Man Flu

Yes its official, I have man flu, and it sucks, so I have spent almost all day between the couch and the kitchen, turned off the telly and put the radio on for a change, slept like a baby.
I was wakened by someone on the radio talking about something that was just a string of words that made absolutely no sense whatsoever, and I had to sit up and switch it off, what a load of tosh.

So I checked my emails, expecting nothing but junk as it is a Sunday. The usual rubbish is there, and a wee note from the Swansea Bay International Film Festival, telling me to check the list for the 2010 nominations, so I did, and low and behold, Shooter is in there, yipeeee.

Now I have to go modify all the flyers, posters, short film depot and withoutabox sites. So my Sunday is busy all of a sudden, no more man flu, so I guess the cure is keep busy.

Under water filming

February 21st 2010, a lovely crisp Sunday morning, and I am off to Kilcreggan, to film some under water sequences for Robert Bell. He has made a documentary over a year, studying and following the life of a family of swans from egg to fledgling, Titled: 'A Swans Chronicle'. He asked me to shoot the swans from under the water, making some interesting and quality sequences to fill the feeding sections of the film.
We didn't have to break the ice on the water, but it was still cold enough to shock your skin into thinking that your body had stopped working, so it was probably about 12 minutes of footage to get the 20 seconds of material, then a quick dash back to
the house, bacon sandwich and a cup of tea, sorted. We reviewed the footage to find that we had captured some quality moments, I guess we could call it a successful shoot.



On the way to Roberts, I passed Loch Lomond, Which was frozen over, the first time that I had ever seen this spectacle


The day before I was working for Peter Montgomery, he needed a few lines and some extra characters for his horror sci-fi movie 'The Blood', so we shot a bunch of material against the green screen and bobs your uncle, we had a small army of one man:)

On March the first, I am expecting a bunch of results to come in from festivals all over the world for 'Shooter', I'll keep you posted.

Independent Film in Scotland

The more time I spend in front of this computer, pushing my short film, and working on other projects, I am realising that I have now been spending more time administrating than creating.
This has got to change, as I have to make another film, another truly independent Scottish film, and so today, it all begins again.

What have I learned from making, competing and getting the word out about Independent film,,, well, I think it has been the most challenging thing that I have ever experience in my life, with huge highs and massive lows,,, learning to take criticism on the chin,,, and enjoying every minute of the journey.

But, the thing that disappoints me most, is how poorly 'Shooter' has done in my own country, yet it is being accepted at almost every other festival I have entered, especially in the USA. With 3 International wins, 1 Jury Nomination and 12 Official Selections, the film is doing very well, and as I said at the top of the page, if I had not pushed the film as an administrator, then this would most certainly not be the case. And as this has been done by myself for the last year, then I would call this truly Independent Scottish Film.

With more news to come soon, keep checking in

Exciting times

Yes, these are exciting times, there seems to be a lot of festivals coming in 2010, and Shooter is taking part in many of them, from Swansea Bay, Delray Beach, NewFilmakers NY, IFF Thailand and of coures The Deep Fried Film Festival, and these are the Official Selection Festivals, I am still waiting in anticipation for responses to another dozen festivals.

Yesterday I was notified by the Egypt film festival that they have had to cancel the event due to the venue being renovated, so the film was given the option of competing in next years Egypt event or choosing another festival from there list of events, and now Shooter is screening in Thailand.

Spent the day with my Mum yesterday, went for a drive and did a little shopping, good times.

Recently I have been using Facebook to involve the people I know, with the NewFilmmakers Festival site, by linking Shooters page with other FB users I have managed to keep the film in the forefront by having people visit the site, this should encourage others to view the trailer and hopefully buy tickets to the screening in NYC on the 2nd of June 2010.

A couple of days ago I was shooting a shooting scene with Peter Montgomery for his film 'The Blood', Ro Goodwin came all the way down from Invergordon to shoot about 4 seconds of footage from 2 cameras, the shots can be seen here. He did a fantastic job, even though the task was very daunting, as he had to wear an armoured plate with explosive blood packs, (squibs) on his torso. Nice job Ro. The finnished cut can be viewed at Kezadrone

NewFilmmakers Selection

Today began by saying goodbye to a very special family friend, Norman. Close friend to my father, family and me. He was cremated today at Dalnotter Crematorium. See ya big guy, I learned so much from you.

When I got back to the flat, I checked my emails, and what a surprise, 'Shooter' got selected at the NewFilmmakers Fest 2010, New York City, how exciting, so my fingers are worn down to the bone from emailing and posting, so this is the last thing I am doing for today.

Should you read this, then I urge you to click on this link, NewFilmmakers ,then search for 'Shooter', as soon as you click on it, another vote will be added, and this can be viewed in the Buzz tab.

top of the morning

Today is a good day, 'Shooter' has been given Official selection at the International Film Festival Egypt, with another 2 festivals saying that they will look at the film, I'll find out more soon.

I also got a message from Gregor Narholz, who composed the score for my film, and I sent him a copy a few days ago, hope he likes it.

And today, as I was doing the rounds on the net, looking for links and info created by other people on 'Shooter', I typed in Multi award winning shorts, and what do you know, Shooter was listed at the top of the page on Youtube and Google, what a buzz, I am so happy.

I met Kirstine King on Facebook, she introduced her self to me a few weeks ago, and I sent her the copy of 'Shooter', she had so many nice things to say about it, and she has now introduced me to a Dan Griffin, from New York, and he is doing a little research on the festivals in the USA for me, how nice is that.

The picture in this post has absolutely nothing to do with what I have been writing about, but I hope you enjoy it anyway.

More news to come later