Glasgow Film Festival

The Glasgow Film Festival is made up of "fests within the fests" most notably

• Short Film Festival
• Youth Film Festival
• Frightfest

The festival has only been running since 2005, making it one of the newest in the UK and certainly in Scotland with the Edinburgh International Film Festival running since 1947! Usually, the Edinburgh festival brought some of its films to the Glasgow Film Theatre and CineWorld, but since the beginning of the GFF, it no longer does.

This year's festival ran from the 16th-26th of February and was one of the most successful they've ever had, with almost 35,000 admissions, a massive increase from the beginnings when only 6,000 attended! The appeal for the Glasgow Film Festival is that it's a very youth-oriented crowd who go; tickets are cheap and there's certainly no longing for a celebrity culture as it is mostly young actors and film fanatics who attend. Obviously the festival is in some competition with the Edinburgh Film Festival as it will constantly be compared to it, but since Edinburgh's now runs in August, there is no direct competition for ticket sales.

The Guardian described it perfectly when writing about last year's festival:

"It's GFF's fundamentally un-Edinburghian attitude that has proved the key to its success. EIFF has always wanted to impress the big boys in London and across Europe, seeing itself as a draw for A-listers and industry power-brokers. Glasgow's is a punter-friendly festival that aims to put local film fans at the heart of its concerns. Tickets are cheap, screenings are open to anyone and there are a good number of free, community-based events."

Even last year the EIFF's director James Mullighan declared they were "doing away with red carpets, awards and juries" and updating the festival, most likely a reaction to the emergence and success of the Glasgow Festival. Edinburgh, being an International film festival has had a fair amount of big films premiere there such as "Little Miss Sunshine", "The Hurt Locker" and "Let the Right One In" and this does give them a slight advantage but it's something that only time can give to the Glasgow Film Festival. Edinburgh's has been running since 1947 and has obviously had massive success, but the GFF seems to be major competition for the capital city, and only time will tell if it can finally overtake Edinburgh as Scotland's best, and most recognised, film festival.

Get Your Zombie On!

This weekend Glasgow is home to a mass of zombies, victims and survivors with 2.8 Hours Later hitting the city! 2.8 hours later is an interactive zombie game and is coming to Glasgow not once this year, but twice, due to popular demand. The game is loosely based on the 2002 Danny Boyle film, "28 Days Later", based on a deserted Londoner running from the "infected"; a group of people who are, essentially, zombies. The film's plot parallels with the game : your aim is to find survivors and avoid being infected by the zombies roaming your city.

Previously only running in England, the company behind 2.8 Hours Later decided to expand and our very own Glasgow was voted the place where people most wanted the game! It's running from the 28th March- 31st and is even returning on the 5th April for another 3 nights because the first games sold out so quickly!

On Wednesday night, the starting position was even at Glasgow Caledonian University and from there masses of people, dressed up in zombie gear or not ran across the city. You play in teams of 6 or 8 and your final aim is to get to "Resistance HQ" using only a map and signs hidden across the city, but before you do you have to find pockets of survivors who are hidden around the city, all with a story to tell. Locations used in other cities include shopping malls, which would be particularly terrifying when empty at night and Glasgow's Buchanan Galleries would probably be perfect for it! The creators of the game have also said all the old Victorian architecture in Glasgow sets the city up for a perfect zombie apocalyptic world!

If you are "caught" by zombies in the game you are tagged, but keep on playing, meaning the fun doesn't stop if you're caught too quickly. When you finally reach Resistance HQ, you are then scanned to see if you are infected, even if you had been caught by a zombie,you may not be infected so it keeps up the suspense. If you have fallen ill to the zombie disease you can, if you agree, be made up like a zombie and still get to go to the disco at the end! Zombies and survivors alike all join the disco where a burger, beer and entry are all included in the ticket price and everyone can relax.

The game is coming at just right the time to Glasgow; after the excitement over World War Z in summer it seems like zombies are the next big thing. It looks incredibly terrifying and although you would need a fair bit of stamina for it, seems like something the majority of people could do! Tickets are £28 which seem steep at first, but it includes a whole nights entertainment and a burger and a beer back at Resistance HQ! For anyone playing, good luck!

