Talking Film With Louis Findlay

As the indie film scene takes more of a center stage to the world of filmmaking, we talk to Louis Findlay about his project Roadkill and the journey it has been getting there as both a creator and a performer.

Can you tell us a little about yourself, your career?

 I’m 30 years old, my wife and I have just had a baby - our first, and I now have a dad bod!  

I’ve always been excited by cameras, I was always looking in the Argos catalog as a kid and being excited by all the new cameras. I used to love going in Jessops and seeing them on the shelf and always dreamed of having one. 

I got my first camera when I was 14 and used to make all of our Parkour videos which I did till I was 22 working as a professional soon also forerunner. 

When I started acting I had no idea how to get into it and no one would give me a chance, so I started writing and filming my own scenes which soon turned into shorts and then features. 

My first short film called Days To Come was loosely based on my own struggles with anxiety and depression, it won 4 awards in Europe and I won the best actor at the Los Angeles Actor Awards in 2017. 

Since then, I’ve not looked back and continue to make my own work, I love it.

 You have a new project that you are crowdfunding. Can you tell us a little more about it?

RoadKill is based on a short film me and some friends made in 2018. It centers around two brothers who are traveling across the country and during an argument, they crash the car and hit a girl walking along the side of a road and how they cope with doing the right thing.

The feature has come a long way since the short and very much centers around life at home between Ben and his mother Liz who’s alcohol addiction is not only affecting her life but Ben’s life too. He turns to selling drugs on the estate to pay the bills after losing his job and lands himself in a spot of bother. His older brother Josh returns from prison and is determined to turn his life around, connect with his ex and be the family man but he has no idea how hard life has been for Ben. Their mother is taken to hospital and doctors recommend she needs rehab to make a full recovery but they don’t have the money. They agree to do a job for Ben’s dodgy boss and if all goes well they’ll have enough money to cover the costs of treatment. This film focuses on broken Britain and the lengths people will go to in order to keep a roof over their heads and take care of the ones they love. 

 What is your goal as a filmmaker and what would be your dream project?  

 My goal as a filmmaker is just to continue telling stories and never stop. I don’t seek permission from anyone, if I have a story to tell then I’ll tell it. My goal is to focus on hard-hitting dramas and offer an insight into other people’s lives so that we can learn from others. 

I don’t know if I have a dream job, I’m just very happy doing what I’m currently doing. But I guess the dream is just working with like-minded people and having fun along the way. 

 Is there any advice you would offer someone entering into the creative arts and media?

 Do your research. Reach out to others for help start small. Work within your limits and make use of things you already have. 

Have a bit of money behind you, never crowdfund without putting your own money in first. I like to think of crowdfunding as just topping off the glass. I always put as much money as I can into my films because if crowdfunding is unsuccessful, you’re not relying entirely on others to help you tell your story. You’ll have some money in your pocket to make a start at least. 

“ If you have an idea, find a way to get it done no matter what, if someone tells you “no” but you're passionate about telling  it, then tell it!”

To learn more about the project or to support the film see:

Roadkill Movie Fundraiser.

Roadkill Movie Website.

Roadkill Movie Facebook.

Roadkill Movie Instagram.

Roadkill Movie Twitter.

Tackling The JamesC Website

We have been talking (via Twitter) about taking down our creative director JamesC’s website and completely overhauling it with a mix of his work from previous shoots, and of course new editorials mixed with additional TV/character-based concepts. That is now in motion and for the next two weeks, we will be doing the wrap-up work with a view to having a profile with vShowcards that will be central to his marketing as a makeup artist.

Taking this step has been really scary, as you can imagine, but it was a necessary move that we felt was long overdue, and with so many changes in motion to the market overall, we did this with a view to the long-term goals of the Lost Creatives and it will give a more focused and cohesive look to his work. With this in mind, we are debating adding a further 3 sites to the Lost portfolio making the overall theme of our work more cohesive and taking much of our business internally which will give us a stronger control over the imaging, marketing, and projects we tackle.

