The storyteller
FOR LOCAL AUTHOR SCOT MCPHIE, THERE’S NOTHING MORE SATISFYING THAN SEEING ONE OF HIS ORIGINAL PROJECTS COME TO LIFE.
Actor, director, author and producer — to say Scot Mcphie has the creative gene coursing through his veins is a classic understatement. This man was born to entertain. Whether he’s performing sketch comedy, setting up the perfect camera angle or banging out ream after ream of fanciful prose, the 51-year-old is most at home when he’s telling a story.
And it’s an artistic and imaginative environment that he absolutely loves.
Originally born in Georgetown, Malaysia, Scot now calls the Toowoomba region home — living on a small farm near Hampton with wife Jenny and four children.
The rural setting is the perfect retreat for Scot to indulge his creative yearnings — a limitless passion he has relished ever since taking his ‘only full-time job’ as stage manager at Crazies Comedy Restaurant (in Brisbane) in the late 1980s.
“In the early 2000s, my wife and I decided we’d like one parent home full-time with our young family, so I gave away my regular job at the Qld Museum and became a stay-at-home dad,” Scot recalls.
“The time I spent with the children in their young phases was very important, and I think they’re better for it — and I know I am too. I’d always been interested in film-making though and started to get into that around this time too.”
Scot’s new book is a work of speculative science fiction set about 300 years into the future where there are no men left on Earth (they were intentionally outbred by women who got sick of all the mistreatment). It centres on what happens when a young couple gets pregnant, but the baby turns out to be a male.
The idea came to him at a party years ago when someone said, “one day, women won’t need men and we’ll be superfluous”.
“It got me thinking,” Scot said. “So, in the book, I’m using the premise as a way to examine gender relationships and examine the role of men, not just women. I won’t say what happens, but it’s got a very emotional ending and I think it just flows and reads really well, as well as hopefully making some good points about treating each other decently.”
Creative minds don’t stay idle for long and Scot is already powering along on his latest project.
“I’m right into my new novel now about a guy who loses his job to a robot and then gets a grudge against them — and one develops a grudge against him.
“There’s plenty of comic potential, but I’m going to steer clear of that as it really is a tragedy, and one which I think is just around the corner with the combination of AI and robotics that’s developing now,” he said.
As much as Scot loves compiling his literary works, film-making has always been his main passion.
“It’s just an instinctive love, I guess,” he muses.
“I think visually and I just love the atmospherics of film. Films are very, very hard things to make well — you need a lot of people in a lot of places over extended periods of time and it’s hard when you don’t have big budgets.
“When I started, I was always of the opinion that it’s better to just go and make it yourself rather than wait for someone to give you permission. And so, my early projects were all independent and low-budget, but a great learning vehicle.
“But there’s only so much of that you can do, and so now I’ve got two TV projects optioned by a well-established producer in Melbourne and we’re seeking financing in Australia and overseas for
‘‘ Since the year 2000, I’ve produced and directed three independent feature films, and have published two novels with the second one, Female Planet - just coming out this month.”
them at the moment,” he said.
Scot is currently in the ‘closing stages’ of his latest feature film Honeysuckle
Way, a confronting and emotional story about a Year 12 school girl in Brisbane who gets raped by her mother’s boyfriend and winds up living on the streets.
“We shot in late 2016 and early 2017 and the film follows her story as she struggles to deal with what’s happening in her life. It has a very sombre, but uplifting ending.
“Over the years, I’ve had a few friends confide in me that they were raped,” Scot reveals.
“These were just statements that came out of the blue and I wasn’t expecting them, and were very upsetting for my friends.
“I felt a bit powerless actually, and that all I could do was listen and sympathise with them - and I think this film has really grown out of that.
“I wanted to say and show that it’s not their fault, but how they handle it is their responsibility; and as much as the situation is unfair and you feel desperately sorry for them, eventually they have to take control of their life and their destiny.
“I guess the central theme of the film is if you want a meaningful life, you have to live it meaningfully – and that is about the way you approach life, not what happens to you,” he said.
Scot said he was extremely impressed with how his actors and crew responded to the subject matter.
“Everyone who came on board loved what it was about – either things to do with their character or what the film was saying,” he said.
“And there are a couple of very horrible characters in the story, but those actors were happy to play them because of what the film, as a whole, was saying – and that to me is real commitment and art.”
SCOT’S BOOK FEMALE PLANET IS BEING PUBLISHED THROUGH AMAZON AS BOTH AN EBOOK AND PAPERBACK. AND CAN BE PURCHASED ONLINE OR AT THE BOOK TREE (IN RUTHVEN STREET), AND THE STATE LIBRARY OF QUEENSLAND BOOKSHOP IN BRISBANE. FOR MORE INFORMATION SEE HIS WEB PAGE AT WWW.MANGO-A-GOGO.COM