Electric Dreams: David Barras on a new low-budget Edinburgh film

As Edinburgh International Film Festival shifts its focus towards first and second-time filmmakers, there has been a collective call to encourage others to get out and make movies, regardless of financial circumstances.

Edinburgh-based director David Barras heard Shane Meadows' call to action loud and clear at last year's festival and, inspired by Meadows' and Mark Herbert's low budget filmmaking venture Le Donk, quickly began to develop a script with his co-writer Scott Mackay. Frustrated by his lack of progress in trying to get the script produced through the BBC and other channels, David struck out on his own with a small crew. The microbudget feature entitled Electric Man is set to begin filming next month in Scotland's capital. I caught up with David to find out more about the production.

Tell us a bit about the film.
It's a comedy caper movie set in the world of superhero comics. The script has been described as The Maltese Falcon meets Clerks and concerns the pursuit of Electric Man Issue 1, a rare and valuable comic which, like the Falcon, is the object of desire for our characters. Said issue pitches up mysteriously in the comic shop of loveable losers, Jazz and Wolf, who happen to need £5,000 for some urgent repairs to the shop. Failure to come up with the readies will mean eviction and 'real' jobs.

Why Edinburgh?
Most of the team live here and Scott and I have known Gaffin Austin who runs Deadhead Comics for over 20 years. The shop is everything we could want from our main location so it really was a no brainer to set it here and use the Deadheads as our main filming location. It's a purpose built set that we didn't have to pay for. And it's a great city to film in. Everywhere you point the camera is beautiful and we don't see it on our cinema screens often enough. It was great to see it in The Illusionist in cartoon form but we seldom see the real thing and it's such a shame because it is a very cinematic city. 

Besides money, what have been the main obstacles you've faced so far?
Money is the biggest factor in making something. It affects everything we do. Apart from that the obstacles are all fairly minor and change on a day to day basis. We're always problem solving, trying to make things work more efficiently, rewriting, rethinking and doing what we can to make the project viable. The great thing is that the idea and the story behind the project have attracted people like Howie Nicholsby at 21st Century Kilts to donate money as he recognises the worth of what we're trying to achieve and the way we are going about it. And this approach has also attracted investors who can also see the potential of the project. 

How has your budget affected your stylistic decisions?
The biggest thing is that we can't shoot on film; we simply can't afford it. So we're shooting on the Canon 5D, which our DoP has been using to shoot commercials with. Having seen some of the test footage, it's going to look pretty nice. As with everything else, lack of money forces you to be creative and to think up alternative ways of achieving what's on the page. In a way it just means we have to think out of the box when it comes to problem-solving and try and persuade people to help us out for free. 

Superhero and comic book films are very much in fashion - how do you compete? Is this a film for that kind of market or are you trying to reach a new/different audience?
We don't compete; we're not a superhero film. The title suggests it but we're a real world comedy about the people who go and see superhero films and read about them in comic books. The great thing about making this film now is that comic book movies are at the forefront of popular culture - Dark Knight, Iron Man, Kick Ass, Scott Pilgrim. We hope to appeal to that market while at the same time appealing to people who might go and see or rent a comedy. We just happen to be set in the world of comic books but at the heart of our story is greed, romance, jeopardy, drama and action. All the elements that constitute a great night out at the cinema or a night in with a few beers and a takeaway.