Scottish Screenwriters and the quest to get to America continues

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...

(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

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

(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

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...

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"

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!