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Welcome to the crowdfunding page for our new short film, "Faithful", which is currently in pre-production.
We estimate we will need around £23,000 in order to shoot and produce the full short film. And with your help, we can get as close to that as possible.
So please look at what we have on offer in return for your support, meet the team and help us bring "Faithful" to life!
What's The Story?
This heart-warming live action short film focuses on the evolution of a young Scottish girl, a mythical faerie Cú-Síth, and a little-known Scottish folktale. Vaila sets out on a dangerous mission to find the mythical Cú-Síths - dogs of the underworld who hunt and drag people through the portals of death.
Vaila blames herself for her Mum's death, and hopes to trick one of the dogs into finding her mum, and bringing her back. Coming dangerously close to death herself, Vaila manages to lure one Cù-Síth into her thrall, and with his help, must battle the rest of his pack, find the portal to the Otherworld - and make sure her dad doesn't discover her new "dog" or that she's out of bed after lights out!
Why Are You Making This Short Film?
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(Our director Lucy Linger with our Director of Photography, Ewan Stewart and actress Lily McGuire on the set of our teaser trailer. Photo by Sonja Blietschau.)
Scotland is filled with untold folklore and fairytales that are so rarely told on screen, so we would like to dive into our mythology and tell this particular story, as it deals with grief and how we evolve as people (and creatures!) throughout our lives.
We would like to take the film around the world to as many film festivals as possible, to show off our stunning scenery and showcase the fantastic cast and crew who film in Scotland.
This campaign is so important to us as it will allow us to hire a fantastic crew and shoot our teaser trailer, giving a glimpse into Vaila's world, and the Cú-Síth. We can then use that teaser to further the production of our full 15 minute short film with a larger crowdfunding campaign and match funding.
The Cast
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Vaila is 13 years old and obsessed with all things to do with Scottish folklore. Her mother would stay up all night reading all of her favourite fairytales to Vaila and the two formed the closest bond. However Vaila is struggling to come to terms with the loss her mother, convinced that it was her fault. And so, Vaila believes that if she can track down the Cù-Sìth, she can find a doorway to The Otherworld and bring her back.
Vaila will be played by Lily McGuire in our teaser!
Lily has had an interest in acting and singing since she was very young. Joining a local junior drama company when she was six years old and then at the age of eight moving into Children's Theatre, having taken part in six shows to date. This is Lily's first film role and she is delighted to be part of such an exciting production.
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We are delighted to announce that Gary Hollywood has been cast in the role of Campbell, Vaila's Dad, in our upcoming short film.
Gary is best known for his role as Dino in the BAFTA award winning series, "Mrs. Brown's Boys" and has also starred in Taggart, Take the Highroad, and The Flying Scotsman.
We are still to cast the role of Annabelle, Vaila's Mother as well as Harrison, her younger brother, Michael who will meet the Cù-Sìth at the start of our film and Angus, a kindly old man who's story is wrapped up with our fairy dog.
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Dui and Wiki will be portraying our Cù-Sìth with the help of Creature Features.
There will be a total of 3 dogs in the full short film, with our Cù-Sìth taking centre stage as Vaila attempts to reign the dog in to help her find and save her mother. Can the dog learn to evolve past its instincts to drag people to the Otherworld, or learn to love Vaila and help her on her quest?
To help bring our fairy dog to life, we will be using a mixture of live action in the form of the real life dogs, with practical and visual effects, as well as some puppetry work. A lot of work (and budget!) will go into making the Cù-Sìth come to life!
The Cù-Sìth
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The Cù-Sìth is a spectral hound from Scottish folklore that haunts the Scottish Highlands - its name essentially means Fairy Dog.
It was believed that they made their homes in rocky crevices and many accounts recall seeing glowing eyes in the shadows. The Cù-Sìth was feared due to the belief that it was a harbinger of death – much like the Grim Reaper. So while the Cat Sìth would steal the souls of the dead, the Cù-Sìth would take the soul to the afterlife. Although mostly a silent hunter the Cù-Sìth would sometimes let out three blood-curdling howls that could be heard for miles around.