Check out the official site for your tickets and an incredibly scary trailer here

James McAvoy

Even though it probably doesn't seem that way, there are an abundance of actors who have made their way in the film industry outside Scotland, who hail from Glasgow and its surroundings. Gerard Butler, Robert Carlyle and Robbie Coltrane have been in some massive films such as Trainspotting and (obviously) Harry Potter for Coltrane but Gerard Butler has more frequently been in Hollywood movies such as The Ugly Truth, P.S I Love You, The Bounty Hunter, Law Abiding Citizen and Gamer... clearly the Americans love him! But, one Glaswegian actor who I think will probably turn out to be the most promising is James McAvoy.

Born in Drumchapel, Glasgow, McAvoy is a born and bred Glaswegian and his acting career began with a talk at school from David Hayman, another Scottish actor, which got him interested in acting. Hayman offered a then 16 year old McAvoy a part in his film "The Near Room". After this, he joined a youth theatre group and applied for both the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama, as well as the Royal Navy. He was accepted to both and, lucky for us, chose to attend RSAMD, the highly prestigious drama school in the city. During his time there he was in a few small movies and TV episodes before moving to London in 2000. He appeared as a tiny role in HBO's mini series "Band of Brothers" and steadily worked his way up; starring in the Chronicles of Narnia as half man/half deer Mr Tumnus before playing the lead role in 2006's "The Last King of Scotland". It was his first big role and he proved to be very promising indeed. Since then he's filmed with Angelina Jolie in "Wanted", Keira Knightley in "Atonement" and was even in "X-Men: First Class".

Mr Tumnus in "The Chronicles of Narnia"

"The Last King of Scotland" was the first time he was able to use his own Scottish accent; before that he had been English or American and in an interview with comingsoon.net McAvoy certainly has a strong opinion on the opportunities for actors in Scotland:


"I cannot deny that was I not able to do whatever accents I'm required to do, I wouldn't have had a tenth of the career that I've had. There's just not enough work out there for Scottish actors. There's hardly any work out there for Scottish actors. And people go, "Yeah, but come on, there's Ewan McGregor and Dougray Scott and Gerard Butler," but that's four people, guys. There's 5 million Scottish people, and there's probably about 300,000 Scottish actors."


He goes on to say that he has always been good with accents but clearly believes there needs to be more opportunities for Scottish actors.It's true that sometimes all actors are required to change their accents, even if they are English or American but the fact that 12 years into his career was the first time McAvoy played a lead role with his own accent, is slightly shocking. That either means not enough Scottish films are being made or that there isn't a lot of room for Scottish actors. It seems wrong that all the promising young Scottish students currently attending RSAMD, just like McAvoy did all those years ago, will eventually either be forced into English/American accents or just won't find jobs. And yes, maybe there just aren't enough Scottish roles written into films, or maybe people struggle to understand the accent but it seems sad that someone like James McAvoy who so greatly represents young Glasgow actors, will probably be best known for roles in which he is English. 


So why are there so few big Scottish actors? Either it's in direct relation to our small (by England/American standards) population or these actors simply aren't good enough. In my opinion, the fact that the majority of Glaswegian actors left the city to pursue their acting career,in London or America, sums up the film opportunities for young people in Glasgow just now. Why should they have to leave their country to find acting opportunities? Although it's a small country, it's full of culture and with the Glasgow film scene seeming to come back to life over the past few months with Hollywood films coming our way, this should be the right time for young Scottish actors.

Cineworld and the GFT

Glasgow is a city with a good variety of cinemas,  both independent and big chains meaning all film fans are well catered for and two of its most famous cinemas are Cineworld and the GFT.

The UGC opened in 2001 but was taken over by Cineworld in 2005 and is now known mostly by that name. Situated on Renfrew Street, it was in the Guinness Book of Records as the world's tallest cinema and was also the UK's busiest cinema, based on admissions, in 2003. With 18 screens and 12 stories the cinema holds 4,300 people and shows mostly blockbuster films. With a bar on level 1 and sweet and popcorn stands on every few levels, the cinema is well set out. As in my previous entry, I discussed how Cineworld was the first cinema in the UK to play host to D-Box seats, i.e. 4D cinema. They show a lot of 3D films as well and although the prices are quite steep; at peak times an adult 3D ticket could cost around £10, the cinema is always busy. The cinema is a bit of a landmark in the city and if you're looking for the latest Hollywood film, it's just the place for you.

