Fight or Flight - Note from the director / producer

PeterJMcCarthy

Hi All,

I got an email saying that there was some talk of Fight or Flight on here. I thought it would be a good time to introduce myself. Hi Red Raven - I was a bit flustered that night because it was our first screening of a rough cut of the film and we were doing about 18 hours a day for about 6 month, 7 days a week in post production - editing with my co-director Shane. At the time I was directing, producing and also the subject of this film and that was tricky. Thanks for coming along and I hope I wasn’t too spaced out - I appreciate the comments. Over the past while we have had a lot of queries through our website which we have just launched the DVD on.

We have found that the film makes a big impression with many people and with others it draws a blank. That’s the nature of films in general – works for some doesn’t for others.

We put a serious amount of work into Fight or Flight over the past five years and it has for the most part been self financed. As some of you might know, the film was shot in Thailand over a period of almost two years. The production costs for the film were funded by several re-mortgages on my home, bank loans, credit cards, family and friends. We got Irish Film Board funding last year and that helped us bring it to completion. I just recently came back from a film festival in Auckland where Fight or Flight was screened and received much TV, radio and press coverage. I stopped off in Thailand and I showed the film to some of the trainers and monks in Thailand who I spent time with. I was quite apprehensive about doing this but they were quite blown away for its honesty and how it related to the mindset of many western people.

While it is martial arts based, the story is about personal conflict, anger and holding on to stuff that tears you apart. I got the Bollox knocked out of me by a teacher for a year when I was a kid and bullied in school later. It is difficult to get that out of your system and I brought that with me in my life for quite some time until I had enough of it and wanted to do something about it. It is the main crux of the story and I’ve had many personal emails from people throughout the world who have completely related to it - which makes it all worth while. It is not a tough guy film but it does address issues that many people find they have trouble addressing.

It is quite difficult for Irish feature films to break into the international scene. Fight or Flight is one of the very few Irish Documentary features that has travelled out of Ireland and it is for the most part, self financed. Having said this, there arn't many martial arts feature length documentaries that have travelled internationally either. I have had Irish, UK, US and European distributers looking to take on the distribution but I have decided to self-distribute. This is due to the fact that distributors generally take the lion’s share of any sales that come in the door and the filmmaker receives very little if anything at all after percentages and expenses have been deducted. (And I need to pay the banks back.) Fight or Flight spent all last month travelling in a festival throughout New Zealand, I will have it in a festival in New York in April 2008 and several others also TBC. ABC Australia are interested in it and several other broadcasters also. It’s available online presently in DVD format and I'll have it on Amazon in the near future.

It is necessary to get website ranking up and for people to know about it. I’d much appreciate anyone who watches the film, and likes it to blog /write about it or link exchange. email links@gooddogfilms.com with your website and I’ll link back to your site with on the http://www.fightorflight.tv/ website.

Thanks for your time reading this and all the best

Cheers

Peter



Peter J McCarthy
Managing Director
Good Dog Films Limited
gooddogfilms.com

Nothingcompares

looks like an interesting film will definitely check it out

Kline

Thats a pretty mad film / journey mate. Some of the stuff in the monastery was pretty crazy.

Fair balls - Recommended.

cmyk

Yep and I've nearly finished it myself, have to say, I take my hat off to you Peter, seems like a great journey, (hoping you come to a conclusion at the end). It hit several key strings with myself too.

Quite apart from that I'm a graphic designer by trade and we also have made some documentaries so am well aware of the work that goes into these, especially self funded projects. So all round well done Peter, hope it's a success, and I urge anyone on here to add it to their collection.

Colin