For those interested in keeping up with the news and updates JamesC will continue writing for our blogs and is still on Twitter. The new site is mostly complete and will be focused solely on his artistry work, while The Lost Creatives expands with him at the helm we will be working on the development of TV projects, short films for festival entry, and photo projects, to name but a few of our plans.

Creating The Lost Dog Detective Agency with Tedium Entertainment

With numerous shorts under their belt, the team at Tedium Entertainment is working on their latest crowdfunded project The Lost Dog Detective Agency, a sweet coming of age film that has caught attention and backers in short order. Founded in 2016 they have already made waves within the film community and this latest project has the hallmarks of a winner with a touch of social commentary.

“The Lost Dog Detective Agency is a coming-of-age tale of two 10 year old boys, Darion and Emmanuel, growing up on an estate in South West London.”

Bringing a film to fruition is hard work and with their body of films is growing constantly with plans in motion for more shorts, a feature film, and a TV series in the background, we look forward to not only seeing the results but interviewing the team about this film and talking about the details of funding, shooting, and creating work in the current market.

To learn more about The Lost Dog Agency project or to help with funding click here.

For further details on Tedium Films and their work see:

Tedium Entertainment Website.

Tedium Entertainment Instagram.

Tedium Entertainment Facebook.

Tedium Entertainment Twitter.

House of iKons February 2021 A Strategic Win For Fashion

In the current climate of uncertainty, it is truly gratifying to know that fashion is finding a way and carving a new path that will showcase talent, bring the world of iKonic design to not just their established audience but a wider and more diverse range of people thanks to the savvy collaborations of Savita Kaye and the new media partner Rising Fashion, which will see The House of iKons go multiplatform including Amazon and Youtube to name but two of the places you will be able to find the show in its current form as a digital platform for design and innovation.

House of iKons become an official Associate to the International Art Fashion Council and is now on Wiki Video as one of the Top Six Brands World Wide changing the face of fashion with its innovative diversity and range of creatives globally.

Taking a new and innovative stance on showcasing fashion, the savvy and respected House of iKons team has brought the intimacy of a show and added a more personal element of behind the scenes with the designers that is changing how we view the industry and opening the door to a more inclusive and certainly private aspect that was the preserve of documentary footage and rarely offered this level of access to the world of fashion.

With pre-production already in motion for shows into 2022, there is a definite sense that fashion is here to stay and that iKonic design will always find a way to showcase in a fashion film form that is innovative and has caught the attention and support of Girl Meets Brush, The Fashion Life Tour, Zarya Azadi.

With featured designers including:

1. Sigrun

2. Joan’s Bridal Couture

3. Simi Sandhu

4. Be Unique Be You

5. Model’s Wardrobe

6. N8 by Nathan Vandevelde

7. Yade Couture

8. Korn Taylor

9. G.Seven Feat Yildizstoffe

10. Inci Hakbilen

11. Ethinicroyals

12. Post Code Fashion

13. Eye on Fashion

14. Atelier by Khosh

15. Bahar Yasin Studios

16. Dis is Me Couture

17. a la Mode

18. Love Collection by Emily & Anna

19. Jugger Onate for Jil & Jug Dallas

Scheduled to be released across a wide range of platforms on the 27th of February The House of iKons is The Show of the season and its continued work in the arena of fashion has opened doors to a whole new world of talent.

To learn more about The House of iKons or to get involved see:

House of iKons Website.

House of iKons Facebook.

House of iKons Instagram.

House of iKons Youtube.

House of iKons Twitter.

Motivational Changes

With so many changes happening in the world of cinema, our predictions are starting to look more and more like a reality as people move toward digital platforms and the rise of the Indie film scene as smaller companies step to the plate and create films and TV projects that are specific to the likes of Prime and Amazon in general and of course our own personal favorite HOD TV.

Part of this for us has been about rethinking the websites and the content, we have made some small steps in this and will be taking our creative director’s portfolio site fully offline for a few days to reorganize and rebrand to fit upcoming projects.