In complete contrast to Cineworld, the Glasgow Film Theatre is an independent cinema with only two screens. Located on Rose Street, the cinema opened in 1939 as the "Cosmo" cinema. The Scottish Film Council bought the cinema in 1973 and it reopened the next year as the Glasgow Film Theatre, or GFT. It shows art house movies, foreign films, documentaries and late night screenings of cult films and although Cineworld is only a few streets away, it's usually different film fans who frequent the GFT. I've only ever been there to see Back to the Future, one of their cult films late on a Friday night, and the cinema was fairly busy. The staff at the cinema volunteer and the theatre even has its own "Cafe Cosmo" which is highly praised. They host films from the Italian Film Festival as well as Glasgow International Festival of Visual Art.

4D cinema?

So, apparently the next big thing in cinema is 4D and we Glaswegian's are amongst some of the first in the UK to experience it in our very own Cineworld. The "4D Experience" is being introduced in 30 cinemas in Britain but Cineworld Glasgow, the busiest cinema in the UK,  is the very first of these to test out the special seats called "D-BOX". The general idea is that the seats replicate the movements you're seeing in the film such as a car chase, action sequence or explosions. 4D is essentially just a 3D movie with added physical effects or movements in the cinema such as vibration, sway, tilt, drop, wave motion or movement in any direction and although only 35 seats have been installed in the cinema just now, their creators think they could further develop it. The work on the 4D seats is all done post-production and separately from the film itself and every single frame and image needs to have a movement or texture to go with it, so creating the 4D experience for a film can take as long as 200 to 600 hours.

However, with 3D already expensive enough at about £8.90 a ticket, the D-BOX seats add another £5.50 to this, bringing it to £14.40... for one ticket. I, personally, am not a fan of 3D. I've seen a few movies, including Alice in Wonderland,  in 3D and for me it didn't add anything to the movie and I actually enjoyed that film more in regular 2D. The only time I've ever experienced 4D is in the Shrek ride in Universal Theme Park, Florida! You got sprayed with water when Donkey sneezed and air blew onto the back of your legs to create a spider effect and although I did really enjoy that ride and the tilting and moving chairs that came with it, it lasted for 12 minutes. I cannot imagine being thrown around for nearly 2 hours and enjoying every single minute of it. Although I will enjoy watching people in these seats attempting to grab some popcorn or a drink while being thrown from side to side.  The seats however, do have individual controls so you can turn your own movement up, down or off completely and the Cineworld staff seem keen to point out that no-one has been sick on the 4D chairs. Yet.

However, the vice president of operations at Cineworld believes 4D will be a success and says 4D is "another evolution" of cinema. But wouldn't it only work for certain films? For example, your average rom-com with Jennifer Aniston isn't exactly going to have a lot of opportunities to use a dropping, tilting motion but obviously big action movies such as the new Disney epic John Carter, which is what the D-BOX seats in Cineworld were used for, will have a fair amount of leeway for motion and movement.  One of the employees for D-BOX told The Guardian that "We are trying to reflect everything you would feel in real life without crossing that line of being like a theme park ride. "We are trying to get a mix between motion and emotion." I'm not sure if I see how you can convey emotion by vibrating chairs  and swaying your audience about but, since I've yet to try the 4D experience, I'll wait until then, and my next payday, to make up my mind.

This is the video Cineworld use on their website to promote D-BOX so we'll just need to wait and see if you really can "Live the Action".

Secret Cinema

"The fact is that we're in a state of overload continuously, telling everyone everything – either on Twitter or on Facebook. We have created something here where we don't tell people anything and there is something in that – it works." Fabien Riggall, creator of Secret Cinema

The tagline for Secret cinema is on pretty much everything they do, "Tell no one". The concept is that instead of simply going to the cinema, watching the movie and leaving without really feeling any sense of involvement, Secret Cinema provides you with an entire experience, from as soon as you buy your tickets, to interacting with "characters" from the film, and watching the film itself. The idea is that, once signed up, you receive emails or letters that are all highly secretive, telling you what your costume should be and where you should meet. You receive a number of clues as to what film you'll be seeing and on the night, the location of the screening is turned into scenes from the film. Participants are encouraged to fully engage themselves in the experience,and sometimes have "missions" to complete before the screening! There are actors playing characters from the film and a lot of people's reviews I've read say that everyone gets so into it that it's hard to tell who is an actor and who is the audience. A couple of examples I found was of the classic 80s film "The Lost Boys" which Future Cinema, a separate branch of Secret Cinema put on in London.

Grandpa's house!

