightisday.net or our Facebook group http://www.facebook.com/#!/group.php?gid=237674711930&ref=ts.

A superhero fancy dress party is being held in the Karbon Nightclub in Glasgow on the 18th of June from 7pm onwards where everybody can come dressed as their favourite superhero or villain to meet the cast and crew and win the chance to appear in the movie itself! A sponsorship party on the 2nd of July will let people bid to sponsor the characters for the film to help us raise the budget needed to pay for costumes, props, locations etc.

Your superhero needs you!

Night is Day - Sci-fi web series online - superhero webseries

2010-05-16T15:54:00.000+01:00

"Night is Day" is the one project that has been constant throughout my filmmaking career. When I was training at the BBC in Glasgow on their E-Force training program in around 2003 I came across a competition to shoot a trailer for a film that hadn't been made yet. It was there I decided to make a trailer for a film about a superhero in Glasgow as at that time there were no Glaswegian superheroes so it felt like the right time.

From training at the BBC I went to James Watt College in 2003 until 2004 and I made a short film version of Night is Day called "Night is Day - Dusk". We shot it in 7 days and while it could vastly be approved upon, it was still my first proper short film and I'm very proud of it.

After making the short I decided making a feature film was the next way to go - a sword fighting epic called "The Journey" which came to an abrupt end after I got ran down by a car. With a lack of funding and a stable crew, I decided to make "Night is Day" as a web series instead and come 2006 we had started filming the 6 episodes.

The series was filmed in 9 months and released online for £1 per episode for people to watch, and while there was a steady flow of viewers, we never did manage to reach the target of making the expenses back we had incurred while shooting the series, so thanks to KenKai Projects in Stirling we got the series put onto a DVD (which you can buy here) We then took the episodes off-line and kept them for the DVD.

In 2008 in May we started filming series 2 of the show. This time it was bigger and better. Instead of 6 episodes we went for 7 and instead of random length we stuck to the 25 minute format. Over 40 cast and crew were involved and we filmed in Glasgow and Stirling. Finally episode 7 is in post-production with the complicated special effects (demon vs demon in the Hamilton Mausoleum!) being worked on and episode 4 is having the sound effects worked on while the music for episode 6 is being scored.

As series 2 nears competition and with "Night is Day" branching out and becoming a full-length feature film, originally titled "Night is Day - The Movie" (not to confuse any one who might be aware of the series), which starts filming on the first weekend of June - I've put episodes 1 and 2 of series 1 BACK online for people to watch for free. So feel free to check them out below and if you like what you see then you can always order the series 1 DVD.

Enjoy!

Filming test scenes from "Night is Day - The Movie"!

2010-04-19T19:12:00.001+01:00

This weekend saw some filming take place for "Night is Day - The Movie" around Glasgow. As we're trying to put together some promotional material (teaser trailers, some scenes, posters etc) to help raise awareness and funds to help us, we thought filming some actual scenes from the movie might help us.

On the Saturday we went to the Citizen Theatre and filmed three scenes involving DCI Iain Mullan (Steven McEwan), Inspector Rebecca Munro (Clare Sheppard) and PC Douglas (Kenny Boyle). Filming went smoothly and we managed to film some behind the scenes footage too. Yes it was raining, yes it was windy, but it was still fun!

(Simon Ferguson - camera operator on the film)

(DCI Mullan, Inspector Munro and PC Douglas)

(A still frame from the scenes we shot)

On Sunday we started in the Glasgow Harbour at the waterfront with main female lead, Lena Dwyre (Kirsty Anderson) and her best friend Sara (Vharri Lavery), followed by an intense scene with Lena and Jason (Chris Summers) and finally we went to a dodgy looking alleyway in Kinning Park and filmed a scene between a young girl (Ilaria Nardini), a rough attacker (Kevin William McIntyre) and Jason!

