The Gate Worldwide creative director Pete Martin set out to make a short film about his Dad’s boyhood, growing up in depression era Glasgow, casting a small boy who couldn’t read was just the first obstacle. With just 3 days’ filming on 35mm, here’s how re-created a slice of personal – and Scottish – history.

I’d had the idea of making a wee film about my Dad’s boyhood for a while. He’d had a hard upbringing in depression era Glasgow. His mum had died, his dad turned to the drink and he was brought up almost single-handedly by his older sister, Sadie and I thought it would make a touching story people might enjoy – even those who weren’t in my own extended family.

I wondered though, where I would find a small ‘smart boy’ to play my Dad. Then I met little Harry at my mate Rob’s Christmas party. Harry is his nephew and had just squirmed and giggled his way through a party piece. But there was something about the boy – behind the shyness, a bit of charisma, maybe – that made me think he could do it.

The film weaves together two events from my Dad’s life in 1932. It’s a fairly simple tale. Most families will have similar hard-luck stories. And yet, in the typically tiny unimportant events, I hoped to give a sense of a larger pattern.

Contrary to the ‘miserablist’ view that Scottish working class life is grim, I felt that the poor don’t necessarily experience it that way. ‘The sun also shines on the poor’ was an idea I discussed with the cinematographer John ‘JB’ Brown. So, we didn’t want to make the look predictably ‘grim up North’.

The feel of the film was intentionally ‘rich’. Even so, the aim was not to be sentimental but to try to hide a harder question in the simple story. The themes of faith and fate are woven through the piece. If there is a God, he doesn’t move in mysterious ways. Events are not just arbitrary, they’re often perversely cruel. Just at the point you need a little luck, that’s the very moment you won’t get any. Even small hopes are dashed, and harsh endings seem undeserved.

“Them that’s got shall get, them that’s not shall lose, so the Bible says, and it still is news.” That’s one reason why we considered re-naming the film ‘God Bless The Child’ (after the Billie Holiday song quoted above) but we’d lived so long with Sadie’s Story it somehow felt right.

When we set out to make this film – a period drama, shot on 35mm, with a child actor who couldn’t really read… for the amount of money we had in our pockets – everyone said it couldn’t be done. It was madness to try.

And it was. But, we did it anyway.

We shot over 3 days in Glasgow and Edinburgh. The crew and cast were magnificent, and the weather wasn’t exactly kind. So, almost from the off, we were dropping shots and scenes. We got to the end of the shoot with enough stuff, more or less, to make a film.

We didn’t quite get everything we wanted, which made editing a bit tricky, but probably achieved as much as we had hoped for, and more than most expected. (It was shortlisted for the JP Short Film Awards, so we must have just about got away with it.)

Basically, a big thanks to all those who gave their time, talent and enthusiasm to make it happen. If you’d like to see a small trailer, there’s a link here.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=upRae97UHYU