Licence to Distill

It’s been a busy few months for our client Isle of Arran distillers. Firstly, we produced a James Bond style social media ad with master distiller James MacTaggart to promote a new blend. And then we documented the opening of the company’s jaw-droppingly beautiful new distillery at Lagg at the south end of the island.

Be sure to check it out if you’re visiting Arran. For more info about Lagg distillery visit

Orphans Reunited

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Loved editing this doc with director Jack Archer from Hopscotch Films.

Twenty years ago, Peter Mullan’s film Orphans shocked and wowed audiences around the world. This funny and poignant documentary reunites the cast as they remember the film that changed their lives.

Peter Mullan is famous for being an actor, director and writer. He has had roles in the iconic Scottish films of the 1990s and is now in much demand in America. Orphans was his first feature film, and he filmed it in the Southside of Glasgow, around the streets he grew up. Peter takes us on a tour of his Govanhill and Pollokshields, to show us the alleyways were he filmed his short films and the locations for Orphans. He tells us about the films that inspired him to ‘create his own world, based on the people I saw around me’.

Bringing the orphans back together again, actors Douglas Henshall, Gary Lewis, Stephen McCole and Rosemarie Stevenson reminisce over an exciting time for their careers and the impact the film has had on their lives. The ambitious film is a time capsule of the Scottish filmmaking scene, and even the smaller roles are brimming with talent. Alex Norton is the angriest barman ever witnessed on screen, Frank Gallagher is a dodgy crook, in a role that paved the way for River City’s defining gangster, Lenny.

Darkly comedic and painfully poignant, Orphans is now regarded as a cult classic of European cinema. It cemented Peter Mullan’s career as a writer-director and also helped its cast and crew on their roads to success. Twenty years on it’s time to revisit this audacious classic of Scottish and world cinema.

Two Award Noms for Feature Doc

Amazing news as Glasgow, Love and Apartheid is nominated for two prestigious film and television awards – 2019 RTS Scotland Award in the category ‘Documentary & Specialist Factual’ and 2019 Celtic Media Festival for ‘Best History Doc.’ Big congrats to Director Dhivya Kate Chetty and the team at Hopscotch Films. It was a pleasure to be part of such a beautiful project.

Glasgow, Love And Apartheid

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Kirkcudbright Artists Remembered

For more than 100 years artists and craftspeople have lived and worked in the small harbour town of Kirkcudbright in Dumfries and Galloway. It began when the celebrated painter E.A. Hornel established an artists’ colony and it became known as the artists’ town.

Today that identity still exists and artists and craftspeople continue to inhabit the town. Through the voices of local people this film explores the impact of the arts on a small community, what it is like to live amongst artists and how that experience can shape a town’s future.

Produced for the Artists Remembered project and the Kirkcudbright Galleries.

Hate Crime. Report it to Stop it.

In collaboration with SMARTS Communicate and the Scottish Government we produced a trilogy of case studies portraying three different experiences of hate crime.

Police Scotland takes hate crime very seriously. In the last year there were over 5,300 charges of hate crime reported to the Procurator Fiscal in Scotland. However, there are many more incidents that go unreported. We all have a responsibility to report hate crime if we witness it – it’s the only way we can challenge it, and put an end to it for good.

Hate crime can be verbal or physical and has hugely damaging effects on the victims, their families and communities.It comes in many forms and examples, including:

Race (e.g. threatened because of where they are from or the colour of their skin)
Religion (e.g. have abuse shouted at them because of their beliefs or religious dress)
Sexual orientation (e.g. tormented because they’re holding hands with another person of the same gender)
Transgender identity (e.g. humiliated, intimidated or threatened online for being transgender)
Disability (e.g. attacked because they are disabled)

Support the campaign and use #ReportHate on social media to help put an end to hate crime in Scotland. For more info visit

Glasgow, Love & Apartheid

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In the year of Nelson Mandela’s centenary, Glasgow, Love and Apartheid is the story of one family’s fight against apartheid from Scotland and South Africa. Director, Dhivya Kate Chetty, follows her parents – a mixed, and once ‘illegal’, couple – on a trip back to South Africa where the family stories begin to unfold – protests, an uncle in jail, an ANC arms cache, a doctor on the run and a surprise connection with Mandela in hiding. Illustrated with vivid super 8 shot by both grandfather and father, this intimate documentary is a tale of migration, resistance and reconciliation from South Africa to Scotland with love.

This world premiere marks the 25th anniversary of Mandela’s historic visit to Glasgow.

Screening as part of Black History Month.

First Minister reflects on Dr Elsie Ingles

First Minister Nicola Sturgeon reflects on the amazing work and legacy of Dr Elsie Inglis and the Scottish Women’s Hospitals movement ahead of commemorations at St Giles Cathedral, Edinburgh on 29 November 2017.

Qualifying in 1892, Scotswoman Dr Elsie Inglis was one of the country’s first female doctors. A solid supporter of the suffrage movement, when war broke out in 1914, she saw an opportunity for women to play their part and prove they could be as gifted and valuable as men.

WW100 – A journey of remembrance

In April and May 1917 more than 18,000 Scottish soldiers died at the Battle of Arras in Northern France. 100 years on, 72 students from across Scotland came together to remember.

Working alongside SMARTS communicate we travelled with students (15-17 year olds) and teachers to Belgium and France to visit the battlefields of WW1. The aim of the trip was to commemorate the fallen and capture the students’ experience.

WW100 Scotland aims to inform people about Scotland’s unique contribution to World War One and help them discover the effects of the war on their local communities and its lasting impact on life in Scotland today. The commemorations, which mark the 100th anniversary of the war, are a chance to remember the sacrifices made and reflect on what we can, and should, learn from the war which was meant to end all wars.

World Premiere ‘The End of the Game’

World Premiere 20, 21 February at Glasgow Film Festival 2017. Book tickets here

An entertaining, provocative documentary in which director David Graham Scott puts himself in the firing line as he befriends big game hunter Guy Wallace. An unrepentant relic of the colonial era, Wallace has been a soldier, mercenary and tracker. He now lives in splendid isolation on the Caithness moors but has one remaining ambition – to return to Africa and kill a Cape Buffalo. Scott is vegan but accompanies Wallace in a film that explores the ethical issues around hunting and the unlikely bond that develops between two men.

Director: David Graham Scott
Producer: John Archer
Editor: James Alcock
Original Music: Matthew Whiteside