On July 4th 2002, we at FNA Films screened our first short film, Making Tea For The Mob at the Tyne Theatre on Westgate Road in Newcastle.  So much has changed since then, and yet so much is still the same.   Just under a fortnight ago on June 23rd 2016 - aka Referendum Day - we screened our first feature film, The Stagg Do, for the first (and probably last) time from the DCP at the Customs House in South Shields.

I'd like to thank EVERYBODY who has been with us on this journey through about twenty shorts and Time of Your Life - it's been a blast. I'd particularly like to thank the casts and crews who have helped us make these films and I'd especially like to thank those people who contributed to our Kickstarter and other fundraisers... We couldn't have done it without you.

This is just the closing of a chapter, a new one is currently being written and we hope you'll continue to be with us every step of the way.

Cheers

#FNA4Life

We've FINALLY managed to organise a screening of The Stagg Do south of the Tyne! Just not very far south!!!

The GOOD people at South Shields' Customs House are going to show our little Geordie film in their cinema on June 23rd - EU REFERENDUM DAY - so whether you're an "innie" or an "outie" please do us the honour of joining us after you've exercised your democratic duty. It's also slap bang in the middle of the Euros (coz we iz fucking stupid) but there's no matches that night - so you have NO excuses.

Tickets are a tenner - but you also get a Q and A with muggins the producer here and the Yankee Doodle Mofo writer/ director  (hosted by Keith Bell BABY!) and some LIVE MUSIC from those cheeky North East rockers Marriott Lane.  So book a baby sitter, take Friday the 24th off work and join us for a PARTY!

Buy your tickets from Customs House Box Office on (0191) 454 1234.  Well, what are you waiting for?

Hope we are all well on this Frosty February aberration? 

Just a quick update - about a dozen of you are still awaiting your rewards, the T-shirts are still the bottle-neck, they have been ordered and delivered to me, but remain unprinted. Our friends at the printing house we use have just moved - so hopefully I’ll be in there in the next week or two and I can get your rewards to you. Thanks for your patience. 

What else has been happening? James and Martin (Pob) have been working on the latest draft of Pissheads which is a sequel to The Stagg Do, or is TSD the prequel to Pissheads? Anyway, that's coming long really well andd we’ve got a great Executive Producer attached so fingers crossed finance will be more forthcoming especially as we are looking at some bonkers casting ideas. 

DVD sales are ticking along - of course we could always do with more, so if you know of anywhere that might stock them please let me know- there’s a drink in it for you! We’re still working on the London screening and a couple more locally, but for a variety of reasons it’s proving a tough nut to crack - apparently I can’t have my cake and eat it! 
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Oh and we’ve have a couple of great reviews the first by Stuart Bannerman atFromPage2Screen.com and the second by Last Caress at BRWC (Battle Royal With Cheese - how’s that for a GREAT site name?) - so check those out oh and if you liked the film please rate us on IMDB.com (no shan scores mind - just good ones!) 

Thank you my friends, 
onwards and upwards
z

First off sorry it's taken me a couple of days to write this blog, as I'm sure you can imagine, the last few days have been a bit of a blur. I've pasted what I put on Facebook on Saturday morning below,

The Sir Bobby Robson Foundation is a cause very dear to my heart. If not for SBR I'd probably wouldn't even like football, he remains the only "celebrity" whose death made me cry. And so it meant a lot to us to be able to have a small raffle to try and raise some of money for his charity.  The raffle was drawn at the end of the night and the winning tickets were:
71-75 (pink)
26-30 (yellow)
6-10 (pink)
166-170 (yellow)
766-780 (yellow)
Most people remembered to put contact details on the back of their tickets, so we will be in touch this week with your goodies.  In total we raised a not too shabby £100, and will be sending the money to the Sir Bobby Robson Foundation this week. Thank you.

