JONNY LEE MILLER IN THE FLYING SCOTSMAN

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SYNOPSIS

The inspiring real-life story of one of Scotland's greatest sporting heroes.

In 1992, Briton Chris Boardman shocked the cycling world when he won a gold medal at the Barcelona Olympics. It was well known that Britain simply wasn’t capable of producing first-class cyclists, yet Boardman wiped the floor with the competition.

Unemployed Scot, Graeme Obree (Jonny Lee Miller) was just as amazed at Boardman’s success. After all, he had occasionally beaten Boardman. With no prospect of a job, a young baby to feed and a mortgage dragging him ever deeper into debt, Obree - at 27, an old man in cycling terms – decided to have one last attempt to make a living from the sport, spurred on by his friend Malky McGovern (Billy Boyd) and wife Anne (Laura Fraser).

With no money, no sponsor and no backer, Obree decided to build his own bike. Using the boatshed of his friend and confidante, Rev. Douglas Baxter (Brian Cox), Graeme used metal he found in the gutter, bits of an old lock, tubing from a kid’s BMX bike and a cannibalised washing machine. Despite having no technical training, he invented a revolutionary riding position which looked like a downhill skier – by reversing and minimizing the size of the handle bars. He was laughed at wherever he went but had significantly improved the rider’s aerodynamics.

The laughter grew louder when Obree announced that he would make an attempt on cycling’s equivalent of the four-minute mile - The One Hour Record. Unbroken for 10 years, nobody else in the cycling world even dared try it. Whereas Boardman trained with computer-control-led isometric equipment and a support team of bike-builders, pacers, coaches and sponsors, financially-strapped Obree had nobody to help him. He couldn’t even afford a phone...

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GRAEME OBREE TALKS ABOUT THE FLYING SCOTSMAN

JONNY'S NO.1 IN RACY ROLE

JONNY LEE MILLER is so fit after playing ex-cycling champ Graeme Obree that he could compete for real - says the man who knows. Obree's rise to fame and subsequent health problems are told in new film The Flying Scotsman. At its premiere at the Edinburgh Film Festival yesterday, Obree said: "Jonny is an exceptional athlete.

"He's more of a runner than a cyclist but I'm sure he'd give me a good run for my money in a biathlon."

Graeme also appears in the biopic - as Miller's body double. Eagle-eyed viewers will spot him as his legs are skinnier than the actor's.

Miller, BAFTA members and a posse of Scots media buffs headed to the capital's Cargo bar for the after-premiere party - but it wasn't to everyone's taste. VIPs had to queue on the terrace for "burgers like the type you get from a van". One showbiz luvvie was heard to moan: "You wouldn't get this in Hollywood."

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Obree film goes ahead after unions lift boycott

THE Flying Scotsman, the film about the troubles and triumphs of the Scots cycling champion Graeme Obree, opened the Edinburgh International Film Festival last night, after union leaders cancelled a planned boycott.

The broadcasting union BECTU had threatened to picket the film's red-carpet premiere in a show of anger over £80,000 in unpaid wages to members. Receivers were called in on the film after it hit a series of financial crises.

Mr Obree attended the film's opening, but actor Jonny Lee Miller, who plays him, was not present after becoming a casualty of the air travel security clampdown.

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Flying Scotsman - A review

The good news, given this film's troubled production, is The Flying Scotsman is a winner. Just as the protagonist of this sports biopic, Scottish cyclist Graeme Obree, had to overcome personal and professional obstacles in order to win the World Cycling Championships twice, so too the film's debuting director Douglas Mackinnon had to wrangle with various financing problems in order to finish his film. It's to Mackinnon and his cast and crew's credit that they managed that, and moreover that the result is a solid piece of film-making and a genuine crowd-pleaser.

Obree, for those who don't know, was an amateur enthusiast who in 1993 broke the world one-hour cycling record. Incredible enough as that athletic feat was, Obree, who ran a failing bike shop in Prestwick and subsequently paid the bills and supported his family working as a cycle courier in Glasgow, achieved it riding a race bike that he designed and built himself – with parts cannibalised from his washing machine. Old Faithful, as Obree called the bike, allowed the cyclist to adopt a new, more aerodynamic riding posture and thus shave off those few crucial seconds from each lap around the velodrome. But Old Faithful brought its designer into conflict with the World Cycling Federation, whose board members didn't appreciate the lack of commercial opportunities it presented (i.e. it couldn't be mass-produced and sold to the public) and went to great lengths to ban Obree from participating in championships.

Mackinnon's film dramatises this underdog story, but it also brings an involving personal dimension. Obree overcame the physical challenges of this gruelling sport and the obstacles placed in his way. But what proved to be his undoing were his personal demons. Haunted by bullying he suffered as a child at school, as an adult Obree suffered from crippling bouts of depression (there's a nicely realised scene in which Obree hallucinates that the bullies' full-grown ringleader pays him a deeply creepy home visit). It's these details that lift the film above the ranks of pedestrian biopic.

Otherwise, The Flying Scotsman is rousing and often very funny. As Obree's eccentric associate Baxter, Brian Cox generates the lion's share of the laughs. Billy Boyd and Laura Fraser, playing Obree's pal/manager and his wife, provide sterling support, and Jonny Lee Miller brings grit (and a fine pair of legs) to the role, crossing the finishing line a winning leading man.

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Dream comes full cycle

YOU can only hope that Douglas Mackinnon has kept a diary during the long and troubled production of The Flying Scotsman. The story of champion Scottish cyclist Graeme Obree is filled with human emotion and uplifting sentiment but it is in danger of being eclipsed by the behind-the-scenes drama surrounding its translation to the big screen.

The first attempt to film Obree's story collapsed shortly before production began in 2003. Against all the odds, new financing was secured and filming finally got under way in 2005. Since then, the original company behind the film has gone into administration. Unpaid technicians and supporting actors have threatened to picket the world premiere tomorrow night as the opening attraction of the 60th Edinburgh International Film Festival. The term 'labour of love' is beginning to take on a whole new dimension.

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A bumpy ride to the big screen

Simon Rose reveals the tortuous route to getting his story about a cycling champion made into a film

I can't be the only writer who, after sitting through umpteen appalling movies, has thought, "Surely I can do better." By 1994, I was itching to write a screenplay, but a subject eluded me.

I reckoned that if I - no sports enthusiast - found his tale inspiring, others would, too. Britain has so few sporting heroes that this eccentric, whose training food was marmalade sandwiches, should be lionised.

Meeting the great man, I was surprised by his stylish sunglasses and CD Walkman. This wasn't my notion of him at all. I needn't have worried; at dinner Graeme first had ice cream ("Gets your taste buds going"), then his meat and veg ("Removes the sugar so your teeth don't rot"). With Obree, nothing was conventional.

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Mackinnon's movie completes cycle

IT is an incredible story of determination to succeed against the odds, to push forward all the way to the finish line no matter what obstacles were put in the way.

Years of work, problems with funding, gruelling preparations, injuries, scandals, all of these dogged the task, but despite that no one involved gave up hope. And now as The Flying Scotsman prepares to get its world premiere at the Edinburgh International Film Festival, the end could finally be in sight. For director Douglas Mackinnon, the process of bringing Graeme Obree's stirring success-story to the screen bears an uncanny resemblance to the struggles of the film's protagonist. Despite being an amateur cyclist, lacking the funding and support of professionals, despite suffering bad falls early in his career and despite making his own bike out of parts of his washing machine, Obree stunned the cycling world in 1993.

On "Old Faithful" and with his own unique cycling position, the tuck, Obree broke the world hour distance record, held for nine years by Francesco Moser. The feat is even more incredible as he had initially failed, but despite recommendations that he should rest for a few weeks, tried for the record again the next day and succeeded.

In bringing his story to the big screen with his first feature film, 45-year-old Mackinnon had to show similar strength of character. He was just weeks away from the original start of shooting on the film four years ago, when one of its main backers tragically died and the plug was pulled. It was three years before the funding was again in place and shooting was able to start, with Jonny Lee Miller in the title role and the crew filming at locations around Scotland and at velodromes in Germany. After the long struggle to get the shoot underway, Mackinnon then almost saw the whole thing collapse in front of him on the first day of shooting the main cycling sections of the film.

"Jonny had a really bad crash on his bike," he says. "You have to understand that these bikes have no brakes and the riders are strapped in, so there's only two ways of coming off them - you are either caught or you fall and Jonny fell. He was going really fast and everyone there, about 300 people, just gasped and went silent, apart from Graeme. He just said 'Now you're a real cyclist' ." Fortunately for all concerned the actor was OK - "He had a really nasty wound on his leg, but he was actually quite proud of it" - and the shoot continued

Despite now being 40 years old, Obree, a technical advisor on the film, is still competing and winning regularly, and also did some stunt double work during the cycling shoots - "he's still incredibly fit" revealed Mackinnon.

But there was one moment that he didn't want to relive again. "He had a few nasty falls in his time and we wanted to show that, so we got in a stuntman," recalls Mackinnon. "Unfortunately there's no real way to fake something like that, so we had to have him fall quite badly. It looked horrible, but he was fine."

Protesters to Target EIFF Opening Gala Over Unpaid Wages

Protesters are set to target the Edinburgh International Film Festival's opening gala in a row over unpaid wages. One of the companies behind The Flying Scotsman, the movie which will kick off the event, has gone into administration - leaving about 60 crew members and extras out of pocket.

The union which represents the workers is organising a mass picket and boycott of the movie's world premiere at Fountain Park on 14 August. BECTU said that its members were owed a total of £79,000. The stars of the film, including Brian Cox and Jonny Lee Miller, are understood to have been paid.

The union has also lodged an official protest with the festival, requesting that The Flying Scotsman not be screened until written guarantees are obtained that the cast and crew will be paid from any profits made following the release of the film. However, the film has still to secure a UK distributor.

The film, which was shot in Scotland and Germany last year, tells the story of cyclist Graham Obree, who designed and built his own innovative competition bike that took him to record-breaking success in the 1990s.

'Flying Scotsman' defies gravity
By ADAM DAWTREY

WHEN THE EDINBURGH INTL. FILM FESTIVAL opens Aug. 14 with the world premiere of Douglas Mackinnon's debut movie "The Flying Scotsman," it will mark the climax of an extraordinary odyssey for the filmmakers.
What makes "The Flying Scotsman" unusual is not the 12 years it took to get made, nor the number of times the project collapsed and was resurrected before the cameras finally rolled last year.

No, what's remarkable is that the film, with a paper budget of $11 million, seems to have been made out of thin air, with no visible financing in place and no obvious producer (despite the 10 named in the credits).

This is a movie that never got greenlit, never had a completion bond, never closed its finance, went into administration (the U.K. equivalent of Chapter 11) during post-production and still hasn't paid half its bills.

"It was a blooding beyond bloody for me," says Mackinnon. "Everyone tells me it's the worst scenario in terms of the politics and the money that they've ever come across."

"In hindsight, everyone was completely bonkers," says one industry veteran who was centrally involved in the project, but requests anonymity to spare his professional blushes.

Yet the word from those who have had a sneak preview is that the movie might, just might, deliver on the crowd-pleasing, heart-warming promise that led one participant to pitch it as " 'Shine' on a bike."

Certainly, Edinburgh topper Shane Danielsen has made a big statement of faith by opening his festival with the film.

"The Flying Scotsman" is the true story of Graham Obree, the amateur Scottish cyclist who built his own bike out of washing machine parts and rode it to gold at the world championships, despite battling mental illness and hostility from the sport's authorities.

This classic triumph-from-adversity story attracted screenwriter Simon Rose in 1994. He hooked up with "Rob Roy" producer Peter Broughan, with Mackinnon eventually coming aboard to direct and Jonny Lee Miller to play Obree.

In 2002, the death of a key American investor caused the project to collapse just days before it was due to start shooting.

It took three years to pull it back together again. By then, Broughan had been joined by Damita Nikapota, a mysterious trans-Atlantic producer who sometimes used the pseudonym Sean Murphy.

While negotiating with financiers, Nikapota secured pre-production cash flow from specialist outfit Freewheel, headed by Sara Giles. Broughan fell out spectacularly with Mackinnon and tried to fire him, but Mackinnon refused to walk and cameras rolled last July.

It's not unusual for indie pics to start lensing before all the paperwork is finished. But in this case, although there seemed to be financing proposals on the table, the sums never quite added up.

"It was only during editing that it became blatantly obvious the producers couldn't close the financing," Giles says. Everyone involved, from Obree himself to Strathclyde Police, was owed money, but there was nothing in the pot.

Giles decided the only way the creditors, including herself, would stand any chance of being repaid was to finish the film. That meant taking the production company into administration, and putting up more of her own money. Her eventual cash outlay topped $4 million.

"I inadvertently became the adoptive mother of the film," Giles says. "I want people to understand that I was not the financier who had let everyone down. I'm the single largest creditor. Everyone is owed something, but the only person who has not been paid a penny is me."

"It's only because of Sarah's faith in the film and her risk-taking that we're here today," testifies Mackinnon, who edited at night while shooting a TV show by day to pay his bills.

All hopes now rest on how the film plays at its world premiere. A new sales agent will be announced imminently, and any distribution deals will be used to repay the debts.

Now that really would be a triumph from adversity to rival Obree's own remarkable story.

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BIG OR SMALL.. I'LL DO 'EM ALL
Brian Cox on why he's as happy filming a low-budget Scots movie as a blockbuster
By Brian Mclver

BRIAN COX has played a serial killer, | an evil general and the leader of the most ruthless army in the ancient world. But Hollywood's favourite Scot admits that he fights his hardest battles with accountants desperate to curtail his film-making fun. The award-winning actor is f oneofthebest-knownfaceson the big screen with a host of blockbusters on his CV. But he's just as at home in a tiny independent shoot in the back streets of a Scottish city, much to the despair of his money-men. "I keep getting raps on the knuckles from my accountants who say I can't do these sort of films because I need to go out and make some money," admitted Brian. The 59-year-old Dundonian made time to chat to the Record on the Edinburgh set of A Woman in Winter, directed by fellow Scot Richard Jobson.

He's particularly keen to support Scottish talent and AWoman in Winter is the first of a run of three Scots productions for Brian, who's now based in LA. He'll appear in a film set in Glasgow about Sherlock Holmes creator Arthur Conan Doyle, and is also in The Flying Scotsman, a biopic of cyclist Graeme Obree, which ran into some financial difficulties earlier this year and had to be rescued by administrators.

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Obree film makers go into Administration December 08, 2005

Mel Films, the production company behind the £3m Hollywood bio-pic on Graeme Obree, has been placed into administration. 'The Flying Scotsman', starring 'Trainspotting' star Jonny Lee Miller, had finished filming and should make it to the big screen despite the latest setback. In 2002, the film was scuppered when the US financier keeled over and died.

The film's production company may have been placed in administration but there are a raft of funding partners and the film should not die this time around.

The financing partners include NRW, BBC Scotland, Bank of Ireland, Glasgow Film Office, Pictorion Das Werk, IFC, and Scottish Screen.

Administrators Tenon Recovery say the film will go ahead. Kenny Craig, of Tenon Recovery, said: "Our priority is to make sure The Flying Scotsman is released."

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MILLER DOESN'T HAVE THE LEGS FOR ACTING ROLE

JONNY LEE MILLER's intensive training regime failed to prepare him for his role as cycling legend GRAEME OBREE in biopic THE FLYING SCOTSMAN, and the real life Obree was eventually brought in as a stunt double.

MILLER was thrilled to play the hero who rode a bike made out of washing machine parts to break the world hour-record in the 1990s, but was left embarrassed when his leg muscles didn't make the grade. Obree says, "I'm the legs in the movie but Jonny did well.

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MILLER'S 'EXTREME APPROACH' TO LATEST ROLE

JONNY LEE MILLER shocked co-star BRIAN COX with the gruelling fitness regime he has imposed on himself to take on the role of a cycling legend. The veteran British actor believes the 32-year-old need to play cycling legend GRAEME OBREE in THE FLYING SCOTSMAN as authentically as possible has seen him adopt a training regime usually only seen in sports professionals.

Cox says, "I often see him out of the car window when I'm driving to the set, and cheer him on. He's started riding Graeme Obree's bicycle too, which is partly made out of old washing machine parts. That Jonny's a strange lad. No one's making him do it - he just seems to be very enthusiastic."

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