Movies You Made: “Graders”
For several months, I’ve been tagging a bunch of emails from filmmakers who have contacted me about their film projects, so I figured we should feature them this May. If you have a movie, either short-form or long, with which you were involved — writer, actor, director — please either email me or post details in comments. Happy to promote them on GITS.
Today we feature the full-length feature film Graders, written and directed by David Hutchison. Background from David:
Hi Scott,
I live in Edinburgh , Scotland so feel pretty far from Hollywood but your GITS newsletter keeps to me up to date and I especially enjoy the interviews you do with writers.
I wrote/directed Graders, my first feature in 2011 and it was taken on by Striped Entertainment in New York last year.
It’s a chiller about a Polish artist searching for her missing busker sister in the Scottish Highlands.
I was inspired by giallo films (a wax brain and a guitar plectrum feature as instruments of revenge), The Wicker Man and producer Val Lewton.
I was brought up in a musical family so the soundtrack features an eclectic mix of music from a gaelic Dr Who song to opera, electronic, polish and hungarian folk.
I was also the producer and editor… so many hats to keep the costs down (we made it for the price of a second hand car)…. I built up the team mostly by making lots of short zero budget films
[Go here to see those films.]
Here is the movie’s trailer:
Ania played by Joanna Kaczynska was in Neds by Peter Mullan. She has a beautiful voice as does fellow actor Agnieszka Bresler playing her sister Celina.
The factory owner Mrs Graham played by Janet De Vigne was the german tourist in Slumdog Millionaire. I’ve just finished a sci-fi short with Janet where she sings opera with the Edinburgh Chamber Orchestra.
Everyone had other jobs so we did it over weekends and holidays over four months. Had to cancel a few times because of blizzards.
The crew was built up of friends who I’ve worked with on shorts over past few years, mainly J Daniel Pacey who’s a great cinematographer and A.D Lindsay McGee… Lindsay and I met on the MA in Screenwriting at Screen Academy Scotland in 2010.
My aunt Marlene MacKenzie wrote the theme song Return to Me, my mother wrote and performed three fiddle tunes. Wullie Buchan ( from punk band The Exploited) did several songs as did Edinburgh band The Great Insanity and Eilidh MacKenzie did a Dr Who inspired song in Gaelic.
The other main actor Greg Drysdale, who I’ve worked with on many shorts. Although he plays a serious role in Graders he does a comedy one-man show at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival as alter-ego Roland the Trainspotter.
At the moment I’m writing my second feature script Baobhan Sith, a comedy horror that I hope to start shooting in the autumn.
I tweet as @davidwhutchison
Keep up the great newsletter, a wonderful source of inspiration.
Thanks, David, and good luck with your films and everyone involved with them.
Again if you have a film project you have been involved with and would like me to promote it on GITS, and I can embed it, email me or post details in comments.
May is Movies You Made month. Let’s celebrate your cinematic creativity!