Douglas Mackinnon

The Q&A with Douglas Mackinnon was extremely interesting and he made some very interesting points. Here are my notes from the Q&A:

-National Film School

-Started in stills photography

-Hardest part of career isn’t big budget, it’s low; you have to do everything yourself

-The Story of Film by Mark Cousins

- The New Scottish Channel looking for new young filmmakers

-No experience is wasted

-You’ll go far if you can shoot, edit etc yourself; multiple roles makes you a real draw

-Sometimes you’ll just have to make things to pay the mortgage

-You will get a job if you’re mutually advantageous. It doesn’t matter what degree you have

-If there’s an actor who always plays a bad guy on River City, then maybe give them a comedy script. He’s out of your budget, but because it’s mutually advantageous, he may well make your short film

-It’s incredibly difficult and you’ll probably want to kill yourself. If you don’t love film, don’t do it; the money’s not that good

-Making things isn’t enough. You have to send them places. Take the names from credits and send your films out to people.

-Never make what you think other people will want to see. Always make what you would want to watch.

-Neil Gaiman’s CV had lots of companies he wanted to work for, but he made it look like they were people he had worked for

-Write about what you know about more than anyone else

-Seldom has any rehearsals been done in advance. On the day, clear the set of everyone except the script supervisor to rehearse before you let the crew back in

-Don’t expect the world to love you; that will never happen

-If you want to be a writer, get The Artist’s Way

-When writing a proposal, say “this will”, not “the would”

-When asking a question, say “Can you describe…?” because that way you’ll get a full answer

-If it rains and your shot is crap, nobody will say “It’s a shame it rained”, just “the shot was crap”. If you get bad ratings because there was a blockbuster on the other channel, nobody remembers the blockbuster; just your bad ratings

-Brian Cox Masterclass

-Most of the things you make shouldn’t be to make money, because they won’t