Chris Quick

Chris Quick
1st Deputy Director of the Glasgow Filmmakers Alliance
Incumbent
Assumed office 31 October 2011
Director	Andrew O'Donnell
Preceded by	Position established
Personal details
Born	(1988-08-02) 2 August 1988 Glasgow, Scotland
Nationality	British
Political party	Labour Party (2011–2015)
Occupation	Film editor, film producer

Chris Quick (born 2 August 1988) is a British film editor and film producer. His editing credits includes In Search of La Che, Broken Record and The Greyness of Autumn which also marked his directorial debut.^[1]

He is known for his collaborations in film with screenwriter Andy S. McEwan and with film director Mark D. Ferguson with whom he co-foudned the production company Quick Off The Mark Productions in October 2009. Since 2011, he has served as the Deputy Director of the Glasgow Filmmakers Alliance which he established with Scottish actor Andrew O'Donnell.

Career

Quick Off The Mark Productions

Originally starting in theatre,^[2] Quick made the move to video editing in 2007 when he studied television production at the Glasgow Metropolitan College (now City of Glasgow College). It is here that he first met Mark D. Ferguson and Andy S. McEwan and formed a close working relationship with the pair. After graduating in 2009, he co-founded Quick Off The Mark Productions with Ferguson and began working in corporate advertising videos. In 2010, the pair were reunited with McEwan when they began development of what would become their first feature film, In Search of La Che. Starring Duncan Airlie James in his first leading role as an actor, the spoof mockumentary followed John Tavish on his quest to track down fictional rock star Roxy La Che. English actor, Steve Nallon also made a guest appearance in the film as former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. The film premiered at the Glasgow Film Theatre on 9 November 2011 with the cast and crew in attendance as well as an unexpected appearance form Scottish actor Peter Mullan.^[3]

Cast & crew of The Greyness of Autumn. (Top, L-R) Chris Quick, Paul Michael Egan, Andrew O'Donnell, Neil Francis, Andy S. McEwan
(Bottom, L-R) David Craig, Mark D. Ferguson

In 2012, Quick made his directorial debut with the short comedy The Greyness of Autumn which he co wrote with McEwan. The film, starring Duncan Airlie James again in the starring role, followed the story of Danny McGuire, a depressed ostrich living in Glasgow. The film received high praise upon its release in both the United Kingdom and abroad. Canadian review site Pretty Clever Films wrote:

"Quick is alarmingly funny. The film serves up a copious amount of black comedy that has a great WTF-factor. The film is intriguing simply because it's so strange."^[4]

Throughout 2013, The Greyness of Autumn appeared at a number of festivals in the United Kingdom including the Edinburgh Short Film Festival^[5] and the Deep Fried Film Festival.^[6] Internationally, the film was screened in various countries including the United States where it featured in the Big Little Comedy Festival.^[7] It was also shown at the Dublin Short Film & Music Festival in Ireland.^[8]

From late 2010 until its final show in November 2013, Quick was the Media Supervisor for the Katana Fighting Series. Founded by Duncan Airlie James, Global Kombat Entertainment hosted various K-1 Kickboxing shows throughout Glasgow and Edinburgh and attracted many former K-1 stars including Ernesto Hoost.^[9][10] On several occasions, the events were refereed by John Blackledge.^[11] Under Quick Off The Mark Productions, the recording of the shows went from a single camera shoot to a multi camera setup and together with Mark D. Ferguson, Quick brought in high definition coverage of the shows. During his time as Media Supervisor, Quick produced and edited the coverage of every event and with the exception of Duncan Airlie James, he was the only crew member to have attended every show.

In 2014, The Greyness of Autumn also made an unexpected return to the festival circuit in 2014 appearing in the Southern Colorado Film Festival^[12] and the Portobello Film Festival.^[13] In the same month, the film also made an appearance at the Barossa Film Festival in Australia after narrowly missing out in the selection process for the 2013 edition. 2015 saw the film return to Australia when it received the Best Short Comedy accolade at the People of Passion film festival.

