Film makers... Mon tae Glasgow!

James Bond in Glencoe

When we think of film, we often think of the glamour of LA and the massive film studios that come with it. But other countries are starting to make an impact in film. Like Scotland! We've seen World War Z filmed in Glasgow's very own George Square and James Bond's Skyfall filmed in Glencoe. 

But, to be honest, Scotland we can do so much better, if only we had the resources. I think not only Scotland but specifically Glasgow has definitely been left behind in the movie race and it's time that this should change.

Where's our Studio?!

With Glasgow specifically becoming a hot spot for recent big, blockbuster movies, it's unbelievable that we still don't have any film studios. I mean you would think this would be a given considering our unreliable weather. But, no. 

Pinewood Studios in England

This also means with the poor film production facilities in Glasgow, many media/production/film studies graduates struggle for jobs in Scotland so have to move down south in order to have a chance in the industry like to Pinewood Studios in England. So this pretty much means that we are losing out on the income and expertise of film makers as we simply don't have the facilities that they need to make a film.

However, there is a small light at the end of the tunnel! Yes, Glasgow is set to have a film studio complex due to be completed in 2017 so for people like me, who are hoping to work in the film industry, this couldn't come at a more perfect time (it happens to be the year I'm due to graduate). I'm not saying that having Glasgow film studios will stop me moving to sunny LA or London but at least I'll feel conflicted about it...


"Mon' tae Glasgae"

Eilean Donan Castle - Scotland's Western Highlands

If Glasgow can be turned into Philadelphia for World War Z, then it can be turned into... pretty much anything really. Glasgow actually has so much potential for filming like for a city, central Glasgow can be used and for old stunning architecture, places like Glasgow University could be used. So why don't we actively advertise not only Glasgow's potential but Scotland's potential! I'm not just being biased because I live here but Scotland is a beautiful country with landscapes to die for with a mixtures of lochs and amazing colours spread throughout the hills.


So Scotland, whilst you have shown that you definitely can cater to film makers needs. But Glasgow, you seem to have fallen behind the movie craze and now its time to grab film makers by the hand and show them that we can become a film capital. You can change Glasgow to look like any city in the world and we will soon have the film studios so that any movie you can think of can be filmed right here. So, why not?

C'mon tae Glasgow and we'll show you how it's done.

Upcoming Film in 2014

I am so excited for some of the film releases this year and I know you'll probably see me in some of the queues for midnight showings this year (in costume... sad, I know). So here's a few of the most (in my view) exciting releases of 2014!

1.  Divergent - Release Date: 4 April 2014

Excuse me while I fan girl in the corner... Ahhhhhhh! And compose... right, OK.

Divergent is the film I'm most looking forward to this year. Firstly, the books are amazing, and if your a hunger games fan, I can guarantee that you'll love this. I'm not even kidding, I am obsessed with it.

I'll try not to give any spoilers away. The story is that Beatrice/Tris Prior (Shailene Woodley) is living in a world that is divided into factions and once old enough the teenagers must decide whether they want to stay in their own faction or switch to a different one. Tris makes a surprising decision resulting in her having to endure a highly competitive initiation. 

But Tris has a secret, she is "Divergent", which if found out would sentence her to death. Tris then discovers a plan to destroy the Divergent and Tris, with fellow faction member Four (Theo James), has to find out what makes the Divergent so dangerous before it's too late.

Let's just hope the film is as good as the books *fingers crossed*.

 

YouTube Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sutgWjz10sM

2. X-men: Days of Future Past - Release Date: 22 May 2014

 

  Sci-fi fanatics unite. X-men: Days of Future Past is out this year and I promise I'm not just excited about it because Wolverine aka Hugh Jackman is in it. *Girlish squeal* Well maybe a wee bit.
Anyways, ahem, this instalment in the series, sees the X-men sending Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) to visit the past in order to change history so a catastrophic event can be avoided that endangers both humans and mutants. With the likes of Jennifer Lawrence, Nicholas Hoult, Ian McKellan and Glaswegian actor James McAvoy, I'm sure this movie will be a good one.
Here's the trailer, YouTube link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pK2zYHWDZKo