Those that heard the howls would need to reach a place of safety before the third howl, or they would be overcome with fear and die from sheer terror.
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Art student Ellie Kidd will be creating the storyboards for our teaser and for our full 15 minute short film. Here is a sample of the work she has put together for the short so far.
We will be using a mixture of real live dogs with Dui and Wiki from Creature Features, with a specially created fairy dog coat, made by Emma Park, that the dogs can wear, with CGI/VFX to enhance the dogs, to make them look more magical.
When the dogs are unable to perform the actions we require, we will then use Cù-Sìth puppets in order to convince the audience that these fairy dogs are real, and very much a threat.
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We've commissioned Emma to make a full Cù-Sìth puppet head to see what shots and actions they can perform. This is the very first mould that Emma has created and we will share her progress with Behind the Scenes and Producer backers.
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We'll share videos on our YouTube channel too.
We also plan on using VFX to bring the fairy dogs to life and shadow effects. We are running lots of tests and practices to ensure we can pull this off to impress our audiences!
The Crew
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As well as our small crew, which will be made up of our director, writer/producer, director of photography, our dog wrangler, visual effects animator, sound designer, behind the scenes photographer and music composer.
We also need to hire sound recordists, set designer, costume designer, makeup artist and runners, in order to bring it all together.
Here is the crew so far:
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Lucy Linger - Our Director
Lucy is a writer/director/producer working in film, TV and theatre. Her theatre company, established in 2003, is one of the longest running fringe companies in England, and her film production company Linger Longer Films, has created several short films, which have screened at festivals in the UK, Europe and Hollywood.
Lucy says about "Faithful" - "As someone who has always loved historical fiction, folklore and fairy tales, it really struck me that I know so little of those from Scotland. Despite working and visiting Scotland often, these narratives do not seem to have had the representation they deserve. I was excited to hear more about the Cú-Síth, and bring this story to a wider audience.
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Fraser Coull - Our Writer/Producer
Fraser has been running his independent production company, Silly Wee Films, since 2005, having created the first superhero webseries in Scotland, "Night is Day" from 2005 to 2007, writing a total of 13 episodes. From 2015 to 2018 Fraser was the showrunner and one of the writers for the award winning supernatural webseries, "Cops and Monsters", which was streaming in over 60 countries on Amazon Prime.
Fraser says of "Faithful" - "It's important that we tell different stories in Scotland and celebrate our culture, history and folklore. We have a unique opportunity to do that with this short film, and I'm really excited to bring the Cú-Síth to life on the big screen!"
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Lindsay Dowell - Producer
Producer Lindsay Jenkins will be our on set producer, working with the cast and crew on the shoot to keep everything running smoothly. Lindsay has worked on our previous projects, "Night is Day: The Movie", "Cops and Monsters" and "Origins of the Laoich". Lindsay is also the creative director for Children's Theatre Bo'ness.
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Paige Smith - Set and Prop Designer
Paige will be designing our sets and props for our short film. Paige previously worked on "Origins of the Laoich" and we are delighted that she is bringing all of her passion and enthusiasm for Gaelic culture to the production.
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Sonja Blietschau - Photographer
Sonja will be our onset photographer, capturing our behind the scenes moments and producing our promotional stills for our short film. Sonja started her career back in 2010 on our first feature, "Night is Day: The Movie" and has worked with us ever since on "Cops and Monsters" and "Origins of the Laoich". Sonja has been working with the BBC in most recent months on their short films for BBC Scotland.
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Ewan Stewart - Director of Photography
Ewan will be our Director of Photography. Ewan runs Prickly Thistle Productions shooting dramatic and corporate productions for a wide variety of clients. Ewan was also our DOP for the "Origins of the Laoich" sizzle reel.
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Emma Park - Practical Effects
Emma is a special effects artist with a passion for bringing the weird and wonderful to life.
Her love for horror films and sculpting led her down a path of creating monsters and makeup effects.