David the vampire

Canary Wharf/Santa Carla

(I found all these photos on a review of the event here and there are more reviews of other Secret Cinema events there.)


Future cinema turned Canary Wharf into Santa Carla for the weekend, complete with the carnival, boardwalk, vampires lair and "Grandpa's" house. Over 8000 people took part, 100 actors performed and it took over 79 tonnes of sand to make the California beach. For people who love film, this would be the perfect event, problem is, Future Cinema doesn't run in Glasgow. For a city with massive cinemas like Cineworld and the IMAX cinema, as well as the Glasgow Film Theatre and The Grosvernor, why would something like Future Cinema not do well here? I hardly think it would be for lack of an audience; the amount of media students alone in the city centre who would love this would be plenty and it would also generate jobs and experience, especially for media students like myself.


Secret Cinema, the main difference from Future Cinema being that the films are kept secret until the last minute, even did a screening in Kabul, Afghanistan in December, simultaneously with a London screening. The company also wants to expand to New York, Paris and Berlin. So why not Glasgow?! It would make for a totally different way of watching film and instead of just spending a few hours in a cinema, it's a whole experience that you would never forget. For a city like Glasgow that's so full of culture, it's pretty disappointing that it isn't even on the radar for Future/Secret Cinema. Glasgow does have a varied film scene, but as far as I've experienced, nothing like this.


"Secret Cinema is a growing community of all that love cinema, and experiencing the unknown. Secret audience. Secret film. Secret locations. Secret worlds. The time is now to change how we watch films."

World War Z

2011 was a big year for film in Glasgow and the fact that not only Brad Pitt himself came to shoot a movie here in August, but so did Halle Berry with “Cloud Atlas” a film also starring Tom Hanks and Susan Sarandon. I found the fact that these films chose to shoot in Glasgow, although surprising to me, really brilliant for the city and for myself as an avid celebrity follower. "World War Z" transformed Glasgow into a post-apocalyptic Philadelphia and I ventured into George Square, mostly to see Mr. Pitt, but also to see the amazing changes that took place! Here are a couple of photos I snapped from my (not-so-high-tech) phone!

The amount of attention to detail that went into the set design was amazing, they even had old-school American newspaper machines and in my opinion, George Square looks a whole lot better like this!  

Everyone was pretty fascinated with these zombies!

  




The film also hired 100 extras to act as zombies in the film, not only creating job opportunities but involving Glasgow’s citizens directly in the film, rather than just using our streets and buildings. Here's a pretty cool video I found on YouTube, solely of the extras.

The American sets and staged car crashes brought tourists into the city centre every day of the shoot which would obviously be a positive for local shops and businesses and the leader of Glasgow council Gordon Matheson suggests that, from filmmaking in the city alone in the past decade, over £150 million has come into the Glasgow economy. In my opinion, this can only be a good thing but apparently others felt differently during the World War Z shoot.
The city council received complaints from taxi drivers about traffic diversions and from commuters about extended journeys. Although these are valid and admittedly annoying things to deal with, should they really stand in the way of further possible films shoots in Glasgow? I definitely think the pros far outweigh the cons, and Glasgow is developing a reputation for shooting films, as the co-producer of “Cloud Atlas” Grant Hill said “Once a film goes somewhere and has a good experience, word gets round”. Apparently the World War Z team was highly impressed with how co-operative Glasgow City Council was, and this is exactly what film crews are looking for- a location to suit their needs but also the ability to shut off streets and to be able to create whatever set they can.

In the same Guardian article as above, they wrote that a local Glasgow writer claimed the whole thing was sad because, "We used to be a city that made things, and exported them. Now we are a raddled old drag queen, dressing up in someone else's clothes". The fact is, Scotland and Britain as a whole aren't as self-sufficient as they used to be, and the majority of films we go to see in the cinema nowadays are big-budget American movies. Why complain about Glasgow being given the opportunity to do something and be involved in something like World War Z? Times have changed and if this is all Glasgow is good for, I think we should cling onto it and not let it go!  These shoots are needed for the Scottish economy and tourism, but mostly just for the film culture in Glasgow itself. It got people excited about making films; it no doubt encouraged people with an interest in set design to pursue a career in film production and to me, that’s really exciting. He may have caused a few traffic jams, and yeah maybe some dedicated university students were late for a lecture, but in my opinion, last summer Brad Pitt definitely brought the film scene back to life in Glasgow.