Method

Exciting News!! 🎉

We’re thrilled to announce that we’ve been selected to be part of Creative Scotland’s Crowdmatch campaign!

Here’s what this means: for every donation made, Creative Scotland will match it, effectively doubling your contribution (up to £250 per pledge).

Your generosity will help us hit our goal faster and bring this project to life. Every pound counts, and we couldn’t do this without your support. SO LET’S GO GO GO! 🚀

The project

LOGLINE: A satirical comedy about theatre kids, as earnest actor Kara gets the wrong idea when asked to participate in an interview about her job. 

Theatre kids are a pretty easy target when it comes to satire. They’re obnoxious, impassioned and overly emotional. They're filled to the brim with big dreams and self delusions. And they never stop bragging about that time they were an extra in the Harry Potter movies. 

Actress Kara is much the same. Having finally scored her first acting gig out of drama school, Kara's bursting with pride at the chance to refer to herself as "the talent" in her first professional theatre production. But when asked to participate in a behind the scenes interview about her role, Kara's eagerness to indulge in her artistry is quickly dampened, when she realises she's the only one taking her work seriously. 

Because that's the thing with creatives, we do take ourselves seriously. Maybe a little too much at times. We're obnoxious because we're excited, we're impassioned because we're inspired, and we're emotional because we've dedicated our lives to a feeling that we fell in love with as children. Because we've been raised in the pursuit of creating art that moves us, and hoping that we can move others enough to do the same. Even though in cases like Kara's, sometimes that "art" isn't always as prestigious as we hoped it would be. 

So really, “Method" is also in part a defence of the admirable, albeit annoying theatre kids. An homage to all the ones out there that grew up and decided to go after those big dreams. Because in spite of all our flaws, if creatives don’t take ourselves seriously, nobody will.

Who we are

Hello! We’re Lauren Mitchell and Catriona McNicoll, emerging artists working and living in Glasgow. Having met ten years ago, thanks to The Citizens Theatre Young Company and remaining firm friends since, over the past decade we’ve gotten the chance to watch and support one another as we nurture our own creative careers. Support which has transformed into collaboration in recent years, having forged some of our greatest successes together as an ambitious duo, with Lauren as director and Catriona as scriptwriter. 

In 2019 came our first partnership with the play “Ladies”. Originally supported by Young Scot’s Time to Shine Nurturing Talent Fund for a rehearsed reading, we were lucky enough to catch the eye of The Citz, now as storytellers rather than mere amateur actors. And so led on to our first professional production, “Adrift”. Written by Catriona and assistant directed by Lauren under the leadership of Neil Packam, Adrift went on to become a sell-out show and scoring a 4-star review from The Herald. Then, in 2022, we began developing our latest theatre piece, “Reign of the Rabbit”, which was granted early development funding from Creative Scotland, who heralded us as “promising young voices of Scottish practice”. Allowing us the chance to develop the project’s first official draft, with help from the Citz, National Theatre of Scotland and a cast of professional actors, Reign of the Rabbit is now in its second draft stage. 

Method however, is our first foray into screen as a duo, as we hope to broaden our experience into other mediums of storytelling. Though this career progression has been long in the making. Since her career’s inception, Catriona has caught the attention of, and participated in several prestige talent development schemes for screen, having been a member of BAFTA Connect, the BFI Network x BAFTA Crew, the EIFF Talent lab, as well as making the longlist for the BBC Writersroom more than once. Earlier this year, Catriona also completed production on her first short, a micro-budget production titled “The Perfect Strangers”, which stars Scottish BAFTA-winning actor Lewis Gribben. With Lauren making screen strides of her own, having entered the screen industry as a chaperone, to most recently acting as 1st AD to Cora Bissett’s feature film teaser for “What Girls Are Made Of”. 

Why we need your help 

This year, the Scottish arts industry reached its lowest point in recent memory, still reeling from the economic crisis that spawned from the pandemic. Since 2020, the British creative industry's workforce has shrunk by 30%, with more and more Scottish artists leaving the industry to pursue other careers. 

And it’s not hard to understand why. In March earlier this year, the Scottish branch of the BFI Network, Short Circuit, one of the only sources of film financing for emerging artists in Scotland, was disbanded. News that seemed to come as a surprise even to Short Circuit, who were yet to announce their 2024 slate, leaving several productions dead in the water. And with no updates for any sort of replacement for this loss, the BFI Network has left behind a black hole, where no film projects created by newer Scottish talent can currently apply for BFI funding. 

This was then shortly followed by the sudden closure of Creative Scotland’s Open Project Fund for Individuals in August, a devastating blow to Scotland’s art scene. The open project fund for individuals was a pillar for many artists living in Scotland, both established and emerging, as it afforded practitioners the time and means to explore their craft. Whether that was in the creation of something new, or to merely support themselves through further exploration. Creative Scotland was thankfully able to restore this fund after the powerful outcry that followed, but many artists and companies have been left in a precarious position, not knowing if the main funding body for Scotland can sustain itself much longer, if the Scottish government is reluctant to recognise its value. 

Which has led us to take matters into our own hands. If funding is continuously growing ever more scarce, so will the opportunities to create professional work for ourselves, as well as others we’d like to work with to make that happen. But a positive that comes from crowdfunding for a project such as this, is that it gives space for us as a team to experiment. As mentioned already, Method will be Lauren's screen debut as a director, so to be able to explore her creative style, without the pressure of time constraints and mounting deadlines, offers Lauren the greatest opportunity for her vision to flourish.  

Where the money's going to go

Annoyingly, when it comes to filmmaking, things rarely go to plan. And if we meet our original target of £4,000, then we have the opportunity to meet our stretch target of £4,500. Which would be great, but kinda leaves us up in the air a little! So at the moment, we can’t give you an exact figure for how our budget costs are going to be broken down, because we don’t currently know how much we’ll be working with. 

But what we do know is, our £4K budget is all or nothing. We cannot make the project otherwise. Good news is, if we don’t make that target, you’ll get your money back! 

But for now, let’s chat some loose numbers: 

Film production is an expensive biz, and as you can see here, production costs are going to take up most of our budget. But what do we mean by production costs? This covers everything we need to get those cameras rolling. Whether that means equipment hire, location costs, bringing on cast and crew, and even right down to the catering we’ll need to sustain ourselves during the shoot. 

The sections that will incur the least amount of expense will be our pre-production and distribution stages. Pre-production is a paperwork heavy stage, where we’ll need to secure our location, any filming permits and insurance policies, as well as bringing on vital team members such as a costume and a production designer. Whereas distribution will have three main focuses, the creation of our DCP (digital cinema package), our poster and lastly, our submission costs to UK and international film festivals. 

The other sizeable chunk of our budget will go towards post-production. This is the edit, which can often take as long as the shoot itself, or even longer! Therefore the important crew members involved in this process, such as our editor, composer, sound designer and colourist need to be compensated for their time and the invaluable equipment at their disposal. 

So when you put it all together, it’s quite a hefty chunk of money! Which is why we’re asking for your help. Help two ambitious storytellers get their first screen project together off the ground. Help two emerging filmmakers establish themselves in an industry that continuously lets them down. And with your help, two grown-up theatre kids can go on telling stories that matter to us, and in doing so, can hopefully make them matter to a whole lot more people. 

But before we go, we just want to give you a massive thank you for reading. And if you can spare the cash, please donate what you can, and we'd love it if you could help us spread the word! 

Thanks a million,

Lauren and Catriona x