3. 22 Jump Street - Release Date: 6 June 2014

Hey, it may not be the best film in the world, but it gives you a good laugh. 21 Jump Street released in 2012 proved to be funnier than I thought it would be, with Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum returning to high school as undercover cops in order to stop the spread of a lethal drug. However, this time Jenko (Channing Tatum) and Schmidt (Jonah Hill) go undercover in a local college. A great combination. To be honest the plot and story are a bit same-same as the first movie but oh well. Hopefully, even though the movie is not an Oscar winning masterpiece, it will still provide a good mindless laugh to cheer you up.
Here's the trailer, YouTube link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=06rvPK8ydZo

So there you go, a couple of this years upcoming films. Fair enough they may not be the best this year, but nonetheless I'm still looking forward to them. A few other movies out this year are the Fault in our Stars, The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1, The Hobbit: There and Back Again etc. This years movie selection is looking pretty hopeful so far. If you have any movies you're looking forward to this year, then feel free to put them in the comments. :)
 

Why do I love the cinema again?

Whether you are a regular to the cinema or not, I'm sure we all have that moment where we ask ourselves if what we spend at the cinema is actually worth it. Countless times when I've went to the cinema I've been taken aback when I realise how much a three hour trip to the cinema has actually cost me. So today I'm ranting about the cinema itself and how a trip we look so forward to can turn sour as soon as we walk in the building.

1. Ticket Prices

Last year at a cinema in Glasgow, I won't use any names (*cough* Cineworld *cough*) I was happily going to see a movie with my friends before I had a student card which gets you a significant discount because we students can't afford anything. I went to the desk to buy a ticket and had to pay over £10, WHAT?! Purely because it had entered peak time by 3 minutes!

Effie in shock at the price of her cinema ticket.

It's hard not to notice this. Ticket Prices at the cinema have become extravagant.  We all feel Effie's pain (from Hunger Games - seen right) when we go to the cinema approach the ticket desk and ask for a ticket, only to be asked for an obscene amount of money. We begrudgingly pay, giving a death stare to the cashier, and leave the desk in shock  whilst staring at our ticket in disbelief, and looking/feeling a bit like this -->



2. Food

Nothing completes the cinema experience quite like cinema food, mmmmmm. The popcorn, the nachos, the sweets... I admit it, I've been prone to buying it all and not even considering how expensive it actually is.

Now that I'm a student, I've kind of realised that this amazing food is a luxury I just cannot afford. So 15 minutes before a movie you'll find me in the local Pound shop clearing the shelves. Then, I don't know if it's the same in other cinemas but I know (from experience) that Glasgow cinemas don't really appreciate people bringing in their own food, so you have to stuff all the food in your bag. Which can be difficult if your a girl and stupidly only take a tiny bag anywhere you go. Cinema foods brilliant but does it really need to cost an arm and a leg to eat a handful of popcorn!

3. What you get for your money

What do we actually get for our money? I mean obviously we're paying to actually watch a movie but apart from that, what else? Many cinemas in Glasgow are in overdue need of renovation.
One cinema I recently went to didn't have one seat in the theatre that wasn't either ripped to shreds or broken.

 Also, obviously the turnover between films has to be quick in order to allow the next set of customers in to view the film. That means a quick tidy up of the popcorn that always somehow manages to find it's way to the floor, or onto the seat I'm about to sit on. So this often leads to that embarrassing moment when you have to ask someone if you've sat on something and, yep, you've sat in nacho cheese which was left over by the previous audience. *sigh*


Don't get me wrong I love going to the cinema but the price today for a regular trip to watch a movie is unbelievably expensive. The movie going experience is genuinely quite enjoyable but a few cinemas in Glasgow I have noticed seem to be lacking, I'm in no way criticising employees, but they just seem to be loosing their spark that once was and are unsure how to regain it. I don't know if this is the same in other cinemas anywhere else but if so we could see the future of the movie going experience hanging in the balance.

Choice, Is there one?

In Glasgow there are only two main cinemas, the Glasgow Film Theatre (GFT) and Cineworld. That's it. So do we have a choice when we decide to go to the cinema. Don't get me wrong there are other cinemas in Glasgow like Odeon but this is less well known and hasn't been established as long. With Glasgow losing cinemas like the previous cinema that is now the O2 ABC (a music venue) is it only a matter of time before we lose cinema from Glasgow all together? I hope not.

