We have a movie!

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

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...

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

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

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!

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

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!