The blog that never was

This year the blog has lost its way, stuffed between the admin pressures running a business, finding new ways of promoting the company catalogue of films on Amazon, and just life that catches up with you. The last three months have been marred by a mystery problem of severe bowel pain and blood that was made by worse by eating raw rice grains at an event as far back as July. This week mid October, saw another return to hospital with blood in the toilet and severe abdominal pain.  Yet no diagnosis. More to be done to get the answers and some people will be asked questions about their conduct on the matter.

But this year has been good, because I got off to an early start by finishing the first episode of a projected TV series 12 part treatment on the heroic and bardic Irish legend Niall of the Nine Hostages. It remains to be seen by the big guys because I need a whopping big agent with muckle clout. ( Muckle is Scottish  word meaning very huge, enormous.) So here's me, asking, please go check me out for my long imdb track record here 

We will also soon be announcing the release date of the documentary called Walking With Elephants of Amazon Prime so do watch out for that. It was a mega trip to Africa by film director Robbie Moffat in 2018 that saw him get astounding footage of Elephants and a story log of the way they have been relegated to yet another dying species. It marks Palm Tree Film's entry into the extinction debate which it supports, to campaign for a change in the way pollution, plastic, petrol, and general waste of the planet resources have devastated wild life but also human life ultimately. Most people who ken me well will know the updates on the wildfire devastation, that I regularly put up on twitter to make sure no one forgets about them to create a mindfulness that we are all only a few steps away from destruction.

In line with this I'm developing a documentary about the way the consumer can avoid the substance of plastic in their households, in food creation in the kitchen to lead a life with out plastic as a method of boycotting it altogether. So we are Green Green Green. My film Going Green a fiction film about a family trying to change their life for the better without the Rat Race, can be seen on Amazon Prime here.

I also just finished writing a screenplay about the Scottish pioneer film maker Jenny Gilbertson, who made many films about the life of the Scottish Shetland Crofters as well as the community of Inuits in the Arctic of Canada. Her story is full of daring do, with her exploits filming off the Shetland cliffs, trips to the Canadian Prairies, followed her final days with the Inuits hunting Carabou, making her life a breathless travelogue of events that are laced with her own indomitable self belief that women can do things on their own. Pioneer Female Film Maker inspiring others to take up the Camera in successive generations - she was a remarkable tour de force.

So already this year has been a year of screenplays with another on the way based on the exploits of my grandfather in his adventures of World War Two.This screenplay I hope will not receive countless interruptions, illness and other catastrophy's in  the same way I have faced over the last 3 months. Here's hoping???

On top of all this I began some art projects in my 2nd year as an official contemporary Scottish artist and you can read how I became one here

Robbie is going ahead with his projects like a steam train on developing his proposed TV series on Robinson Crusoe so things are continuing there as he planned.

The highlight of the year was meeting Kiefer Sutherland in April at the Wales Comicon when we posed for a photo and I introduced myself as Myself saying Hi Im Mairi Sutherland and he said Hi Im Kiefer Sutherland, shall we do that again Ok - Im Mairi Sutherland, Im Kiefer Sutherland , so we just laughed and giggled together. Such a funny guy and in that moment I knew he understood the problems of the name Sutherland and the hassles that go along with it. Lol so sweet.

Im Mairi Sutherland - Im Kiefer Sutherland Photo

So far so good I'm not dead yet but it is no easy ride with hellish pain and fear of the next bout, but I decided to fight back and just make my own karmic revolution despite everything and everyone. Some folks dumped me on the way but those who know life is a hard journey do seem to stick with you even when things go West, because they know they will see you coming back. And on that score you stick with the people who don't give up on you and who carry on making plans regardless.

NAM MYOHO RENGE KYO

FULL SPEECH: Leonardo DiCaprio Delivers Powerful Climate Change Speech A...

Into 2019 without a blink (new up date)

Pictured Producer Mairi Sutherland at Berlin Film Festival 2018 at Check Point Charlie. A fun moment there.

Happy BELATED New Year Everyone and Happy Berlin Film Festival. I opted not to go for this years 2019, but here is some of the things that continue for this year. It is February and already with January rushing through like a train on a mission. So far so good in that some new things are on the go. Some debts were paid and other  projects micro-managed as you do when things take up attention when really you should be looking at those ones that will make money. Oh well the time to plod through it all and keep going. 