Glasgow's Cineworld Multiplex.

Location

The two major cinemas in Glasgow are almost right next to each other just off of Sauchiehall street. For me these two cinemas are quite a walk away from any main train station, I mean it's not that far but it's not that close either, so this is a major disadvantage as train and bus travel are the two main means of transport to get into central Glasgow at ease.

This is especially annoying when you go to see a late night movie and don't actually live in central Glasgow. By "late night" movie I mean 8 o'clock, due to the location of the cinemas in Glasgow I need to have enough time after the movie to walk to the train station and catch the last train home. By walk I mean run, and by catch I mean miss the train completely and having to embarrassingly end the night by begging my parents to pick me up. So, yeah that kind of leaves a lasting impression running through the Glasgow streets at night and now having your friends refuse to go to the cinema if it's not during daylight... Whit?!


Choice

The GFT, the Glasgow Film Theatre

The lack of choice of cinema in Glasgow also impacts the type of movies that are shown in Glasgow. We have cineworld, a gigantic multiplex showing all the latest blockbusters and then we have the Glasgow Film Theatre, which is really appealing to a much smaller market, showing from art house films to classics to independents. 

Fair enough this means a lot of film is covered between the two cinemas but with cineworld being a kind of like a faceless organisation and the GFT really only appealing to a small market, is there no balance? Is there no in between the two where we get a mixture of film all in the one place?


So with living in Glasgow must we travel to the outskirts of the city in order to go to the cinema? The answer should be no, but with the poor location of all cinemas in Glasgow and the choice of film we'll actually see, it makes the outskirts look more and more appealing. By no means am I stomping on Glasgow's cinemas but I feel the placing and choice of cinema could be greatly improved in the future.

The Top 3 Sins of Cinema Audiences

Whilst at the cinema we all look forward and embrace the atmosphere of the whole movie going experience. However, on several occasions this has been ruined, resulting in the movie forever reminding you of that one time you were at the cinema and the big guy next to you fell asleep and continually kept falling on to your seat. So I thought I would write the top 3 sins of those who go to the cinema and ruin it for the rest of us.

  1. People eating too loudly

Without fail this happens every time I go to the cinema. It's understandable that when it's dark people may think that suddenly because people can't see them that they can't hear them, but that's not how it works! If that's not bad enough they might even sit next to you and end up hitting you with the food shrapnel. For someone that already has an issue with loud eaters, for me, this is one of the worst sins to commit whilst at the cinema.

   2. The Seat Kicker

You sit down. Feeling quite pleased with your seat selection skills. Then you see them. You don't know them but you just know where they're going to sit... yes, right behind YOU. Now that's fine until you feel a sudden pressure on the back of your seat, but it's when the movie starts and you feel two feet sitting at the top of your seat and now your going to be put through hell for the next two hours.

 You confront the person, and trust me I've done it before and it's never turned out well. Especially when your sitting quite happily in a quiet Glasgow cinema, until some child starts purposefully kicking your chair (with extreme force) so you turn around to give them "the look" and then eventually you find the courage to ask them to stop. Not realising the child's mother is five times the size of you and threatens to, I quote, "batter me" if I don't stop disturbing them during the film (Obviously I'm putting it more politely!), only to be faced with the smug look from her child and quite extreme abuse after the film. Ugh.

  3. The Talker

We've all been there, that irritating whisper you can just hear under the movie. "Shhhhh!" coming from the rest of the theatre. I was unlucky enough to have "the Talker's" sit right behind me when I went to see the hobbit last year in Glasgow. Non-stop throughout the film all I heard was shrieking and "OMG! IT'S FRODO!!!" even though it was not Frodo but in fact Bilbo (I know *facepalm*). Even though both me and my sister both, more than ten times, asked them to politely shut up, it didn't stop. I think that has to be the worst cinema experience I've ever had. Fair to say the death stares they got after that film were, well, let's just say if looks could kill.
Here is a perfect example from Scottish comedy 'Still Game' of how annoying "the talker" can be. The full YouTube clip can be found here - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9PvB8NrCRPk





So there you are, the 3 sins of cinema that I believe are the most common and the worst that we have to deal with today. 
If you have any funny stories or any sins from the cinema that I haven't mentioned, feel free to put it in the comments!