Creative Edinburgh Awards & Boat: The Graphic Novels

Happy New Year!

With 2017 out of the way one of the big stand outs of last year was getting the third volume of Boat: The Graphic novels finished and out into the world. We received great feedback on the book and shortly after the release we found out the series was shortlisted for the 'CITY' award at the Edinburgh Creative Awards. (www.creative-edinburgh.com)

The ‘CITY’ award is for an outstanding creative contribution or activity that has promoted Edinburgh nationally or indeed, internationally, or work that has incorporated or utilised an Edinburgh city space or cultural idea specific to the city.

If you are new to Boat it is set in a flooded dystopian Edinburgh and some of its iconic landmarks are still visible above waves most notably Edinburgh castle, Scot Monument and the Jenners building. We try to include many elements of the city throughout our story and we are hoping to reveal some more familiar locations in the next two volumes. 

Below are some of the panels (Artwork Marc Olivent) from the book that showcases Edinburgh in all its flooded glory.

Here is some more info on the category and the shortlisted projects: 

“Hidden Door Festival have been shortlisted for their standout 2017 edition in Leith Theatre, GRAS Studio have been recognised for their work on the successful bid to redesign the Ross Bandstand and West Princes Street Gardens, the ‘Boat’ Graphic Novel Series set in a post-apocalyptic flooded Edinburgh have been recognised for its best-seller in Edinburgh status, Fisk have made the shortlist for their Edinburgh New Town inspired furniture designs. Tech incubator CodeBase have been recognised for their contribution to the city’s creative industries and Open Close Collective are shortlisted for their innovative collabrative exhibition that reimagined Old Town closes.”

Unfortunately we didn’t win the award but congratulations go to the great team at CODEBASE who took the prize on the night. It would have been great to win but to be included in the category alongside such a strong selection of projects and teams was a big honour for us. 

We want to send a BIG thanks again to Creative Edinburgh for the nomination and also for everyone that has supported the books over the last year. We are really excited about continuing to showcase the city in our story. 

For more information on the series go to the following links: 

facebook.com/Boatgraphicnovels/

Boatthefilm.com

Or you can purchase the books at our ONLINE SHOP! 

D

European Genre Forum (Feature film Development)

Our future project OUT THERE was selected to be part of the European Genre Forum for development. The EGF selects 8 features and develops the projects by way of masterclasses, workshops and script feedback sessions. The three stages of the forum take place in Amsterdam at the Imagine Film Festival, Croatia for the Zagreb Film Festival then finishing up at Black Nights Film Festival in Tallinn.

Director & Writer (Ronnie Mackintosh) 

We got a chance to meet all the other teams and hear about their projects, all at different ages of development. 

Here is a list of the projects that were selected: 

Hum – Parsley Productions (United Kingdom)
The Leprechauns – Causeway Pictures Ltd (United Kingdom)
Mindscape – Bruno Isaac (Portugal)
Out There – Blue Iris Films (United Kingdom)
Striguni – Ziva Productions (Croatia) 

Family Dinner – Capra Films (Austria)
Thaw – Demeter Films (Spain)
The Woolgatherer’s Store – Fast & Loose Productions

The first stage was in April in Amsterdam and was excellent, we received great feedback for our pitch and the script doctor sessions with script advisor Chris Mitchell were very beneficial. We also had some excellent events, workshops and screenings particularly the documentary 78/52then the talk by the films director Alexandre Philippe, that was one of my favourites alongside the costume retrospective by Lindy Hemming it was amazing to get insight into her process in creating costumes/ design for films like my beautiful laundrette and the dark knight. It was rounded off by a very cool chat with director Martin Koolhoven who discussed his career and his recent feature film Brimstone. 

If you haven’t been to The Eye in Amsterdam, it’s definitely worth visiting, it’s a special building with great screenings and exhibitions… it also has a shop that sells loads of film stuff. 

The Eye! 

Next stop is Zagreb… 

For more information on the Forum click the HERE

Boat Volume 3: Blood in the Water

The latest instalment in the Boat series is OUT NOW! Blood in the Water (Volume 3) has been in the works for a while now and we were lucky enough to receive funding from Creative Scotland's Open Project Fund (LINK) to make it all happen. 