Quick returned to the directors chair in 2014 to direct a short children's film for a competition run by Vue Cinemas. The competition involved filmmakers from Glasgow creating three films out of scripts written by children at a local school. The project was led by Steve Johnston of Futurist Films with Quick directing the short film Minion Vs Minion^[14] and Matthew Cowan of Production Attic Ltd directing Princess Butterfly^[15] and Arianna.^[16]

On 12 December 2014 the company's website confirmed that writing had begun on a possible sequel to The Greyness of Autumn entitled Autumn Never Dies.^[17]

Freelance Work

2013 saw Quick begin to work outside of Quick Off The Mark Productions for the first time. He edited the short film Sectarian Secret Police for Partickular Films in Glasgow. The film, directed by Joseph Andrew Mclean was shown alongside The Greyness of Autumn at the Loch Ness Film Festival in July 2013.^[18]

Chris Quick with Andy S. McEwan on the set of Broken Record.

In 2014, Quick was involved in two short film simultaneously. January saw filming begin on Glory Hunter which was written by Duncan Airlie James and directed by Craig MacLachlan who also acted for In Search of La Che. At the same time, Chris was piecing together the final edit of Broken Record, the directorial debut for Andy S. McEwan. Broken Record appeared at various film festivals including the Portobello Film Festival in London.^[19]

Throughout 2014, Quick worked on the short Sci Fi film Electric Faces directed by Johnny Herbin. Initially, Quick was brought on board to produce the film but was also later offered the task of editing the film as well. The film tells the story of a recovering addict's plan to commit the perfect robbery but is thrown into chaos by a cantankerous bank guard and an increasingly unstable robot. Quick expressed his admiration for the work done by the cast and crew on Electric Faces. In particular, he praised lead actor Euan Bennet for taking on a mammoth task so early in his acting training and director of photography Darren Eggenschwiler for his expert knowledge in the field of cinematography. He also stated that Johnny Herbin had 'the makings of a great director.'^[20]

Glasgow Filmmakers Alliance

Quick co-founded the Glasgow Filmmakers Alliance with actor Andrew O'Donnell in October 2011. The non-profit organisation hosts an online database with the details of film industry professionals and companies operating in and around the city of Glasgow.^[21]

In 2012, the alliance was invited by Stephen Paton of Production Attic to form what would become the Glasgow Creative Network which hosts networking events for media professionals in Glasgow.

A supporter of independent film, Quick led a campaign to get the British Academy Scotland New Talent Awards recognised by IMDB stating that 'they represented the best of emerging Scottish talent'. The camaign was successful and the awards were introduced to the site later that year. He later repeated this success with the inclusion of the Virgin Media Short Awards after the first double win by Scottish director John McPhail.^[22][23]

In 2014, Quick and O'Donnell wrote an open letter on behalf of the independent filmmakers of Glasgow to the director of BAFTA Scotland, Jude MacLaverty. In the letter, the pair asked the film body to consider a proposal of including three new awards at the annual ceremony aimed at low budget / independent filmmakers.^[24] On 28 October it was announced that the proposal would be placed on the agenda of the next Bafta Scotland Committee meeting in December 2014.^[25][26]

On 2 April 2015, the BAFTA Scotland committee released their response to the proposals put forward by the Glasgow Filmmakers Alliance.^[27]

Personal life

Became a member of BAFTA Scotland in 2012.

In 2014, Quick hinted at a possible bid for the 2014 edition of the Eurovision Song Contest as the character Nelson form The Greyness of Autumn. A support page appeared on Facebook^[28] but eventually no song materialised and the bid was presumedly abandoned.

Was a member of the British Labour Party from July 2011 to March 2015. He left due to the poor performance of Ed Miliband and the appointment of Jim Murphy in Scotland.

Filmography

Awards

See also

• Quick Off The Mark Productions
• Autumn Never Dies
• The Greyness of Autumn
• In Search of La Che

References

External links

• Chris Quick at the Internet Movie Database
• Quick Off The Mark Productions
• Glasgow Filmmakers Alliance