The Inaccessible Blog

The making of Seachd: Part 4 - On Skye, where else?

It seems obvious that a film set on the Isle of Skye ought to be filmed on the Isle of Skye, but often the limitations of budget, requirements of funders and time constraints mean that more accessible places ought to be chosen in the name of professional caution and common sense.  In this case, since professional caution and common sense would have meant that the first Scottish Gaelic feature film would never have been made, the Isle of Skye was the only place that Seachd could have been filmed.

When Simon Miller first sent the story outline for the short film, Foighidinn - The Crimson Snowdrop, to Christopher Young via email, he had no idea that that email was going to be read on the Isle of Skye, where Foighdinn and Seachd's producer lives.  In fact, when Chris told Simon that he wanted to produce, there were two provisos.  First, that the film must be in only Gaelic and that no alternative English version ought to be filmed.  Second, that the locations for the film must be found within 20 minutes of Chris' house next to the Gaelic College in Sleat, South Skye.  Simon agreed, although it quickly became clear that Chris and Simon were of a like mind over one particular exception - that they would carry the camera equipment up to the Inaccessible Pinnacle on top of Sgurr Dearg in the Cuillin mountains to film in the location described in the script - something that had never been attempted before.

Since the short film was shot entirely on the Isle of Skye, it was obvious that the feature must be and even before the script was finished locations were being sought across the island (stretching a little bit beyond the 20 minute limit of the short film).

Seachd - The Inaccessible Pinnacle features the telling of four of Grandfather's incredible stories set in different time periods.  There was absolutely no possibility of affording to build sets for the film.  Every location would need to be found and used as is, except for set dressing.  The outside locations were challenging to say the least:- A beach belonging to a small island in the 16th Century with a cave in which two characters could live; Moorland and extended beach on which to hold a Highland pony race; An abandoned croft and black-house which could be reconstructed and subsequently burned down; A 19th Century marketplace in which a travelling magician could perform; An large, old and grand Skye house with many rooms for Grandfather's house; and various mountainous locations (with greater or lesser degrees of danger) up which teams of camera equipment sherpa's could ascend without undue risk to life and limb.

As it turned out, after filming Foighidinn on Skye, Simon had constructed many of the scenes with specific locations in mind and, along with Stephen Burt, Gordon Location Manager and with Calum, Iain, and Christina (the Gaelic-speaking Co-Directors) virtually every location was found within 20 minutes of Chris's house.

At ach na cloich a beach was found with a cave just right for two 16th Century oddballs.  At Breakish (near to the old Isle of Skye airport runway) the moorland and beach were found were Highland ponies could safely run a race.  At Kilmuir an old black-house was found that could be thatched temporarily by John (who had actually been the thatcher on Braveheart) - and whilst the views of it were restricted by over-head cables, the local fire brigade could gain access so it could actually be burned down.  In the end, Grandfather's house was constructed from 3 different houses - the exterior in South Sleat, the panelled room and kitchen within Chris Young's next door neighbour's house and the bedrooms and hallways and Ceilidh room on the road to Elgol from Broadford.

One of the greatest challenges was to find a location for the travelling magician's show.  In the original script, the show was supposed to be a private performance of the Duke of Sutherland in his opulent castle.  Breaking the Isle of Skye rule, the most obvious location was Eileen Donan castle on the mainland (very recognisably used in Highlander and James Bond) and it seemed obvious that the central (and opulent) hall was the ideal location - already decked out with furniture from the period.  Of course, low budget film-making hardly ever runs as smoothly as that and neither the offered shooting hours (two consecutive through-the-night shoots) nor the cost (far beyond the budget of our film) could be fitted swallowed and so - well into the shoot - the location and script simply had to change.  In the end Simon hurriedly re-imagined the scene as taking place in a out-ruled Highland market place and found the location for it in an old steadings opposite his shoot home.  Both Stephen Burt (Production Manager) and Laurel Wear (Production Design) needed a little persuasion but with an incredible effort from all the crew, the location was cleared, made safe, lit and a sudden requirement for 19th extras met within just a few days and a newly written scene (finished just two nights before the shoot) was shot virtually without a hitch (apart from a few lost chickens) - although by the skin of our teeth.

Skye is one of the most beautiful islands in the world, with some of the most dramatic mountains and cliffs, ancient woodland, sandy beaches and enormous variety of landscape.  The film was shot mostly in May and June, certainly the best months from the perspective of weather with - in the end - only two days effected by rain (one of the horse race days was washed out, and the crew made a emergency high speed trip back from Loch Coruisk by rib boat when a storm threatened to keep them there for the night).  The meanbh-chuileag (midges) were - of course - a menace in all of the woodland and near water locations, but Stephen Burt, our production manager, had cleverly provided all cast and crew with a Skye welcome pack which included a attractive piece of head gear called a "midgy net" and Avon skin-so-soft, a moisturising cream known to deflect the bites of midges.