While this is happening we did pull out some images that for us are a marker of what we are aiming to showcase and have a very commercial leaning that suits our style and future plans. What we have also been doing is talking to other small companies via Twitter, where we have been making a push toward support for Indie film of all stripes and will be publishing interviews with some fantastic small companies who have been talking about their pre-production work for their projects and how they are working within the guidelines. taking time to talk to distributors about what is out there for us as a team.

Naturally, for us, we are going to be looking at web TV first and foremost and have looked into various festivals and options to promote with our ultimate plan being commercially driven.

Film Festival Tie-ins

In the run-up to the festive season, we were talking to various small film festivals gathering information, and planning for the future. Naturally, this meant opening accounts with sites like Film Freeway and doing some in-depth checks and planning around our goals for the company. What this has led to will be announced soon with full details of how and where we will work. One of the festivals (in Eastern Europe) reached out to us and we are now talking in terms of being a media partner which we do love as a concept. Film and TV, particularly web TV, is something we as a team are keen to push forward with now more than ever.

This does not mean we will be abandoning our editorial work, far from it, we will work with magazines on a continuous basis as part of our marketing strategies but will not be the sole aspect of what we do. In fact, we have found a very interesting film crew based magazine that looks really promising in marketing terms so we will be writing inhouse articles to publish and take ad space later in the year.

Our plans are coming together well and there is some diversification in motion. More announcements and news will be released on the completion of the contracts. We are excited about the prospects of 2021 and look forward to showcasing the hard work that has already been done in the background.

A New Year A New Plan

In many respects, 2020 has been a lost year for a lot of people with the world changing dramatically. For us, it has opened up doors to a whole host of new potential avenues and given us a chance to reevaluate what we have been doing and look at how we can fit ourselves into the market long-term. To do this we have broken our work into key areas that will be public and those which will be kept private to the inhouse team.

In the public sense, we have two key areas we will be focusing on in the first quarter of the year:

Editorial and print: we have been putting this on the backburner in some respect taking time to look at locations, edit work already shot, slowly build up a series of images and work that will be released over the early part of 2021 with additional planned small shoots that will be a combination of artistic and commercial. *This will include product placement in behind the scenes imaging and video with brands such as Lord and Berry, Mykitco, and Brushwork Cosmetics to start. We are open to new potential brand partners for projects contact the team to discuss.

Film and TV: something that we have been doing since the start of Lost Creatives is supporting a range of festivals including Micromania and The Nepal Cultural and Film Centers' own festival. We do have plans to partner with a European festival and will reveal details on that soon.

Our initial goal is to work on 3 projects that will be shorts, designed specifically to go to festivals and as an opening gambit for our planned digital TV shoots in the horror/thriller market (for Which we have already spoken to several distributors and have options in place including the HOD TV route which is our number 1 choice).

In the coming months, our projects will be smaller in nature to help push forward and test the waters of the market and expand out. Our ties to South Asia (Including Nepal Film Production and our key actor contacts in India), will play a heavy part in our work as we are questioning how we will be able to work in Scotland and the UK in general.

Each of the current websites: JamesC mua. Lost Project and of course Lost Creatives will be receiving overhauls and updated images across the galleries, and the welcome pages, additional sites are being planned for our film/TV work to keep the Creatives solely about marketing and the background elements we have built.

Further updates will be released over the course of the month. We are really excited about our plans for 2021 and look forward to pushing the boundaries of our work.