Emma studied prosthetic makeup for film and TV and has been taught by leading industry professionals.
Currently working on films in Scotland and creating effects ready for set in her studio in Glasgow.
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Ellie Kidd - Storyboard Artist
Having found an interest in drawing from a young age, 16-year-old Ellie is currently studying Fine Art in college where she has the opportunity to nurture her creative talents, her passion derives from a love of mythical creatures and the combination of the real and the fantastical, this then led her to be interested in the position of storyboarding for the project ‘Faithful’ where she can work alongside a familiar face, Lucy, who she had worked with previously.
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Steve Dunster - Composer
Classically trained as a soloist and instrumentalist, Steve went on to have some 20 years experience as an award-winning conductor and has accumulated 10 years worth of IMDB credits as film composer for small productions. Ten years ago he took a break from composing whilst his family was growing up but has now returned to his passion of creating music for films.
Steve will be scoring our teaser trailer!
What We Need & What You Get
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(Concept art of Vaila's bedroom)
In order to shoot our full 15 minute short we need to raise £23,000 and for that we will be able to:
- Hire the crew including our director, producer, director of photography, set designer, costume designer, puppet creator, hair and makeup and behind the scenes photographer
- Hire Creature Features, the dog wrangling company.
- Cast the four roles in our short film
- Commission visual effects, sound design and music composition
- Hire an editor to cut the film together
- Bring Dui and Wiki to set
Raising these funds will allow us to shoot our full 15 minute short film over 3 or 4 days before taking it on a tour of festivals around the world and finding a home for it on streaming services.
The ambitious script calls for 3 Cù-Sìth dogs, actors to play Vaila, Harrison and their Mum and Dad, Annabelle and Campbell.
The Cù-Sìth is a creature from Scottish folklore, made from the Earth itself, the dog is covered in green fur, leaves and dirt, quite impressive to see. So in order to bring the dog to life, we need to use both real life dogs, puppets and CGI. All of which will cost quite a bit of money to do right.
We'll be shooting the teaser and bringing the real dogs in for camera tests, to get quotes from Emma Park for the puppet work, and to see whatever techniques she can bring practically for the dogs to transform into the Cù-Sìth. We'll also be getting quotes to create 3D realistic versions of the dogs, and mapping effects onto the real dogs, to make them appear to be these mythical and majestic creatures.
Emma has kindly sent us some mockups of how the dog could look in the film:
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The puppet work on the film would be complimented by a real life dog, as well as visual effects, all coming together to create something special, and in order to do that, we'll need funding to pay the hard working cast and crew.
Paige Smith has also sent us some mood boards for Vaila and Harrison's bedroom based on the script:
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As well as the mythical, but very much real woods in which the majority of our story will take place:
We also hope to commission a costume designer, sound designer, and some other amazing creatives to work with us and bring this story to life.
Ellie has sent us some more storyboards to help us visualise how the final film could look:
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With your help, we can make this all possible.
In return for your support we are offering:
- Executive Producer, Producer and Associate Producer credits at the end of our final film and on our "Faithful" IMDb page
- Early and private access to the completed teaser before anyone else
- Early and private access to watch the final short film before it goes live to the public
- Early access to behind the scenes videos and photos
- A chance to download a digital copy of our script
- A signed copy of our script
- Posters from our film
- Miniature Cù-Sìth models from Emma Park
- A "Thank You" on our social media and on the end credits of our film
- One-on-one directing advice from director Lucy Linger
Every donation and contribution will help us!
Risks & Challenges
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We've been making short films, web-series and features for a while now, so we hope we're resourceful enough to bring this together.
There isn't a lot of dedicated funding bodies to help filmmakers and actors fund their projects, and for the ones that are out there, it's a very competitive market. We don't know yet if people are willing to take the risk on a story as different and unique as "Faithful", but with your help and support, we can show them that there is an audience for our film.
Other Ways You Can Help
Get on social media, follow us on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook, share our posts, share the links to our crowdfunding campaign and tell everybody about our film!
The more people who know, the better the chance we have to bring it to life.