The Intro Blog

 

(cast and crew of the pilot episode of Bloodline)

With more people following me on Twitter these days I figured it would be best to have a quick intro blog about myself.

I'm Fraser, and at the time of writing this I am 28 (and next year I'll be 29, surprisingly enough!). My goal in life is to become a TV producer (or a showrunner as they are known by in America and beyond!) just like Russell T Davis, Steven Moffat and Joss Whedon. I am shockingly geeky and my inspirations come from Doctor Who, Angel, MisFits, Being Human, Chuck etc. 

My career started later than most I suppose, when I was 21 having found myself on the E-Force training programme at the BBC in Glasgow, where I came up with the idea for a Scottish superhero, as to my knowledge we hadn't had our own superhero on the small or big screen. After the training programme I went to James Watt College to study HND Television Operations and Productions for two years. Upon leaving I started up my own corporate company Silly Wee Films. I've been running that ever since - producing music videos, corporate promos, actors showreels etc, all to keep myself financially afloat to work on my creative projects.

The Scottish superhero idea turned into "Night is Day"originally as a short film, and then 13 episodes, split over 2 seasons. 12 episodes are available to watch at the link above and the final episode, which was a mammoth project with more visual effects than any sensible person would put into a show that had an actual budget (we didn't!) will eventually be completed as we are genuinely just waiting on the final sound mix.

In between the web series I wrote and directed several short films included "Bottle", "I Heart You", "Hush", "Two and a Half Minutes" and "No Distractions". You can see them all at this page here.

I entered into the 48 hour film project last year with Mark Harvey and Simon Weir, as well as other talented actors and a great production team. You can see our effort below:

I've also directed a feature film, "Night is Day" based on the web series, with some returning cast and a whole new crew and brilliant producers. The film stars Scottish legends Simon Weir, Colin McCredie, Elaine C Smith and Tiger Tim Stevens MBE in cameo roles. We premiered at the Glasgow Film Festival in February 2012 and the film is close to being picked up for distribution by an American production company so hopefully the film will be released world wide within the year.

Having wrote the pilot episode for a new supernatural TV series, "Bloodline", I'm now working on finishing the pilot so I can pitch it to TV executives with the producers, Claire Mcguire and Scott Forrest, so we can make a full series.

I have several other projects in the pipe-line. I'll keep going, learning, improving and hopefully one day I'll be a TV show runner/producer.

Thanks for reading my blog.

Time for a change...

(Emily, Jamie and Mhairi on the Bloodline Pilot set)

Time for a brief, yet important update.

Since teaming up with Scott Forrest, of Forrestfire Productions, I've been involved in a lot more projects, and it looks to be continuing. We worked with Claire Mcguire on her short film "Chaos and Curlers" as well as the pilot episode of "Bloodline" and we've successfully put on several TV/film/theatre networking nights in Glasgow.

In December time we should be working together on another short for Mark Harvey which is all very exciting and I'm looking forward to getting stuck in. We're also finishing the Bloodline pilot in order to pitch it to TV execs. in the hope we'll get a full series commission (after all, we've wrote out the plan for 7 more episodes, and if I do say so myself, they are freakin' awesome and a little bit geeky too!).

We're also branching out into two more areas - Scott and I have been keen to join the podcast race and so we are developing that project at the moment. The idea behind is that we'll review TV shows, new film releases and DVD releases while interviewing industry professionals in film and TV to give their advice to budding directors, producers, actors, and other crew, hopefully in a fun, light hearted informative way. I'll post updates as we go but progress is being made. 

Our film/tv/theatre networking events will also be going under a slight transformation with the hope of showing some short films and bringing in special guests to do a talk, again, hopefully to give advice to those who want it and inspire people to keep going.

It's so crucial to gain experience in the industry, meet people, talk to them, help them, work with them, work as a community, rather than a rival. We're all in it together, trying to make a living and advance in our careers so let's help one another.

And with that in mind, I'm off to get excited about tomorrow night's episode of Doctor Who...

Keep on Going

(Me on set begging Jamie not to shoot anybody...)

So... this is a tough industry. A really tough industry. Just like most of them really. For about 6 years now I've been trying to learn from what I do, get better, improve my skills and find out what works for me and what doesn't. I've never had any proper funding to do so, therefore I rely on the kindess of other filmmakers, crew, actors, etc, to give up their time and skills to support me. For this I am always thankful and do my best to get projects finished on time, get them up on the internet for showcasing purposes, and where appropriate, try to sell the projects - the web series I created, sadly it never happened, the feature film we did is now close to distribution, which is fantastic, and my current project, Bloodline, is having a pilot episode edited so we can pitch a full 6-8 part series to TV executives (i.e. BBC, STV, Channel 4 and indie networks) in the hope we can get picked up and contribute to the creative output Scotland has to offer. Failing that, I'll move to Canada or the States, at least there I might get a tan.

