THE INTERACTIVE FILM MAGAZINE
.tv
The best advice I ever got was in 1999, when Lord Attenborough suggested a job as a film critic. At that point, I’d just had my first short made by the BBC, entitled First It’s Dark, and imagined the jump from shorts to features might take a matter of months.
Ten years later, after working as a script doctor for features like David Mackenzie’s debut The Last Great Wilderness, the eco-thriller Dark Nature finally gave me my first experience of steering a feature film from an initial idea to a commercial release and distribution deal. Dark Natue tells the story of a family holiday gone wrong, with Imogen Toner and Vanya Eadie as a mother and daughter who find their family bonds tested when they come under attack by an unseen force.
I’d taken the idea to a local production company, Glasgow’s Mandragora productions, and director Marc de Launay agreed to take the reins. We raised our £100,000 budget privately, and got assistance from Mark Geddes and his team at South West Screen for a month-long shoot in Dumfries and Galloway in October 2008.
Ten years of reviewing films for BBC Scotland, Metro, The List and various other publications had given me plenty of time to work out the pitfalls of low-budget productions.
Journalist and author Eddie Harrison tells of his ‘poacher-turned-gamekeeper’ experience with his first feature proper, Dark Nature
Behind the camera
ECO-
We created what we considered
to be a saleable, genre film, and
once we’d completed the film,
Cineworld generously agreed to give
us a limited release, and Troma
Entertainment in New York superseded our previous deal by taking worldwide responsibility for sales and distribution. All in all, the process had taken less than two years. But I’ve got no intentions of giving up the day job just yet; as all film journalists know, the chance to see the next great movie (and get paid for it) is too good a chance to pass up …
to be a saleable, genre film, and
once we’d completed the film,
Cineworld generously agreed to give
us a limited release, and Troma
Entertainment in New York superseded our previous deal by taking worldwide responsibility for sales and distribution. All in all, the process had taken less than two years. But I’ve got no intentions of giving up the day job just yet; as all film journalists know, the chance to see the next great movie (and get paid for it) is too good a chance to pass up …
• Eddie Harrison is a freelance writer based in Scotland, who contributes to film journalism in The List, Metro, The Herald, The Scotsman, and the BBC. You can find more details of Dark Nature, including the trailer, at www.darknature.net
Radio/Waves
Keeping it local
Jan Gilbert
When Frank Gillard, former BBC war correspondent and future Director of Radio, visited America in the 1950s, he was impressed by the country's local radio stations and the way they spoke “to listeners as a familiar friend and neighbour”. Inspired by his findings, he wanted the BBC to launch a similar service.
Fast forward to 1967 and Gillard's vision was realised as BBC local radio was born, starting in Leicester, Sheffield, and Merseyside. He didn't want “amplified juke boxes”, but “modern radio journalism” which would provide “a running serial of local life in all its aspects, involving a multitude of local voices; what one might call the people's radio”.
Scoot forward 44 years and although local radio sounds rather different than in 1967, its essence remains the same: responding to the local community and covering local stories. And that's why it's great to be able to bring listeners closer to the world of film.
We're lucky in Cambridgeshire as there's lots of activity film-wise including the Cambridge Film Festival, which attracts a mix of art-house and big-budget films along with visiting filmmakers. We also have our fair share of live Q&A events, whether with former Cambridge students such as Stephen Poliakoff and Julien Temple, or filmmakers from further afield like Armando Iannucci, Stephen Woolley, and Bruce Weber.
Cambridge University provides us with lots of filmic connections, from Julian Fellowes, through Iain Softley and Nick Hornby, to Nick Jones, the producer of Nativity! And listeners always love hearing their Cambridge reminiscences along with news of their latest movie.
Of course, they also want to hear from Hollywood stars, so we bring them the likes of Sandra Bullock or George Clooney as well – Cambridgeshire connection or not.
But wherever there's a link that brings actors and directors closer to listeners' lives, we make it!