Festive Thoughts From The Lost Creatives

Featured brand Lord and Berry (UK)

A slight departure from our normal scheduling but we wanted to get this post out before Christmas day and say a big thank you to all our supporters, the brands, and of course our readers as we share our final thoughts for 2020. From here we will be focusing heavily on the future and what will be happening for the team in the new year. We have been busy over the last few weeks setting in motion concepts, finalizing and in some cases reediting images for the various websites we run, there will also be a run of work that is designed specifically for editorial (we have some really fantastic magazines we have shot work for). We do want to look at the festival circuit, there will be an announcement of a new film festival media partnership in the new year, the goal of this will be to boost our video content and bring a little attention to talent. Naturally, these projects will be small crews/cast to keep the costs down and very much in the kitchen sink drama territory which will develop into other areas and our ultimate goal of tackling the horror/thriller market for TV, scripts are already earmarked for this.

One of our biggest supporters and our favorite writer, has offered us a development contract that will expand our portfolio to include video games for a variety of platforms which is an exciting prospect.

Our creative Director; JamesC, is working around different ideas and is editing, shooting, and managing our background work such as the brand placement and of course stock levels.

We will of course keep you all in the loop of changes and updates through the website and till then we want to, again, thank you for the support and wish you a Merry Christmas.

Advertising Plans

In the last few weeks, we have been quiet in terms of our advertising thanks in part to the ongoing work with PR agencies we do through The Lost Project. What this has meant is we do have a backlog of images to edit and products to test, some of this will be used as part of bigger ad campaigns for 2021.

While it might seem we are slow in updating our galleries, there is a reason for this and a strategic goal that will become clear in the next few weeks.

Our editorial shoots (ongoing) are being supported by a new men’s cosmetic line (to be revealed soon) and the fantastic team at Lord and Berry, we do have some new shoots planned and will be doing some macro work with glitter and possibly even a cover shoot.

We have specific magazines and styles we are working on and that takes time to complete more so with the restrictions in place in Scotland, it can be difficult to find the right models and locations without traveling too far from our base. Our head of makeup and creative director JamesC, is working on new projects and wants to do some flat lay images to bolster the galleries which we are hoping to have done before Christmas and our main push through FB started in the new year.

Our remote team members are all working hard with our favorite indie Bollywood actor developing his own projects for the future which we are in full support of and have started working on a website for him.

Something we are really excited about is that one of the magazines we are keen to be published with has taken away deadlines which will, in turn, allow us to do more work with male models and really experiment with concepts at a low cost and showcase the work in the best possible light.

We will be adding more stock soon from Lord and Berry, Mykitco, and our favorite Brushwork cosmetics with a view to creating a brand new cover image for the JamesC website, this will combine our beauty and TV work with some other elements cut in to bring a new depth to not only JamesC’s work but also to the Lost Creative portfolio.

With a series of creative plans to deliver on for the new year, we are putting a whole host of work being finished off The Lost Creative journey is gearing up for bigger things.

The collective Push of The Lost Team

In the last few months, we have been able to build some interesting relationships with brands and companies, taking steps toward our ultimate goals and aspirations slowly in light of the market changes that are underway to the film and TV market in particular which have opened our eyes to other potential avenues that The Lost can explore and has given us a collective push to work around boundaries. There are some interesting updates that even we are waiting for updates on as contracts (with non-disclosures) are being drawn up to affirm a new and exciting partnership.

Over time we intend to build a host of new creative images incorporating some of our favorite makeup and brushes that will be used on our creative director JamesC’s website as well as our own, with our magazine work coming to a close on the written side to focus on the massive backlog of shoots to be edited and curated across our multiple sites and blogs. Editing processes have been slowed down but are still happening and by mid-December, we will have new additions to the galleries and a new fashion/editorial specific gallery for the JamesC Website.

Nepal as many will be aware plays a large part in our work and we are very proud of that with the NCIFF (Nepal Culture and Film Festival) alongside our partners Nepal Film Production, it is interesting to see the work coming together so cleanly.

The Lost Creatives shoots are going well and while not yet public (magazine deadlines and release scheduling outwith our control) we will be working on the much more comprehensive Lost Boys/Girls concept which we are going to shoot exclusively in North Ayrshire and have already picked out some significant spots that fit our brief. As much an intellectual exercise as it is a photo project it will be the focus of our energies and a chance to clear some cobwebs.