Mallaig’s Heather closes in on top film funding award

Mallaig filmmaker Heather Manson has been making great strides in her career by achieving finalist status in The Pitch Film Fund.

Applying to the fund for the first time, Heather pitched her comedy story idea, Esther, and made it through several rounds of voting, elevating her to within the top 10 filmmakers this year with the hope of gaining The Production Award worth £35,000, when she pitches her story idea at the National Film and Television School in January.

Having attended Mallaig Primary and Mallaig High School, Heather then set off to Aberystwyth university to study film and TV.

She said: ‘I developed an interest in film at school and had some great teachers who let me wander around with a video camera in order to make a short film and shoot stills in black and white. The school had its own dark room to develop film as one of the teachers was an enthusiast.’

Known locally as ‘Raymond Manson’s daughter’, Heather also did extracurricular drama along with her peers and was able to take a play to the Edinburgh fringe one year. Now 38, Heather has spent 15 years of her career on the other side of the camera as a freelance hair and makeup artist in the film industry; she has made a few short films but feels that now is the time to start pushing filmmaking further.

The attraction of The Pitch for Heather was the top prize of production support to produce her own short film idea. Not one who enjoys producing herself, the idea of gaining that support was very appealing to her as one day she would like to move over to directing full time. Winning this award could just give her the platform