With the film shot on HD (High Definition digital video), it was easier to be able to catch the incredibly changes of light and weather that happen in moments on the island.  At weekends, Ian Dodds (Director of Photography) and Simon were able to travel the island, following the good weather and the dramatic landscape to secure a large amount of footage of simply the island itself.  On one particular evening, around 11:00 at night (it never gets very dark at night in Skye in the summer months since it's so far north), the sky started to light up in incredible reds and pinks.  Ian and Simon, who lived together during the shoot, raced out to Elgol to shoot across a couple of hours the most incredible sunset across the Cuillin mountains - footage of which appears in the film.  Of course, they were eaten incessantly by legions of midges, but that's all in a day's work when you film in the Hebrides.

In this series:

The making of Seachd - Part 1: In the beginning
The making of Seachd - Part 2: And then there were seven
The making of Seachd - Part 3: Seachd seachd (7) drafts

http://www.seachd.com

The making of Seachd: Part 3 - Seachd's seachd (7) drafts

Development funding for Seachd was to come from BBC Alba and the Gaelic Media Service, but an example of how the short film might be extended was required first, and whilst Simon and Jo set about outlining more stories for grandfather to tell his grandchildren, Chris and Simon had an idea that would change the project fundamentally.

Whilst grandfather had been seen telling a story to his Grandchildren in the short film, the majority of that film concerned the story itself and little was actually known about the lives of the grandfather or grandchildren.  In was becoming clear that a longer project would not work with the same balance since whilst the stories themselves would have to be as good as the one told in the short film, their impact could only be felt on grandfather and his grandchildren if they had real lives and real concerns that the stories could address - and, in any event, Chris and Simon really wanted to make a film that represented modern day Gaeldom from which characters could reach into Gaeldom's deep historical roots.

What that meant, they thought, was that at least one of the seven stories would not be a story told be grandfather at all - rather it would show grandfather and his grandchildren in the modern world.  And so, the first two additional stories that were written after the short film were the story of the "Half-Child" and a story that wrapped up the meaning of all the stories, but was set in the modern day.  Both were written in early 2006 with Simon and Jo working with Iseabail T NicDhòmhnaill to forge Gaelic scripts and (luckily) BBC Alba and the Gaelic Media Service were sold after reading them.  As it would happen, interestingly, the "Half-Child" story would not make it into the final draft of the film and the significance of the end of the film would also change considerably over the next few months - but it was a start.

The next task was to find further Gaelic writers as collaborators for the script.  Iseabail T NicDhòmhnaill was already a member of the team and BBC Alba would help to find two more collaborators.  The most obvious choice was Aonghas Macneacail, one of Scotland's foremost poets, who had worked previously on the short film with Simon.  Fortunately, Aonghas was available and joined the team.  The final member of the team was found in Iain F. MacLeòid, a dynamic young writer and playwright who is writer in residence at Sabhal Mòr Ostaig, the Gaelic college on Skye.

So, Simon and Jo set to work on outlining and writing the remainder of grandfather's stories, each of which would be developed into a Gaelic script with a different Gaelic writer.  Iseabaill would work on the story of Akira Gunn, set in the 19th Century, Iain would work on the story of a Gaelic clansman exiled to a remote Scottish island in the 16th Century and Aonghas Macneacail would work on the story of the water-horse set in the 1920s.

Over the course of the next two months, each of the stories began to take shape and all the writers met on Skye and in Glasgow along with Chris Young , Ishbel Maclennan from BBC Alba and Gilleasbuig Fearghasdan (Script editor) to discuss and improve each of the stories.  One particularly memorable evening on Skye saw the team watching the rare British 1945 portmanteau "horror" film Dead of Night in which characters each tell stories of supernatural occurences in their lives - an early example of a film collaboration between several directors and several writers.  A film that would supply to Iain F. MacLeòid one of the key ideas that would make his story of the Spaniard and the Gael work.

As each of the stories altered and improved with ideas from all sides and Iseabaill, Aonghas and Iain worked their magic (in particular, Iseabaill's spell incantation within Akira Gunn, Aonghas' shape-shifting water-horse, and Iain's black pudding jokes) it was becoming more and more clear that the story of the grandchildren and their grandfather needed to be even more compelling that the stories themselves (which was beginning to look like quite a difficult task).  It was also becoming clear that the whilst the original project was designed as a series of 7 short films that would be edited together to form a feature film, but could also be shown by themselves - the necessity of finding a compelling over-arching story for the grandchildren and grandfather meant that the stories were becoming increasingly interlinked and entwined in a way that the project might only make sense in feature length form.

What that meant, of course, was that "Seachd - The Inaccessible Pinnacle" had become a feature film somewhat by accident, but given that it would be the first first ever designed for the cinema, the smiles on everyone's faces indicated that no one was complaining.