More updates and photos from the night coming soon. The Stagg Do Store is now open - so please feel free to visit and buy DVDs, CDs and other merchandise as it becomes available.

Phew! What a last couple of weeks we’ve had. We have (as usual at this budget level) hit a couple of roadblocks - but we’ve made it through to tell the tale. We found a ridiculously cheap company to do the subtitling for the film; I’m never a believer in cheapest is best, but we wanted to make sure that as well as the feature film, we had subtitles available for all of the special features too. Accessibility is important to us and even more so because we have a disabled son and also because one of the crew members on The Stagg Do was profoundly deaf.

​ Of course, we always knew the accents would be a challenge and but we were assured by previous customers of this company and the company itself that they could handle it. They couldn’t.  I knew this might happen so I had built extra time into the schedule to allow me time to make any corrections. Which I did twice (taking almost 2 whole days in the process).   Only to twice have timecode errors defeat us!  Anyway, we got there in the end - only 2/3 errors in the film and about a dozen in the Drunken Audio Commentary... Maybe we’ll have a competition for people who can find all of the mistakes. It’s a pain in the arse because I hate typos but we just ran out of time.

For the last few months I’ve been asking around for recommendations as to who we should use for the DVD and CD replication... But people were slow to respond, so I found a company that I was going to use online.  And spent a couple of days working with a new (to me) designer on finalising the artwork for the discs - setting them to the replicator’s templates etc. Then at the last minute - ie this past week - everyone’s recommendations came in and they all recommended the same company - but a different company to the one I was going to use!  Now it turns out the recommended company is a partner of Sony DADC - ie the UK’s biggest DVD manufacturer... you don’t really get a better recommendation than that. Price-wise they are very comparable to the other  company - so all seems good.  Only problem, they have a longer lead time and use slightly different packaging templates to the other company. So that meant another few hours with Gary The Designer - (who it turns out went to school with Pob and Staggy!) - to resize stuff again. Oh and we had to acquire some barcodes... And then finally the DVD and CD masters got sent off. So we are completely beyond the point of now return now! 

An important knock on from this, is that Kickstarter backers who have requested tickets as part of their pledges WILL NOT receive them in the post prior to the DVD Launch Party on November 6th.  Instead tickets will be left at the door of The Tyneside Irish Centre  for you in an envelope in your name on the night of the event. So if you haven’t RSVPd or are unsure of anything please feel free to drop me a line.  And we still have Room 2 tickets for any ditherers who may be reading this!

​Thanks again everyone!

We got a 15 across all elements, we're now just waiting for the DVD black card. Have to say it's not my favourite thing to spend £1922.71 on, but it's done and we're now legal!  Subtitles for the hard of hearing are due back on Monday and then we'll create the master DVD to go to the replicators.  Exciting times.

Tickets for the DVD Launch Party have gone faster than we expected and we now have under 40 left, so if you want to come, get your tickets ordered soon. Once they're gone, they're gone.

Well after making The Chronicle's What's On guide last week (or was it the week before?) we finally made the print edition. It's only a small piece and on page 13, but it's better than a kick in the goolies!

Just a little bit of fun in advance of the DVD Launch and Party.  The prize will be a Stagg Do T Shirt.

What BBFC rating do you think The Stagg Do will receive - 15 or 18? 

Send us an email with the subject heading BBFC Comp include your answer in the body and don't forget your name and address. 

Winner will be drawn at random from all correct entries.

Entries must be received by 30 September 12 noon.

Finally we still have tickets available for the DVD Launch and Party on November 6 at the Tyneside Irish Centre - I think we might sell out so make sure you get yours today!

After a couple of technical hiccups - Adobe CC I'm looking at you! Richy finally managed to sort out the DVD ready to send to the BBFC. It hasn't been a shit-ton of work more fiddly, frustrating and time consuming. First we had to wait to get the Associate Producer credits in and finalised (spellings, nick names and all that jazz), then Richy needed to redo the credit roll to incorporate the Associate Producers, while trying not to change the overall credits length. 