I don't think my approach and tactics are too different from anyone else at this level trying to get their work out there, their name out there, to have what talents they have recognised. Hopefully somewhere along the way people start to benefit from working on these projects. A casting director might like the look of an actor, or the camera skills might get the DOP a job on another shoot, etc. 

Working on these projects allow you to meet other filmmakers, actors, crew, network, learn from other people and hopefully improve your skills, trade, etc. At least, this is the hope. 6 years on and I'm not rich and famous, I'm not even well off. I'm barely comfortable. But that's not important. I am working in the industry I want to work with. I am self-employed and my bills are paid by working on corporate videos, music videos, and even converting videos to DVD. Anything I can do to survive, and allow me to continue working on my creative projects so that one day, if I work hard enough, I'll sell a series and be able to step up another rung on the ladder, closer to being established in the industry of TV and film.

What's the point of this post I hear you ask (if you're still here)? Well, basically it's to remind you that if you are wanting to get into TV and/or film, or you're already in it but having a tough time, it's just to encourage you, to let you know that you're not alone and it's part of the business. Some people will like you and what you do, support you as much as you can, and you have to appreciate these people, make sure they know they are thanked, thank them as much as you can. If you find more opportunities for them, let them know. However, and I cannot stress this enough, you will not be able to please everybody and you'll pick up a few not-so-positive people along the way. It'll get you down, make you want to quit and stay in bed under the covers and hide. That's okay too.

Just remember you got into this industry for a reason in the first place and the best thing you can do is keep your head high, learn from your mistakes, bite your tongue, be a pleasant pest, and work your ass off and cross your fingers your hard work will pay off.

And on that note, here are some videos that I've done recently...

The Quest To Become a TV Showrunner...

*Reader's Discretion - this is a looooooong ass post* 

Okay, so I've not done a post in a while... whoops! Life, as always, got in the way. I ended a long-term relationship, moved out of my house, and "stepped down" from the whole movie-making business after my first feature film, "Night is Day" premièred at the Glasgow Film Festival in February to a sold out audience, after spending two years of my life making it.

During the process of making the film I learned a lot - who to work with, how to work with different people, get the best out of them, being creative with no money (in our case our budget was £4,500, which is considered no budget as around £50,000 is labelled "Low Budget") and trying to promote and sell a film. I even went to the American Film Market in LA to meet with distributors and that was a massive eye opener.

(the poster for the film version of Night is Day)

Without access to a Mac (that's a long story) I was unable to make necessary changes to the film, thankfully that's resolved and over the next couple of months I'll be sending copies of the re-edited movie to distributors world wide again, to try and get the film sold - whether it be online, DVD, cinema, TV etc, as well as taking the film on a tour of independent cinemas in Scotland. 

"Night is Day", which started as a web series in 2006, centred on Jason Mackenzie (played relentlessly by the talented Chris Summers) a vigilante superhero who was gifted with the power of lightning and foresight by a peace keeping demon, and saw him learn to use his powers to fight the evil Mr. Philips (the legend that is Tam Toye) and a series of demons and monsters. This culminated in the movie in 2010, with mostly a new cast of wonderful actors and a stand-alone story, Serenity style, to wrap up Jason's story once and for all.

 (Jason taking care of some gangsters using his powers, in episode 6)

I realise as I write this post, I am not keeping to a linear structure, and what was supposed to be a "Hey guys! I'm making this really cool TV show about a group of people fighting ancient Scottish mythological creatures!" is turning into a retrospective of my six year career, and why I want to run my own TV show one day. I'll understand if you want to bail out at this point, but maybe there's a budding filmmaker, writer, director, geek, or just a really bored person who is remotely interested in my path so far and what I have to say. I'm not going to rant or bitch, even though with the amount of internet "abuse" I've suffered over the years, I could fill an entire blog, I'm instead going to focus on my positive. 

Where was I? Oh yes... the difficult second album, erm, movie. After Night is Day was finished, or finished enough, I wanted to move on and make a film called "Get Funded", which is a comedy about three young filmmakers who go through hell to make their first film, even robbing people and getting mixed up with gangsters and exploiting family and friends, just to get their script to the screen. I wanted big stars - David Tennant, Karen Gillan, even the legend that is Michael Caine. Sadly after months of trying the film just wasn't getting anywhere, the script was lacking something, and I decided to put it on the shelf for the time being. Went through my break up and sneaked away from the business of film. 

(Episode 1 of Night is Day: The Web Series, shot in 2006)

I then went and crashed on a friend's sofa while recovering and re-booting my life, in a non-Batman Begins, sort of way, and there I happened to dig out my old Night is Day DVD and we started watching series 1. While no means perfect (want proof? click the link above and watch 11 minutes of Scottish superhero action) I really enjoyed watching it again. There were a hundred things I wanted to go back and fix, things I would do differently, but a spark kicked off in my head. The plot bunnies were alive.