(Camera operator Simon, myself, and Ross Hardie our production manager)

(Simon and Ross in the alleway)

(Lena (Kirsty Anderson) confides in Sara (Vharri Lavery)

(Lena looks troubled)

(Never annoy a Glasgow superhero!)

Our race night is Friday the 23rd of April at 8pm at Glasgow University's Queen Margaret Union in the Food Court. It's free to come along and we're bringing along some cast and crew for you all to meet, so it's a chance to meet them and win some money!

Thankfully we were only troubled once by 4 small children (aged 14 apparently) with toy guns who constantly asked if they were going to be on TV...ah, Glasgow.

Roll on the Summer when we start filming properly!

Elaine C Smith becomes part of the "Night is Day" Family

2010-04-16T18:18:00.000+01:00

Elaine C. Smith who is the star of "Rab C. Nesbitt", "55 Degrees North" and the hit West End play, "Calender Girls" has joined the cast of "Night is Day - The Movie"

Elaine will be playing Inspector Rebecca Munro's (played by Clare Sheppard) mother in the movie.

Visit Elaine's official website at http://www.elainecsmith.com/

We're filming some test scenes this weekend for the film so expect some new pictures and a behind the scenes video!

Location, Location, Location

2010-04-09T18:56:00.000+01:00

(Photo by Jack Photography)

As "Night is Day" series 2 continues it's adventures in post production with special effects, music composing and sound design on episodes 4-7, the pre-production on "Night is Day - The Movie" moves ever faster forward.

While the producers, Lindsay Dowell and Gavin Orr, and myself will be working on the filming schedule in the next couple of weeks I can confirm that our first official date of principle photography is the 5th and 6th of June 2010!

Along with Taggart star Colin McCredie on board (playing DCI Iain Mullan's smart-looking informant, Taylor), we also have two other well known and well loved Scottish actors joining the production, but sadly until their contracts are signed I can't say who they are, but I am very excited about working with them both as I've been a fan of their work for quite some time!

On the 5th of June we will be filming with one of our latest signings, and hopefully on the 6th we will be filming with Colin too.

We have also secured another location for filming - this time it's the bar/club "Muse" on Queen Street in Glasgow. They're letting us use their club downstairs on a Sunday to film pivotal scenes for the movie, which we will require a lot of extras for to fill out the club.

On Friday the 23rd of April at 8pm we will be holding a Race Night at the Queen Margaret Union in Glasgow University - everybody is invited to come along and join in on the fun, bet on some races, and help raise awareness and funding for the film, as well as meeting some of the cast and crew.

Exciting times ahead for Night is Day!

Strangely satisfying being on IMDb

2010-04-05T21:27:00.000+01:00

Night is Day - The Movie is moving along quite nicely. We've got our cast in place, locking down locations, the schedule, props and costumes, as well as a few well known Scottish actors to take smaller roles in the film to help raise the profile of our superhero action film.

With 5 test scenes in the works for the 17th and 18th, a fundraising race night on the 23rd of April and some superhero student nights being worked on in May, it's only going to be a matter of time before we're ready to start filming principle filming!

So another step in the road is having the film listed on the Internet Movie Database. Check it out at http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1629444/

Our Facebook page has over 300 fans now so we hope to reach 500 soon!

Ssh...listen carefully, I will say this only once...

2010-03-30T23:17:00.000+01:00

My fourth short film, "Hush", is complete! Shot in the Summer of 2009, this short follows the exploits of two best friends, played by Danielle McLeod and Anna Walseth, who just happened to be best friends.

Here's the synopsis from the official site:

"Starring Anna Walseth and Danielle Mcleod as two best friends who just happen to be a pair of the best spies in the business, we follow the girls through their dangerous missions against evil, corrupt arms dealers, and rogue spies, while we also get an insight into their friendship.

With a perfect balance between their personal and professional relationship, can anything go wrong?"

Along with my other short film, "I Heart You", Hush will be sent into film festivals this year and we will be making it available to watch on the Silly Wee Films website soon.

Night is Day - The Official Movie Website - Sci-fi feature films in Scotland

2010-03-29T12:26:00.000+01:00

- Night is Day - The Movie (l-r), producer Lindsay Dowell, sound recordist Gregg Houston, director Fraser Coull and leading man Chris Summers who plays Jason

"Night is Day - The Movie" is the debut feature film for myself, and my production company Silly Wee Films. After making a total of 5 short films between 2005 and 2010 and quite a lot of corporate videos, I'm heading into the scary world of feature films - taking my favourite characters from "Night is Day" series 1 and 2 and taking them on a bigger, bolder adventure than they've ever experienced.

Filming starts this June in Glasgow and we will be filming at weekends until August, then the film, which is being shot in HD, will be edited, sent off for special effects, then it will be colour graded, sent off for sound effects and then music - hopefully in time for the big festivals (Cannes, Berlin, Raindance etc).

We've got the main cast and supporting actors sorted and we've already signed up Taggart star Colin McCredie to play as Taylor, an informant of DCI Mullan. We're also in talks with Rab C Nesbitt star Elaine C Smith to play Inspector Rebecca Munro's mum, "Gregory's Girl" legend John Gordon Sinclair and Doctor Who star Sylvester McCoy (The 7th Doctor) to appear as guest stars.

Sci-fi feature films in Scotland are rare so we hope that everybody will enjoy Night is Day - The Movie when we release it next year. An official site has been set up at http://www.nightisday.net and we'll be keeping the site up to date with video blogs, trailers, production stills, director's blogs etc.

We've already gathered a few sponsors to help us pay for props, locations, costumes, food, etc, so if you'd like to get on board to help us please email contact@sillyweefilms.com

Series 1 of the series is already available on DVD at http://www.nightisday.com and series 2 will be launched late this Spring. The movie doesn't depend on series 1 or 2 but it will give you a deeper insight into the characters and what we're trying to achieve.

Thanks for your continued support!

There's been a murder...

2010-03-28T12:15:00.000+01:00

Colin McCredie, who is well known for his role in STV's long running crime drama, "Taggart", took a guest star role in "Night is Day" series 2 (which is due to launch in Spring).

I've since struck up a friendly working relationship with Colin since he starred in my short film, "Two and a Half Minutes" and he will have a role in the Night is Day feature film this summer.

For now, here's Colin in Night is Day along side Chris Summers as Jason, and below is "Two and a Half Minutes" which stars John Gaffney, Chris Summers, Tam Toye, Lauren Lamarr and Natalie Clark.

Night is Day...the movie?

2010-03-27T12:43:00.000Z

The entire reason for this blog was to chart my attempts of making a full length feature film. At the time it was all I ever wanted to do. However I got into this terrible habit of watching too much TV (Doctor Who, Torchwood, Chuck, House, How I Met Your Mother, Heroes etc) and decided that I wanted to be the next Russell T Davis or now, Steven Moffat (depending on what he does with Doctor Who of course), so I put all of my energies into writing the 2nd series of Night is Day, trying to make it an enjoyable programme for the sci-fi loving crowd, which I hope I've achieved, and as long as at least 10 people (who are neither cast, crew or friends of) watch it and like it, then I'll be happy.

But I know that there's a very limited chance that the BBC will look at Night is Day as a TV show and go "Wonderful! We love it! We're going to buy it, remake it and let you RUN THE SHOW!" (although that would be lovely).

Yet, I love Night is Day too much to say that after the credits roll on episode 7 of series 2 that the story is over and we won't get to see Jason fight more bad guys, or have more drama with his family, friends, loved ones, the police, Sloan or Mullan, or Mr. Philips won't come up with another evil scheme to cause havoc to the world. I just can't let go of these characters (perhaps this is some sort of addiction and I may need some help).

