FILMSPECIAL
THE LONG ANI SHORT OF I
MINUT WOND
Paul Dale visits the set of the first film to be made following The List and Metro Ecosse’s One Minute Wonder competition
Pictures: Jannica Honey
t‘s a squally summer's day in the Scottish capital. Not that the inclement weather is bothering film director Adrian Mead. who is standing in the courtyard of the Edinburgh Academy in Stockbridge with a crew of five people filming his latest opus. a one minute film. Mead. a Scouser who‘s a mountain of a man with a penchant for positivism. replies to my question of ‘how it is all going‘." with a breezy: ‘lt‘s going great. We were getting cocky and God decided to teach us a lesson. But it‘s nothing we can‘t fix. we just need to watch the continuity. be careful not to shoot the ground and look out for things like speckles on clothes.‘ ()n this working Sunday. the great Greek Doric frontage of the capital‘s second most famous public school (after Blair‘s Fettes College) is doubling up as an army barracks for Emily Munro‘s very short film 'li‘uining. the first shoot to come out of The List and production house Metro licosse‘s One Minute
16 THE LIST 19 Jul—2 Aug 2(X)7
Wonder film competition.
We received over 100 entries. which a jury of
film experts. including Mead. actress/director Alison Peebles and lilFF short film programmer Matt Lloyd. whittled down to five winning entries. Over the next month the winning scripts are to be made by acclaimed filmmakers Mead. Peebles. Ranald Neilson (brother of Anthony). Barry Paton and Brian Ross.
Training. a perplexing and opaque vision of
barrack brutality. is the first out of the stands and it's no amateur shoot. Project coordinator Metro Ecosse has brought a veritable mini city of" hardware and crew for the occasion. Tracks. cranes. canopies and a retired black labrador guide dog fill the schoolyard at the back of the complex. indoors. the school‘s old wood panelled canteen has taken on the appearance of a mess hall. Military costumes hang on costume rails. Young actors in squaddie gear sit gabbing at tables with other crew members.
It is here that I catch up with Emily Munro. the articulate young writer of the film. The process from being selected as a winner to being present at this. her first professional film shoot. has been a long but fascinating one for her. She explains: ‘lt has been interesting to see how the opaqueness of my original script has been interpreted by other people. I‘ve had meetings with Adrian and the Metro Ecosse team and we talked about making things more cyclical and clearer. so today we are working from a second script. which is a happy compromise.‘
So what. in her own words. is her film about? ‘I wanted to explore a type of military training that has implications that far outreach anything you can imagine. The film was inspired by a documentary 1 saw about Iraq that reminded me that the war is not just something that happens out there but it is also something that has reverberations here.’