A few weeks passed and I started re-watching old Doctor Who episodes (the purists will say that "old" Doctor Who started in 1963, and yes, that's true, but there is a whole generation of people who consider Christopher Eccleston to be the first Doctor, when technically he's the 9th! But still...) and I remembered why I went to college in the first place. Back in 2004 (eek, that was 8 years ago, I'm fast approaching 30... that's a bit scary) I went to study HND Television Operations and Productions, where, with the clue in the title, you learn about how the operations work in Television Productions. Script, crew, cast, the lot. They even let you make your own short films... where I just went rogue, grabbed a camera and made up shorts on the spot, as that's how I roll. 

That's where the idea for Night is Day kicked off! I wanted to make a series! A superhero in Scotland. It hadn't been done in TV form before (Before you say "Wrong boyo! What about Supergran?!", well, technically that was an English TV show... shot in England, etc - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Gran) and with my obsession with Marvel's Spider-Man, the cool, sarcastic, quick witted superhero, I wanted my own superhero in Scotland. 6 years later and it's had 13 episodes online (technically the last episode is in limbo as our sound designer has went MIA, but bare with me, we're fixing that too!) and a feature film. 

(I appreciate this is a long post, so here is some David Tennant love for you)

Back when I was in high school, having watched a lot of Old School (circa 1980's) Doctor Who, The 5th Doctor, total legend, as well as Blake's 7, Sapphire and Steel, and a bucket load of Anime/Manga (mostly Guyver and Giant Robo) I started writing a series called "Space Defence", (all right, so I'm not great at titles, okay??) which was set thousands of years in the future, and in Space, and focused on the Defenders of The Realm (a short while later I'd find out that was the name of a Mortal Kombat cartoon series - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uZwA4Qu4bI) who were three men (or aliens I suppose) who each had special powers - lightning, agility, mind control, mind reading, could create force fields etc - and protected the entire universe. 

With this in mind, my love of Doctor Who, and my total falling out of love for filmmaking (only for now, I'm still totally in love with Cinema, thank you Joss Whedon) I started writing out an idea for a three part web series, nothing use, 5 minutes each episode, about a group of people protecting the city. No magic powers, no superheroes, just three people, fighting crime. And it needed a sword fight. I've always, ALWAYS wanted a sword fight! So I got to work and wrote a LOT of notes. 

(again, this post is quite long, so here, it's Amy Acker, as Fred, being a super cute vampire)

The story started out quite ambitious (it's the only way I know how to do things), I had some rough ideas of what I wanted to do, the story arc, what plot seeds to plant for later on, you know, try to be clever with it, like Joss Whedon did with Faith, or what Moffat and Gatiss did with Moriarty in Sherlock... except I'm not that clever yet... I'm getting there though.

My good friend Scott, who runs his new production company, Forrest Fire Productions, moved up to Glasgow a year ago and we've been sort of collaborating on projects. I went to Scott with my idea as there were a few things I couldn't figure out, and within moments he knew the solution. It was brilliant. Then the madness of turning my three part, 5 minute web series, grew huge, giant, long legs and the pilot for Bloodline was born. 

(Scott, probably coming up with a genius idea for series 5 of Bloodline)

I will dedicate another blog post to Bloodline now, as this post has turned into a definite retrospective and for that I apologise. Kudos if you are still here, I really appreciate it. 

Basically, the point of this post was to say that my heart belongs to TV. I loved making Night is Day into a film, really, it was so exciting to be able to make it and experience it. And maybe when I'm a bit more established, and funding is slightly easier to get for a film, I'll make another one. Goodness knows I've got a LOT of ideas, but for now I want to go back to television. I remember saying to someone in college years ago that I can do a lot more with 13 x 45 minute episodes, than a one off two hour film, and I intend to get back to that. 

(some of the Bloodline pilot cast and crew)

Like Joss Whedon, Russell T Davis, Steven Moffat, three of my favourite show runners (or Executive Producers), I want to run a show, tell an exciting, dramatic, adventurous, mysterious show with interesting, fleshed out characters, strong people, in extraordinary situations, give an audience 45 minutes of excitement every week, something for them to talk about with their fellow geeks, fans, etc. 

6 years later, a turn at the BBC learning the trade, 2 years at college and running my own company with 6 short films, two seasons of a web series, and a feature, I'm back to my first love. Writing and directing TV. Although soon I'd rather just exec produce and write, than direct. But it's my pilot, I need to helm it. Thankfully we've got an amazing cast, a brilliant crew and one hell of a fight team. 

Here we go again....  

P.S - since you've been lovely, I will reward you with this, as secretly, one day, I want to be in charge of Doctor Who. Not that I think I can do any better than the current runner, the guy is a goddamn genius, but I'd like to carry on the legacy and make brilliant television about the mad man and his blue magical box...

Here's an update with all the going-ons

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

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.

Night is Day VS America

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 -

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. 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!