In all, the script would go through 7 (Seachd!) drafts before shooting - all in a matter of months - but the film's story wouldn't stop changing there - although that's another tale...

In this series:

The making of Seachd - Part 1: In the beginning
The making of Seachd - Part 2: And then there were seven

http://www.seachd.com

The making of Seachd - Part 2: And then there were Seven

After the success of the short film, Foighidinn - The Crimson Snowdrop, the producer Christopher Young and the director Simon Miller, really wanted to find a way of making a Scottish Gaelic feature film.  It certainly seemed to be the right time to attempt to raise the money, but what kind of film should it be?

Of course, there is an expectation that a Scottish Gaelic film might be set in the past since it was most widely spoken in the early middle ages, but with 60,000 speakers of Scottish Gaelic across the Highlands and Islands of Scotland, neither Simon or Chris wanted to make a film that would ignore the present day Gaelic community which is so vibrant and so strong.

Ideas sometimes come from the strangest sources, but in this case the kernel of the idea came from a mum.  Simon's mum who said:  "Well, you've made one of the virtues (Foighidinn means "patrience" in Gaelic), why don't you make the other six?"

And from that kernel came the idea that the story-telling grandfather from Foighidinn should be revived and given more stories to tell to his grandchildren enlightening them about the seven Gaelic virtues.  In Gaelic the word for the number 7 is Seachd - a number which has enormous resonance in Gaelic story-telling culture.  And so the project had a working title, which we haven't bettered to this day!

In this series:

The making of Seachd - Part 1: In the beginning

http://www.seachd.com

The making of Seachd - Part 1: In the beginning

Before Seachd was the short film, Foighidinn, and before that there was just a simple story.

Simon Miller and Jo Cockwell's very first idea was to write a story told directly to camera by a story-telling Grandfather - a short film idea aimed at giving the audience the feeling of being told a story in the first person.

That film idea would never be made, but as the story of the Crimson Snowdrop took shape what became clear was that any film of the story would have to be in Scottish Gaelic.  Whilst the story of the Crimson Snowdrop was a folk or fairy tale, the writers had been careful to ensure that the people, places, history and even the medicine of the story were real and since it became set in 12th Century Scotland on the Isle of Skye, then the film also had to be in Gaelic.

As luck would have it, Simon's first short film (Dead Man Falls) featured Gerda Stevenson whose husband, Aonghas Macneacail, is one of Scotland's finest Gaelic poets.  At the wrap party, Simon plucked up courage to ask Aonghas whether he would read the tale of the Crimson Snowdrop and help turn it into a truly Scottish Gaelic folk tale.  He agreed and within a couple of weeks they had created the first true draft of the story which was then called The Eldest Son of Leving of Levingstoun!

Simon sent The Eldest Son of Leving of Levingstoun  to Christopher Young, not only one of Scotland's leading film producers, but a producer who speaks Scottish Gaelic and lives on the Isle of Skye where the story is set.

Chris quickly agreed to produce (it turned out he had been looking for a Gaelic film project for some time) and within a few weeks the BBC Alba and the new Gaelic Media Service were on board followed by Scottish Screen just a couple of months later.

The film was shot in 2004 on the Isle of Skye with Aonghas Pàdraig Caimbeul, another leading Scottish Gaelic writer and poet, as the story-telling grandfather who would catch his three grandchildren trying to steal their Christmas presents early and tell them the story of the Crimson Snowdrop as a lesson in patience.  The film's title became Foighidinn: The Crimson Snowdrop ("foighidinn" is Gaelic for "patience") and it premiered on BBC TV in 2005 before screening at film festivals around the world including the Los Angeles International Short Film Festival, the Hamptons International Film Festival, the Hawaii International Film Festival, the Rhode Island International Film Festival, the Celtic Film and Television Festival and the European Minority Film Festival and winning the Bermuda International Film Festival in 2005.

Aonghas Pàdraig Caimbeul went on to play the grandfather in Seachd: The Inaccessible Pinnacle but the short film plays an even more important role in the creation of the feature film that developed from it because the footage of the telling of the Crimson Snowdrop story was edited into Seachd and it is the first story we hear the grandfather tell to his grandchildren, who were recast for the feature film.

Here are a couple of stills from Foighidinn: The Crimson Snowdrop, beautifully shot in anamorphic 35mm by Simon Dennis and featuring three different child actors as the grandchildren: Uilleam Hannah, Fiann MacLeòid and Raonaid NicLeòid (Fiann and Raonaid are the brother and sister of Annie NicLeòid who plays Akira Gunn in the feature film).

Aonghas Pàdraig Caimbeul as a rather younger looking grandfather

Raonaid NicLeòid, Fiann MacLeòid  and Uilleam Hannah as the grandchildren

Aonghas MacDhòmhnaill as the Eldest Son