Mark's Mission to Make Films

WHAT started out as a passion for martial arts, has turned into a full-time career as a filmmaker for 33-year-old Mark Strange.

This month, seven years after his quest first began, the British premier of producer Mark’s first sci-fi adventure feature, Displaced, will be seen by the Northwest public. And topping the cast list is the voice of Sir Ian McKellen.

It’s an amazing accolade for first-time producer, Mark, particularly as he had virtually no budget to make the movie.

The action-packed, martial arts film will start a two-week run at independent cinema, The Island, St Annes-on-Sea, Lancashire, on March 16. But it’s also set to be seen by millions of people around the world, after being picked up by sales agents Silverline Entertainment.

“I can’t believe how successful it’s been,” says Mark, of Leyland. “What started out as a grain of sand, has turned into a desert!”

North West Vision has supported Mark’s mission to make his film, and throughout March are giving him top showing in the Crew of the Month website feature.

“It’s been really hard to get this far, but now everything has slotted into place,” says Mark. “The icing on the cake, though, was when Sir Ian McKellen agreed to get involved.”

Securing the award-winning actor’s involvement in Displaced was far from straight forward. “We have a two-and-a-half minute voiceover at the beginning of the movie and we really wanted an A-list actor to do it. Top of our wish list was Sir Ian McKellen,” explains Mark.

“We emailed his agent, and we got a very nice email back from Sir Ian saying he would have loved to have got involved, but as he was mid-way filming Lord of the Rings he just didn’t have the time.

“Five years later, I decided to try again,” continues Mark, of Skylandian Pictures. “I explained the film was nearly finished, but we just needed this final voiceover. He was appearing in Coronation Street at the time, so I emailed him and said I’d arranged with a sound engineer I knew at Granada to borrow a voiceover studio, and I asked if he could do it. Sir Ian replied within 30 minutes and said he’d love to do it!”

Sir Ian said he was just delighted he could help. He even watched some footage of the film and said he was rally impressed with what he saw. He is such a nice guy – and the voice over is fantastic.”

Throughout the seven years it’s taken to get Displaced onto the screen, Mark has relied totally on the goodwill of friends and businesses across the Northwest to donate their time, money and resources.

“We didn’t have any budget, so everything you see on screen has been the result of tireless hard work by our small but dedicated team. The result is that it looks like a million dollar action film!

“We started off filming in a rubber works factory in Leyland that had closed down. It had 48 acres of space across three floors, with brilliant wide corridors. We just asked if we could use it, and they sad yes! Local people have been really brilliant all the way through this,” he says.

In return for their sponsorship, contributors were promised a credit on the film. “That means the credits at the end of film stretch to nearly six minutes, because we’ve got so many people to thank,” adds Mark, who has wanted to branch into the film industry since he started martial arts.

“I was a full-time martial arts teacher, and I’ve always been a big fan of action movies, particularly Sylvester Stallone. I’ve also always wanted to get into acting, so I used my marshal arts skills to get bit acting parts. Then I met Martin Holland,” explains Mark

Martin is a Wigan-based writer and director, who arrived at Mark’s gym looking to shoot a short fight sequence. “Like me, Martin has a massive interest in action adventure films and we just naturally teamed up,” says Mark, a former British Kick Boxing Champion.

Mark and Martin produced a six-minute short film, Insidious. “That’s how I found I had a forte for producing. It was a six week shoot, shot in 2000, and that was my taster of things to come,” explains Mark.

But it was his sister, Carol Anne Strange, whose gave him the next incentive. Carol Anne wrote a short film script, called Displaced, and Mark liked it so much he and Martin decided to make it.

“As soon as we started filming we realised we were getting some great results, it started looking fantastic, and it was so much more than a short,” explains Mark.

Martin decided to develop the script into a feature film, keeping similar elements from the original script. “And that’s how we started on the long path of making a film,” says Mark.

“We had a couple of the main actors in place from the start, but we just cast it as we went along,” adds Mark, who plays two characters in the film. But it’s producing where he’s found his forte.

“As a producer I became more and more ambitious, I wanted helicopters and big production value locations. We filmed five minutes at Jodrell Bank in Cheshire, just so we could have the Lovell radio telescope in the scene, and in another scene we transformed the Salford Lowry Centre in to an alien world.”

After being awarded funding from North West Vision, Mark and Martin took rough cuts of the film to the Berlin Film Festival, and the American Film Festival in 2005.

“We’d done our homework for America, and knew exactly who to target for the genre of film. I had 30 appointments with potential distributors and the first three I had all wanted to pick it up and sell it for us! We opted for the third company, Silverline Entertainment,” says Mark.

Silverline are currently selling Displaced on DVD and TV format across the world. “We’ve sold it to Japan, which is very respectable territory, we’re currently negotiating with North America, and several companies in the UK are looking at it.”

Over the last few years we have been given a tremendous amount of support and guidance by several industry producers and professionals, including Chee Keong Cheung of Intense Productions, and former commissioner at the UK Film Council, Andrew Patrick.

Mark decided to organise an independent cinema premier, followed by a two week public release. “We approached several large cinemas, but in the end decided to go with Cinema Four at The Island, St Annes-on-Sea, as they are independent. It looks fantastic on the big screen!” comments Mark.

Mark has recently finished working on his second feature, Underground, and plans are in progress for his third. But for now, he’s enjoying the well-earned attention that Displaced is attracting.

“Displaced is completely Northwest filmed, we’ve used locations in Leyland, Preston, Manchester, Salford and Cheshire. I think it’s one of the only action adventure films of this scale to come from the Northwest, and I’m really proud of what we’ve achieved.

“Because it was my first time as a producer, I wanted to make a big noise about it! I wanted helicopters and gun fights and fast cars, and that’s exactly what we got.”

For screening details, visit www.the-island.ws or log on to www.displacedmovie.com or www.displacedmovie.com/public.htm