WW1 Private John Smith and a new Progress report.
The World War One film about my maternal (mum's dad) grandfather Private John Smith, Passchendaele missed its deadline to be completed by the 11th of November 2018 but with that failure, I have just had to look at the project in a different way saying to it that it will be finished when it is finished. It has been dogged with technical problems in the editing suite where lately it will just not save the correct version of the piece and so far the current editing file will not save to other drives because it says it needs a password to do that. All very strange... but par for the course with an out of date final cut pro 7 piece of software that finally seems to have given up the ghost. Now other more up dated versions are being looked at so hopefully the project can be transmigrated to the final cut 10 x system. Lets see what befalls this project but lets not give up. In way of a postscript with help from my daughter, we found the missing version of the film so we think we are back on track. Final cut has a beastly auto saver which can save hundreds of versions of edits. So I learned that it is important to use the 'save as' element and give your main edit a new name every time you work on it. Simply it is not enough to make a general save because this does not differentiate your working files from the auto save versions. It is a learning curve but now it looks as if we are back on the right train track. 

In the meantime my grandfather's book of some 200 poems is still being typed up by my brother to form a manuscript for publishing it's pages. So a painstaking process is happening.

Walking With Elephants
This project was filmed under difficult circumstances by Robbie Moffat in Africa last year with the main staging post being Botswana. He hopes it will be like a Marching With the Penguins type of film and is currently planing a voice over narration. It is in post production in London at the moment. It certainly was a Mammoth project and sadly the Elephant seems to be loosing the race which could see it extinct in the same way its ancestor became as a species that died out. Can it be stopped asks the documentary? Can a new habitat be built for the Elephant in time before it is too late? Moffat manages the dialogue and move towards an ecological observation that modern man seems hell bent on destruction no matter what befalls the Elephant in the process. The film plans to premiere at the Cannes Film Market 2019. 

I supported this project as a producer, researcher along side the marketing element of getting the project known about. 


Chopin -The Last Nocturne
Palm Tree Films continues to develop its own state of films and has turned its attention to one that has been in development for over 10 years, a script written by Robbie Moffat about the famous composer Chopin, who in his last years was forced out of the French Kings court during the second French revolution in the 1840's and found himself having to seek refuge in Britain with his fawning pupils, he was teaching and relying on their income to support himself. Sadly his adventure in Britain lead to his death, but it was nearly prevented by the aristocrat Jane Stirling who who picked up the tab and sent him on the rounds of a concert tour in the grand houses of Scotland and England. Unrequited love is the theme. 

Robbie is also reprising the character Robinson Crusoe for a TV series proposal.

My Stuff - Historical  

That would usually be enough to be kept busy but there are also my own self written projects, some which are a bit hush hush because mainly if you announce anything they get ripped off the wall before the paint has dried.

Like Private John Smith I have the serious Jenny Gilbertson Project a worthy bio pic about the pioneer film makers life, which has now had all her real life diaries added to it so for I am drawing from historical exactitude to form authentic biographical style screenplays. None of this is for the fainthearted.  It's high brow and not for those who pride themselves on a diet of thrill pill films. No apologies there. However there is one fantasy adventure series I'm developing that ticks all the boxes, its action, adventure, drama, and sex all laced up in the Celtic Legends of the 5th Century when Britain was negotiating a new way of life between Pagans and Christians - a tension that was to create Warrior Kings and Warlords. Game of Thrones hold your horses a new TV series is beating its path to your CGI, or so I hope.

2019 has many hopes, dreams. The challenge is to overcome the obstacles, take the technicalities by the horns and say politely to those holding me back excuse me thank you for your time and input, but actually the goal is over that hill and if you are standing in the way, you better move because my train is going in your direction. 

2019 get out the way here I am.
 (On postscript is as well as my film work, Im now also developing my portfolio as a visual artist.) You can read all about my film work and other projects on my website by hitting the word here  

Above my sketch based on a study of the artist Leonard Da Vinci's flower examinations as you will read on my website I have an artistic side and its decided to come out.