So I decided that the best way forward, to let Night is Day take on another medium, would be to make a feature film version. So I started writing the script in May 2009 and finished around September 2009. It's 147 pages long. It's a complete stand alone story so you shouldn't need to have seen series 1 or 2 for it to make sense, but it would help.

Since September I've been recruiting camera operators, sound recordists, directors of photography, still photographers, makeup artists, two wonderful producers, concept artists, runners and production assistants and NOW we finally have all the cast and crew! (With a few smaller parts to cast...)

We held auditions over two days in January at M8 Media Studios in Glasgow, followed by a readthrough in The Vale Bar in February and a couple of weeks ago we shot a teaser trailer in Glasgow. Filming starts in June and we will be filming at weekends until August. Once the film is finished it's off to the festivals and we will try and find a distributor or a sales agent to put it in the cinemas!

I'm eagerly awaiting www.nightisday.net to become active where I can update it on a regular basis with blogs, photos, videos and more, but until now www.sillyweefilms.co.uk/nightisdaymovie.htm and the Facebook page (http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=237674711930&ref=ts) will have to do.

Until then, here are all the videos so far!

Check out our first official promo video for "Night is Day - The Movie" from our two days of auditions on the 16th and 23rd of January 2010!

Official website coming soon, in the meantime check out our Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=237674711930&ref=ts

The first official cast readthrough for "Night is Day - The Movie", held at The Vale Bar in Glasgow City Centre on February 22nd 2010.

This is an exciting step forward in the pre-production of our superhero film in Glasgow.

Watch a sneak peak of our readthrough and let us know what you think in the comments!

http://www.sillyweefilms.co.uk/nightisdaymovie.htm

Meeting with Lindsay and Gavin, our producers, next week all going well to lock down the schedule, discuss the fundraising party, sort out costumes, makeup, locations and hopefully announce some well known Scottish actors who are joining the film!

Spread the word - Night is Day is coming to the big screen!

Night is Day - Superheroes, villains, gangsters, vampires and demons...in Glasgow?

2010-03-27T12:32:00.000Z

"Night is Day" is a ongoing project of mine, my baby, if you will. It started in about 2005 when I was on the BBC Training Programme, "E-Force", at the old BBC building in Queen Margaret Drive, Glasgow. I read about a competition to make a trailer for a film that wasn't made yet. Liking the idea of "making movies", I decided to come up with an idea about a superhero in Glasgow. I was fed up of kitchen sink dramas that has plagued Scottish filmmaking and decided that if London could have Doctor Who and Cardiff could have Torchwood (although Torchwood would come later...) then why can't Scotland have a superhero?

So, Jason Mackenzie was born!

Originally a short film with an entirely different cast, "Night is Day" would eventually go on to feature Chris Summers as Jason, our superhero, a normal Glaswegian who is left by his girlfriend, gets drunk and walks across the road only to get knocked down by a car. Left in a wheelchair for months, he decides he wants to change his bad fortune and is contacted by the mysterious Ames, a good demon who has the ability to tell the future. Jason finds Ames and asks to have bad things stop happening to him. Ames agrees and puts a lightning demon into Jason.

Jason finds himself with the ability to see someone's future just by touching them. He gets a mind numbing vision of their imminent peril and saves the day. Oh, did I mention he can create lightning in his hand?

We shot the first series in 2006 and once all the special effects, music and sound effects were finished, we put it out on DVD in about 2007 where it is available to buy at www.nightisday.com. Here's a trailer:

"Night is Day", a unique self-funded sci-fi series from Scotland! The series takes you to a normal city, filled with superheros, supervillains, demons, vampires, and gangsters, filled with action, drama and stunning special effects.

Now in to its second series, the show continues to explore the world of Jason Mackenzie, Glasgow's superhero, who was once a down on-his-luck Glaswegian, left by his girlfriend, forcing him into depression which led him to being hospitalised by a horrific accident. From there Jason met Ames, a mysterious demon in human form, who gave Jason the power of a demon so he could fight to keep us safe.