While all this was happening I was finishing the Drunken Audio Commentary and finishing the edit of the "Making of..." featurette. Like I said nothing super flash - just time consuming. Anyway last night James and I could finally "sign off" on the DVD in advance of sending it to the BLOODY MONEYGRABBING GITS in the BBFC. So this morning nice and early I rang the BBFC to find out their BACS banking details in order to make a bank transfer payment and to find out how much to pay. And guess what? They don't know! 

Yup a service that I have to pay handsomely for AND IN ADVANCE and they don't know how much it's going to cost. It could be £1340.89 or maybe £1540.31 or even £1982.22. Nobody knows. How scary is that? Anyway the good news is their current turnaround time is about 2 weeks as opposed to the maximum of 6. So the BIG day will now be Friday. Going to see if we can send them a DCP instead of a DVD viewer for the theatrical certificate... Assuming now more Adobe CC SNAFUs that should be available at some point tomorrow.

Anyway if you haven't ordered your Launch Party tickets yet, please do - there aren't loads left and also check our IMDb page to see the new Associate Producer credits in situ. 

Thank you everyone - onwards and upwards, eh?

Hard to believe it's almost a year since we recorded the Audio Commentary. At the time we are planning on releasing before Christmas 2014.  Then my MacBookPro died mid edit and then we ran out of dosh.
We recorded over two weekends with loads of booze at Pob's house - as you can see James was on Stella and Pob neat vodka. Anyway Pob kept handing James glasses of vodka and James thought they were doing shots so he necked them... He got very drunk, very quickly. And while playing back the commentary this last couple of days it's been hilarious to realise quite how pissed James was - at certain points he's actually slurring. Haha.  

Anyway that's what I've been working on for the last couple of weeks - just cutting out the libel, the truly offensive and the seriously confused and levelling the volume... It has made me laugh and if you do listen to it - I hope it makes you laugh too.  

What else?  Oh, the Associate Producer credits are all up on the IMDb page (as is the poster - FINALLY) and they are just waiting to be added to the credits on the film... Exciting times!  After last years debacle (not the World Premiere or other screenings -  the fact I was still dealing with technical SNAFUs 3 weeks before the BIG DAY) I'm actually really looking forward to the DVD Launch and mini tour.  After all, what's the point of making a film if nobody gets to see it?  Anyway TOUR - any ideas for a London screening venue let me know.  Cheers!

Tickets for the DVD Launch Party are available from us here or directly from the Tyneside Irish Centre. If you don't like buying online drop me a line and I can meet you somewhere and do a cash sale.  So get on it kids - join us for a night of film, fun and fuckwittery. 

So the cash dropped into our bank account this morning and now begins the "TO DO LIST".  First things first, I've booked and confirmed the DVD Launch Party. It'll be held on November 6, 2015 at the Tyneside Irish Centre in Newcastle city centre.  It would be great to see as many of you there as possible, those whose rewards included 2 tickets will obviously receive them in good time, but I thought it'd be good for you to have lots of notice for the event itself.

I need to finish editing the DVD commentary and also finish another little featurette for the DVD. We then need to finalise all of those Associate Producer credits - both on the film and IMDb; then it's subtitles for the hard of hearing (and non-Geordies) - after that it's off to the BBFC we go.  Finally once we have our certifications, we'll have to get the DVDs produced along with other merchandise and then we'll start shipping... I have  feeling I'm going to become best friends with the local Post Office staff.

We also still have a number of personalised thank you photographs still to do, but AutoBoy has been a wee bit under the weather - although we patently believe in child labour - we're not going to make him work when he's sick!  Eventually all of the thank you photographs will be uploaded to the TEAM TSD page.

Once again, none of this would have been possible without your help and support - Kickstarter surveys asking for postal addresses etc will be with you very shortly - in the meantime watch the video below. xxx