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 :)
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