The team of Mark Olivent (art), Andrei Staruiala (letters/design), Amir Zand (Cover) & Me (Writer) are back again to continue the story. The funding has allowed us to be more ambitious with the third book, it's a longer page count and it allows me to really expand the story. It is definitely the most challenging instalment in terms of narrative as it's the longest comic book i have ever written (rubber underpants on standby), the previous volumes both come in at 41 pages, Blood in the Water is clocking in at 70 pages. 

The previous volumes have received some great reviews and feedback from fans at comic conventions, more recently on Volume 2 from Dom at Geek-retreat. (LINK)

‘Boat Volume 2 is almost masterful in its execution. Bolstered by a super team, the book shines from start to finish’. – Dom Kelly (Geek-Retreat)

 Here is the official synopsis... 

The rules for an outsider in No Land are about to be enforced… and Charlie is the outsider. 

As more of his past is revealed, could the well and what lurks beneath the castle finally offer an end to his pain?

Against orders Gwyn is on a personal mission of revenge and with Evie in tow their actions could unleash hell upon the city.

Blood in the Water is the third instalment of the critically acclaimed Boat series. 

So that's that! For more information on the book go to our brand new Facebook page!  (LINK)

We are all really excited to share the finished book with you. A very big thanks to the peeps at Creative Scotland for getting behind the book, we couldn't have made it without your support. 

If you haven't caught up on Volume 1 & 2 fret not! You can get them from MY COMIC SHOP (LINK) or at BlackWells & Forbidden Planet in Edinburgh. 

Thanks 

D

Boat & Bafta!

Anthony Devine won Best Design at the Scottish Bafta New Talent Awards for his excellent work on Boat!

It was a great night and it was amazing to see Anthony  get recognition for his matte paintings on the film.

You can see Anthony talking about his work on the film in this clip- 

Boat behind the scenes video

The category of Design was new to the Bafta New Talent awards this year and we were honoured to have been among the other nominees.

Making the walk to the podium. 

I met Anthony by chance many years ago when i was looking for a matte painter to work on Boat. I was clicking through endless profiles on a site called CGsociety, most of the work featured were from international artists. I was desperate to work with someone in Scotland or at the very least within the UK.

I bookmarked an image that that struck a chord with me, it was called The New World (You can see why i was interested!)  

After nervously clicking on his bio i was shocked to see the artist was based in Stirling. Luckily Anthony was interested in working on the project and he brought so much creativity to the project and it was fantastic to see him receive his award from Bafta.

We had many talented individuals on the film and i wish everyone could get recognition for their hard work and long hours. Boat was a big effort from many people and as Anthony said on the podium 'this is for all the team'. 

Thanks to all at the Scottish Baftas for a great night. We had horrendous smiley hangovers at work the next day! It was worth it. 

Thanks for reading

D

Boat Premier! GSFF 2015!

I am very pleased to announce that Boat will have it's premier at the Glasgow Short Film Festival 2015!!

The very cool people at the GSFF have selected it to be screened in competition during the festival.

Boat will screen in the

Scottish Competition 1: Parenthood at 21.15 on Thursday 12 March 

at CCA, 350 Sauchiehall Street, Glasgow G2 3JD.

I am really pleased to premier the film in Glasgow, I always wanted it to be screened in Scotland first. 

I hope you can all make it along and see the film!

For more info on the GSFF 2015 go to-

http://www.glasgowfilm.org/gsff

Boat finished and off to sea... Well, off to Festivals.

The Final VFX shot has been rendered and sent through by David Meikle in Canada, Final grade care of Gavin Livingstone and the mix has been completed at Canongate studios!  We are very happy to say Boat has been completed!

It has been quite a journey but we have finished the film and we are all happy with the final result, we want to thank all the crew and funders for all their hard work and support, the film couldn't have been made without all of your help and patience!

So with 14 mins 26 seconds of post apocalyptic drama we are getting it prepped, packaged and sent out to Festivals.

We will keep you all posted with it's progress!

In the meantime go to boatthefilm.com for more information. 

Thanks again everyone,

DL