In 2008 we started planning series 2, which would upgrade from 6 episodes of random length, to 7 episodes, each lasting 25 minutes. It took us around 8 months to finish filming and due to the complex special effects needed, only now is it starting to reach the finish line - with the last two episodes now having the special effects finished.

Here's a few trailers and clips to whet your appetite!

I'm the writer and director of "Night is Day", an on-going sci-fi series with no funding, following the adventures of a Glaswegian superhero with the power of lightning and foresight.

For two years now Jason has been forced into a world of crime and supernatural demons. Now as his quest to find the girl he lost, Jason must fight supervillains, vampires and maybe even his own family.

Jason is not alone, as DCI Charles Sloan, DI Iain Mullan and DI Billy Shipton are on the case to stop the evil Mr. Philips at any cost!

Series 1 is available on DVD at http://www.nightisday.com and series 2 will be launched in the summer.

Jason Mackenzie is back in Scotland's low-budget sci-fi adventure series. After hunting down rogue demons with his guide, Sakura, Jason continues his mission to find his friend, Amy, who has mysteriously vanished. But it won't be easy for Jason as Mr. Philips works on his evil scheme to bring evil demons into our world. Jason isn't alone however as recovering alcoholic DCI Charles Sloan and his team, DI Iain Mullan and DI Billy Shipton are on the case. But just who is this mysterious girl Caitlyn? Series 2 launches this summer - http://www.nightisday.com

"Night is Day" is a self-funded superhero drama series shot in Glasgow and surrounding areas in Scotland. Following on from the first series, which started as a web series, but is now available on DVD, series 2 picks up 8 months later with Jason Mackenzie, Glasgow's superhero, chasing down rogue demons who are on the loose, while trying to find his friend, Amy Campbell, who was kidnapped by a mysterious cult. Mr. Philips is determined to complete his plan for world domination, forcing DCI Sloan, DI Mullan and Inspector Shipton to stop him. Series 2 will be launched in Spring 2010 on DVD and a full length feature film is now in the works - www.nightisday.com

Okay that's enough for this blog, next time: "Night is Day - The Movie"!

Long time no post, so let's look to the future!

2010-03-27T12:04:00.001Z

Okay, so I may have accidentally forgot about this blog until some friends reminded me last

night at our usual Friday night gathering's in a flat in the West End of Glasgow.

Obviously 2007 to 2010 is certainly a big gap between updates and a lot has happened since then!

My film company "Silly Wee Films" has been going relatively strong - working on corporate videos for Macmillan Cancer Support, local councils, sports companies, and even the occasional music video, while also working on "Night is Day" series 1 and 2, writing the feature film version of "Night is Day" and making three short films.

The first short film is called "Two and a Half Minutes" and it stars John Gaffney (who also plays DCI Sloan in Night is Day series 2 and the upcoming feature), Colin McCredie who played DC Stuart Fraser in Taggart and Chris Summers who has appeared in lots of films and TV projects including my very own "Night is Day" as our superhero, Jason Mackenzie.

We shot the film over two days based on a script I wrote about 3 years ago (we slightly re-drafted it...) in Glasgow and Stirling and the final product can be seen at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ye42Nu_jHo

My second film was "Hush"...

...which follows two best friends (Danielle McLeod and Anna Walseth) who just happen to be spies. It's a completely silent film, with only music and sound effects, and it looks at the difference between their personal lives and spy lives. The film is in the final stages of post production and we're just waiting on the sound effects!

Following "Hush" I decided to make my romantic comedy, "I Heart You"...

...which stars Chris Summers, Natalie Clark, Barry McKay and Lissa Dougal. Chris plays, well, Chris, and Natalie is Kirsty, and it starts with Chris being dumped by Kirsty and then going to the pub with his best friend, looking back at his "wonderful" relationship.

The movie is finished now and I'm going to be entering it into the festivals this summer so fingers crossed.

