Scottish filmmaker and head of SHINING EXAMPLE FILMS, Andy Stewart is currently crowdfunding his next short film, REDACTED, with Laurence R. Harvey and Tristan Risk starring. Having made a splash on the festival scene with his body-horror trilogy DYSMORPHIA, SPLIT and INK, anticipation for this film is high. We caught up with him to find out more…
STARBURST: What’s Redacted all about?
Andy Stewart: I made the decision to take a (brief) step away from body horror. I felt I was in danger of becoming predictable and wanted to do something a little more fun… almost. It’s the story of a man who happens upon a humanoid creature while on a hike in the woods. The creature is distressed and anxious and the man tries to help. So they strike up this brief partnership until it all goes wrong…
How did you manage to get Laurence and Tristan on board? I assume it’s because they’re such great supporters of indie film?
That, and, Tristan had been on the short film jury at the inaugural Rio Grind Film Festival in Vancouver in 2012. I had my first film Dysmorphia in the line-up and it caused a guy to faint! Tristan had got in touch to tell me about it and since then, we had talked on and off about working with one another. So, when we decided to go ahead with this project, I ran it by her and she jumped at the role! I think the character plays quite nicely into her dance and performance background and gives Tristan a chance to play the kind of character she has wanted to play for a while.
It became pretty clear, pretty quickly upon reading the script that we had to get Laurence on board to play the Man. The script seems pretty much written for him. I had a little bit of help from Tristan in getting Laurence on board. She made the introductions and whatnot. Fortunately, Laurence had caught Split and Ink at Celluloid Screams, liked the script and the rest was easy.
How do you feel about using crowdfunding? It does seem to have broken down the barrier between artist and audience…
Truthfully, I find it really difficult and stressful. There’s a lot that rests upon running a strong, successful campaign. We have used crowdfunding in the past to varying levels of success and it’s always a long, difficult month with no guarantees but this one seems to be going pretty well so far, which is amazing. I’m always gobsmacked to get so much assistance from people!
You have a fundraiser set up in Glasgow too, what can you tell us about that?
Yeah, we are running an additional fundraising/thank you night, a few days after the campaign ends. We have music, prizes, giveaways and will be pouring our own specially brewed, limited edition red IPA, Shining Examp-ale, on the night. Very exciting! We will also be screening some short films: Jill Sixx Gevargizian’s Call Girl, which also stars Tristan & Laurence, Adam Stephen Kelly’s Done In, Damon Rickard and Alex Mathieson’s The Tour, my own film Ink and two of the best short films I have seen in some time, Fredrik S Hana’s Autumn Harvest and Ben Steiner’s The Stomach. It’s only £3 to get in but anyone who contributes gets in for free. Should be a good night!
The REDACTED fundraiser takes place at Drury Street Bar & Kitchen, Glasgow on Thurs 5th March from 7pm.
You can find out more and get involved with the fundraising by heading to the Indiegogo page. Check out REDACTED on Facebook, and follow SHINING EXAMPLE FILMS on Twitter and Facebook.
Watch Andy’s first short, DYSMORPHIA below:
