Minutes for Wednesday 13th Jan 2010 - first meeting of the new year!

Greetings Maddrimers, and a Happy New Year!

I woke up today with a very strange mantra going around my head, y’know those sounds that linger after dreaming? It was a song that went “Who puts the ‘mad’ in ‘Maddrim’? WE DO!”

It’s very suitable on several levels. Madness and Maddrim come hand in hand.

Anyways, onto the meeting. This meeting took place as ever at 7PM in the Sandvein Neighbourhood Centre.

It’s always very gratifying starting these minutes announcing the arrival of a new member, and even more thrilling getting to say that the Name and Fact game is still being used as the best means of introducing them to the team. After “Callum New” had been appropriately initiated, we began to discuss the matter at hand: The Anne Cleeves “What Shetland means to me” competition.

It was decided that we would enter two films to this competition; one serious film and one parody. In a happy twist of fate, there was even interest in both genres, with pretty much equal numbers in both groups. A very pleasing development indeed!

The parody group decided that a mockumentary of Shetland stereotypes would be most fitting for the genre. The basic structure goes something along the lines of Katya investigating different aspects of Shetland, from fashion (fair isle gansies galore) to music (raving to fiddle music) to swimming in the sea (And with the waves crashing miles high I can assure you all that this is the money shot). There’s even an attempt to portray dialect, with a fantastic rendition of “I lik dee yallow böots" from yours truly. For fear of the parody becoming too heavy-handed, the film will end on the note: but the best thing about Shetlanders is they know how to take a joke!

The serious group decided to take inspiration from childhood. The film is basically explores the concept of how Shetland becomes a sort of Wonderland for a child’s imagination, following the story line of two children going on an epic adventure in which lots of the stunning land and seascapes can be incorporated, as well as a bit of folklore. It sets out to appear like a Bugsy Malone-esque film, a “serious but with kid actors” adventure story, but in the end it is revealed that in actual fact it is all a game of pretend. LOLZORZLYKWTF.

We hope to make these films good enough to have our first New Maddrimers' Films premiere on the proper youtube channel! And so far, it’s looking good!

A message to Kathy: Happy birthday!!! You don’t look a day over 21!

A message to the Veterans: I just felt like writing something to you, as I remembered you also read these and thought I should involve you somehow. Aidan and Chris have a fantastic film idea involving cakes that has already had the Kathy Seal Of Approval. Cara had an epic idea for a one shot film involving a car crash. Mhairi reckons she could do a better rendition of Day of the Trifids than the past two films, even though she wasn’t aware of their existence. The New Maddrimers are epic and I can’t wait for you to meet them all.

See you on Wednesday, same time, same place! <3

Roseanne