A BAFTA for best director on Echo Wall!

A few weeks ago I mentioned that BAFTA Scotland had nominated me for best director for Echo Wall in their new talent awards. On Friday Dave and I (and our families) were in Glasgow in a packed grand theatre for the BAFTA ceremony. I had totally convinced myself that much as it was absolutely amazing to have been nominated here, we could never win this award.

Well, it turned out I was wrong about that. The host opened the Best Director award envelope and read out that the winner was me. After lifting my jaw from the floor I headed for the stage wishing I had made a ‘just in case’ speech after all. Winslet would have been proud.

We heard that BAFTA’s jury had liked how personal Echo Wall was as well as the scenic beauty of the places we filmed. I am still feeling a touch bowled over by all this. But it’s brilliant for sure to get this recognition. 

This week Echo Wall also won best Scottish film at the Fort William Mountain Festival and best film at the Glasgow Mountain Film Festival.

Claire nominated for a Bafta!

I got home the other day to find Claire on the phone looking very cheery. Turns out it was Bafta Scotland on the phone saying she had been nominated for best director in the Bafta new talent awards for Echo Wall. Both of us were fairly dumfounded by this news to say the least.

It’s brilliant though that the quality and commitment of Claire’s work on Echo Wall has been recognised at such a high level. Claire has been creative all the time I’ve known her. But with Echo Wall she did what most others wouldn’t manage, she took it to another level by shooting footage that was extremely arduous and ultimately frightening to get, not to mention a year of long days and nights of work and all our savings and earnings to turn it into a finished film. I’m really pleased for her.

So next month the kilt will be coming out for the Bafta ceremony in Glasgow!

Recieving our awards for Best Film and Best Climbing Film at the Edinburgh Mountain Film Festival last October.

We are Rare Breed

We are Rare Breed Productions; Claire and Dave MacLeod. For several years, we’ve been involved in loads of creative things. Claire studied fine art photography at ECA and later published lots of climbing photos in various magazines. She also organised events like the world’s first Slacklining masters last year. I’ve spent a fair bit of time in front of a film camera in films like E11, Committed, Stick It and other climbing films and always felt I’d like to make my own films. Then both of us got involved in graphic and web design running our respective internet shops – Claire selling hampers and me selling climbing films and clothing.

So we thought…

Why don’t we go for it and start making our own films, books, websites, events and make the photography we were doing a little more organised. So started Rare Breed.

We will be making all sorts of cool things for people out there, the first of which will be Echo Wall – the film documenting my ascent of one of the hardest trad routes in the world, in the rather lovely setting of the north face of Ben Nevis. But we also hope to shoot more film and photography for other businesses, as well as design websites, organise events and generally…

Create.