Right that's enough for one blog... I'll start another for "Night is Day - The Movie"...

The challenges of writing...

2007-07-19T11:18:00.000+01:00

Filmmaking and writing is a fickle creature that any aspiring writer or filmmaker has to face.

The last project I worked on when I was the writer/director was "Night is Day" and we filmed our last scenes for episodes 5 and 6 on the 14th of April 2007. I then spent the next 2 months sweating over editing the two episodes so it would be ready on time for the big premiere at the Glasgow Film Theatre on the 2nd of June. We needed to show a rough cut of the final film because the animators, sound technician and composer simply didn't have enough time to perfect it - and now that the premiere is over, everybody who threw everything to the back burner to help complete NiD for the 2nd of June has to go back to their other projects for the time being - that's fine, I've finished my editing of episodes 5 and 6 and they'll be completed and put up online in the next month or so and then we can try to sell it on DVD etc. As long as we make our £2,000 back and we can repay everybody their travelling expenss etc then all the better.

Now the last film I was involved in was called "Jazz Hands" and it was written and directed by Iain Thomson who was my camera operator and 1st assistant director on "NiD". Iain is a very talented filmmaker - inspired heavily by foreign film and I'd say subtle filmmaker Jim Jarmusch. Iain wrote a 5 minute short film, a comedy about a young actress who thinks that she's going to get a part in a new film by a controversal filmmaker, but instead becomes a fluffer who needs to relieve the film's main actor, Eddie... We shot it in one day at G-Mac in Glasgow and we had some familiar faces from NiD and we had some new faces. It was a long shoot, but it was fun and creative and everybody had a say. I was the production manager while Stuart, another fantastic filmmaker, was the Assistant Director on it.

me and Iain on the set of "Jazz Hands"

But it just made me crave to make my own short film again! I'm in the process of trying to make a good looking film-noir called "Two and a Half Minutes" but I am being plagued by trying to find a place to audition actors, lack of finances (thanks to the bank over-charging me!) and a general blahness because my personal life is seriously getting in the way of my filmmaking life.

I also want to make my first feature film...eventually. I've started to write "The Journey" again, but I've not wrote more of that since my first post on here. It's kind of stuck. To complicate matters I've started writing a horror/sci-fi/comedy set in the village that I live in. I've wrote a surprisingly 38 pages (that's around half an hour screen time) in two days but now that's hit a road-block too.

Last night at midnight I couldn't sleep and I suddenly got an idea in my head for a short film - a really basic film, about how no matter what happens you'll always love again. It's more of a visual film - I can see the shots in my head - I will make it, probably before "Two and a Half Minutes" because it's a less complicated shoot and I need less people. I need the usual suspects - Iain (on camera) Stuart (on Assistant Directing duties) a sound guy (I know of two who I can ask), an assistant/runner (easily found) a producer (meeting a producer tomorrow all going well so we'll see how that goes) and a cast - there's only 4 cast members and I think I know who I want for the roles. The locations are simple too.

I'll sign off with a note about one of my inspirational directors - Mr. Quentin Tarantino - when making Pulp Fiction he wrote 6 pages of "Kill Bill" and then he shoved it in a drawer and he didn't touch it for around 6 years after that, and Kill Bill was amazing.

Rachel Wisson and Chris Somerville on "Jazz Hands"

A filmmaker in Scotland

2007-06-27T09:15:00.000+01:00

Hello,

I'm Fraser, 23, from Glasgow. And I am a filmmaker.

So far in my film career I've made two short films and a web series. I've spent a total of £3150 making those films and the web series.

In Scotland we have two filmmaking bodies - Scottish Screen, who are supposed to support independent filmmaking talent in Scotland, and G-Mac, who do the same but have less money.

Obstacle number 1!

