The Courier & Advertiser (Perth and Perthshire Edition)
DOING it for REEL
Bringing Courier Country to the big screen
It’s a Wednesday morning in The Royal Arch pub, Broughty Ferry, and there’s a moody, smoke-like haze in the air.
Two men sit quietly, engrossed in their morning newspapers. Another is propping up the bar, staring into space. Then suddenly, one of the readers – a younger man, dressed in a casual green jumper and black overcoat – looks up and, staring directly into the movie camera that’s gliding towards him on specially constructed runners, announces: “You can find all sorts of stories anywhere. But if I want the real stories, I read them, in black and white, right here.”
He taps his copy of The Courier. There’s a pause. Then...
“That’s lovely – great,” declares Bafta award-winning movie director Martin Smith, who has been intently scrutinising the cinematography from the side and keeping out of shot along with the producer, make-up artist and other members of the film crew.
Lovely and great it may be but perfect was more what he had in mind – and we are about to discover what a long, laborious process film-making can be.
“Ok, starting positions again. Can you straighten your back a bit more this time please?” Martin asks lead actor Max Raskin.
German-born cameraman Julian Schwanitz resets the camera, soundman Cammy Mercer adjusts his headphones and stylist Zoe Radcliffe moves in to quickly brush down Max’s collar ahead of the next take.
The extras seated in the background laugh as one of them jokes he needs another pint and the whole scene unfolds again.
Welcome to the set of For the Real Stories – a new commercial for The Courier which was released across 49 cinema screens in Tayside and Fife and on STV last weekend and filmed against a backdrop of Courier Country landmarks.
Over two days in May, a 30-strong cast and crew attached to Edinburgh-based Greenroom Films shot at carefully selected sites throughout Dundee and Tayside, including a city centre restaurant, a Broughty Ferry chip shop and waste land off the Kingsway.
One scene has Max gazing at an artfully-constructed shoe in the window of the Prego boutique in Broughty Ferry.
The fancy footwear was created by prop man Fred Macmillan from artefacts he sourced in a charity shop as a nod to the city’s creativity and fastmoving fashionistas.
The dramatic cliffs near Arbroath were chosen for a memorable scene, in which Jack ponders the 600 billion discarded plastic bottles said to be floating in the oceans, while a winding road through a Perthshire glen proved the ideal metaphor for a riff about today’s political climate.
Hours of potential footage was shot over the two days and then edited down to create a one-minute advert for cinemas and a 30-second commercial for TV.
At the helm of the project was Glasgow-born freelance film director Martin, 44, who won a Scottish BAFTA in 2006 for his gritty short film Tracks – a coming of age drama about a youngster who kills his brother’s cat – and has made a series of high-profile documentaries.
His vision this time was to show how The Courier, which celebrated its 200th anniversary and won UK regional newspaper of the year in 2016, can still be relied upon to cut to the heart of the real stories in this era of so-called “fake news”.
“Ultimately, it’s all about Courier journalism and how special it is to read and get the real story,” he explains between takes.
“It’s about covering all the elements – the serious news but also the funny things too, in a slightly playful way.”
The Courier catches up with Max,
Ultimately, it’s all about Courier journalism and how special it is to read and get the real story
33, as filming gets under way for a restaurant scene at 172 The Caird in Dundee’s Nethergate.
With the crew running to a strict schedule before the venue opens to the public for real later that morning, the bar has been transformed into a makeshift dressing room while the camera and lighting crews set up their equipment around a dining table.
Glasgow-based Max, who was in the pilot episode of Game of Thrones as a Lannister guard and played a zombie in World War Z, juggles agency acting with life as a part-time DJ.
For The Courier commercial he plays everyman “Jack” (although audiences aren’t told the character’s name). It’s his first lead feature role and he’s hopeful it will open more doors.
“I’ve only got five lines and don’t know much about Jack other than he’s a nice guy,” he says.
“It can vary from job to job. Sometimes you don’t get much notice that you are needed on set after you apply for a job. It’s quite exciting.”
Sean Duncan, 21, originally from Kinghorn, Fife, and now based in Glasgow, was signed up as an extra through the Real People casting agency.
He has appeared in River City and has taken annual leave from his day job as a quantity surveyor to spend the day sitting in the background of the restaurant.
“For me it’s a bit of fun,” he says. “It’s advisable to have done some drama courses but I don’t have any formal training.”
Nearby, Gillian Ball, 23, from Edinburgh is preparing the makeup and hair of Clare Martin, 34, also from Edinburgh, who plays the part of Max’s girlfriend.
“What I love about these sets is that everyone has their own jobs behind the scenes then everyone comes together to make it happen,” says Gillian. “There’s a real buzz.”
Clare, an actress, musician and yoga teacher whose granny lives in Dundee, admits she knows very little about her role either – but that’s par for the course in a business when there’s often just a few days’ notice between casting and getting down to work.
“There is a grand plan but we just don’t know it,” she laughs.
The filming schedule has the air of a madcap road movie, with the players buzzing around in convoy between four locations each day, spending just a couple of hours at each.
Then there’s the feeding of cast and crew to be arranged, the wrath of parking wardens to be avoided and all those other unglamorous, behind-thescenes tasks to be taken care of.
It’s an entertainment in itself for the locals involved in the project.
Murray Angus and his wife Anna own Murray’s chip shop in Broughty Ferry and were approached by the film company some time ago after their premises were spotted by location scouts.
They look on in amusement as the production crew use chalk paint to write a temporary chippy menu on their window while the camera positions are set up.
Murray will tell you his wife’s first choice to play him in a movie would actually be George Clooney but it’s bearded and heavily tattooed agency actor Dave Dixon, 48, from Edinburgh, who is taking his place behind the frier for the purposes of this scene.
Dave, a former New York investment banker, who works as a full-time blues musician and model, is a newcomer to acting roles.
He was sitting in Harvey Nichols’ bar in Edinburgh one afternoon about 18 months ago when he was approached by a representative from a modelling agency, who asked if he’d like to star in beard and grooming adverts.
Today he’s playing an “ex-rock n’roll chip shop owner with a shady past”.
“It’s an adventure for me as well,” he grins.
As preparations get under way to film the next scene, George Barr, who set up Greenroom Films 15 years ago following a career in advertising, is monitoring a small screen to search the frame for unwanted reflections, copyrighted paintings and any unwanted extras inadvertently protruding from the lead actors’ heads.
Anamorphic lenses will give the shots that cinemascope look, he explains. At £100,000 a time, they are state-of-theart stuff but there’s nothing second rate about the ambition of the team here.
The film industry in Scotland is quite buoyant at the moment, says George, and he is hopeful a studio can be developed north of the border soon.
For now though, it’s the dawn of digital technology that is helping to broaden creative horizons.
“It’s certainly made it easier to make films up here,” he explains. “We used to shoot on 16mm or 35mm film but there were no labs in Scotland.
“We had one of the first digital cameras of this type in the UK, meaning we could do everything here, which is a major benefit.”