I took one of my short film scripts to Scottish Screen and I applied for the short film fund of up to £25,000 to make it (like I'd ever need that much!). So I did all they asked - filled in the forms, did the proper budget (if i were to pay people and pay for equipment my 5 minute film would cost me £12,000!) and sent them the CV of my cast and crew. A few weeks later Scottish Screen finally got back to me and said "Because you have not been funded by any other schemes such as digicults and cineworks, we can't support you."

Obstacle number 2!

So I then looked into digicults and cineworks and I found out their deadlines are in November... not great when I want to make my film NOW... rather than sit about not doing anything for the next 5 months. However I've seen previous digicults and cineworks and they don't tackle the genres I want to work in when it comes to making films.

The only other alternative is private funding. Finding people outwith the film industry, who has money, and is willing to give you money to make your film. Always a joy.

Right now I'm trying to find people to sponsor my short film, and I need a minimum of £300 - that's just to pay the cast and crew's travelling expenses, food, and tapes to actually shoot the film. Surely there must be some people out there who can help me...right?

You can read about my short film, "Two and a Half Minutes" at http://www.twoandahalfminutes.tk

Anyway, I'll keep you posted.

Moving on to my subject header!

While I'm working on Night is Day, and my short films, the ultimate goal is to actually write and direct a proper, full length feature film. Yet another impossible task in Scottish filmmaking.

Different filmmakers tackle different genres - there's comedy (example http://www.pondlife.moonfruit.com), horror (example http://www.thebench.moonfruit.com), drama (too many to link to!) and fan ficton (example http://www.treasureofthetemplars.com) and that's fine, good luck to them, I hope they do well.

Now don't get me wrong, there is no such thing as an original idea anymore, but like my filmmaking God, Sir Tarantino, you need to take a genre you love, and put your own unique spin on it.

So I am.

I'm taking a genre I love - swordfighting - and turning it into a small adventure feature film.

I already wrote a draft for it a year ago and I tried to get it made, but due to a lack of reliable people and funding, the film collapsed and I went on to make "Night is Day" instead. I've had a year to think about it, seen where I went wrong, and now I'm stripping the script and starting over with a more simple concept, and fewer characters.

Now getting this film funded will be a complete nightmare, but I'm going to write a short film which will be a prelude to the actual film, and use the short to take around and try to raise the money to shoot the feature.

I've only wrote 2 pages of the actual film, but I'm going to let you see it and you can let me know what you think.

I present the first two scenes of "The Journey"...

FADE IN

1. EXT – WOODED AREA – DAY

The sun shines down through the trees down to the clean grass.

LIAM, in his mid-twenties, tall, wearing jeans, trainers, and a blood-stained blue shirt, stands with his back to us.

We pan down to the right to reveal that LIAM is holding a SAMURAI SWORD which is dripping with blood.

The blood leads to a dead body, ALEX, with his sword lying next to him.

LIAM flicks the blood from his sword and takes a deep breath.

We go back up and we see LIAM looking down at ALEX’S body, there’s remorse in his face.

LIAM bends down and looks around ALEX’S neck until he finds a STRING NECKLACE, LIAM snaps it off and takes a SILVER KEY from it.

LIAM looks at the key and he becomes totally fixated on it.

LIAM closes his eyes.

LIAM
(quietly)
Four to go.

ANNABELLE
(off screen)
It won’t be easy.

FADE TO:

2. EXT – LIAM’S HOUSE – BACK GARDEN – DAY

TITLE
3 MONTHS AGO

LIAM looks slightly more innocent, his hair is a little shorter but his clothes are the same.

He is standing next to his father, JOHN, who is roughly twenty-years older than LIAM.

JOHN and LIAM are both holding their swords.

LIAM starts to move around his dad, spinning his sword in his hand.

JOHN smiles.

LIAM
Don’t go easy on me.

I need to learn.

JOHN
Don’t worry son…

JOHN runs at LIAM and their swords clash.

LIAM uses his strength to break free of the stalemate and runs the sword past JOHN’S chest, but JOHN jumps back and slashes the sword at LIAM’S head.

So there you have it :p