A Year on: a Dream Becomes a Success

So I left lockdown for the first time last week. 

Leaving Edinburgh where I have been since March, I headed to London. 

This was no ordinary trip, however. For a start I had my new offices to inspect at the Royal Exchange in the City of London. It was a thrill to arrive there and then to be shown to my new office suite with staff already very much at home. In more ways than one this moment feels like the start of a new era: for me and the companies I lead. 

Once I had greeted everyone, we got down to work. 

Now, as you know I am involved in more than one business, but on the way to London I had one of these businesses very much in the forefront of my mind. 

A year ago, almost to the day I write these words, Alamo Pictures was born. The idea of a film company came to me shortly before that when I had been on board a plane switching through the channels looking for something to watch. The choice was okay if you like middle of the road stories with every predictable plot line going. So I looked to the documentaries available. Soon I settled into some real films about real people with some very real stories to boot.

This intrigued me. And when I get intrigued then I start to think about business opportunities.

Maybe it is because the news these days is more fantastic than any fiction maker could invent but we seem to be living through a Golden Age of Documentaries. Today many of the best docs are beautifully shot with cinematography equal to anything Hollywood can offer. Docs tell some really interesting stories too – often larger than life. They have become slicker features as well with better production values. The interviewing of people is more natural now, their reactions less scripted, and their emotions more tangible. The whole thing feels not just more real but really more cinematic. Yet these documentaries are only an older form of storytelling that has had one almighty facelift.

Documentaries are also far more commercially viable than they once were. Did you know that the famous Cannes film market is now made up of 16% docs? And that is precisely the type of place where you can chart the future path of the box office and thus cinema itself. The streaming platforms, omnipresent during lockdown, have changed things for the better – and docs are in, they’re cool, they’re happening! 

In turn the genre has opened up possibilities to a whole new swathe of up and coming filmmakers. There are more doc makers running around London’s Soho than ever before. There are more doc festivals too. This means more money is around looking for the next Fahrenheit 9/11. To be a documentarian was once seen as a bit grim, today it is super trendy.

So, never wishing to miss an opportunity I created my own film company: Alamo Pictures. We make US themed stories through a European lens. 

One year on, we are in talks with two major players on the global stage about our latest film project. It is the story of basketball legend Kobe Bryant. But the part of his life we are telling is that bit you will not have heard of. "Kobe: Made in Italy" is a story of the Bryant family building a new life in a foreign country, namely, Italy; it is also about the awakening of a talent that would flower on the other side of the Atlantic. It is as unique as the man at its center, and as inspiring as its subject was to become later for many young Americans. 

Did you know that Kobe’s formative years were in Italy? No, me neither until one of my team came with the idea. I directed that that idea be worked up into a pitch that turned quickly into a viable project. Then I released development funds to oil the wheels. 

During the whole lockdown period, my colleagues were working tirelessly to research and develop the story. We secured access to around 60 important contributors in Italy and the US. These include personal friends of Kobe and other people he was close to in Italy and during his career. 

Much quicker than we expected major media players were calling, followed by the inevitable and endless meetings around what will be an international co-production. Obviously I can’t mention the names - not yet - but if you were to tell me a year ago which media companies would be calling I would have taken some convincing that that was even possible - not anymore.   

But that is the entrepreneurial mindset; one I’ve had since I was a teenager. 

I’ll be honest: I have one major regret during this past 12 months. That is that I didn’t film my journey into the wonderful world of cinema. Kobe’s story may be quite a tale but, so far, so is the story behind the making of the documentary version of his early life.  

But this is just the start for Alamo Pictures. Trust me. I hope to make it a cinematic vehicle open to any entrepreneur who wants to tell a story – maybe their unique story – on screen. The one thing about Alamo Pictures is that there are no rules – we do things our own way and with whomsoever we like. That is the same sort of freedom that inspired the defenders of the Alamo Mission and that ideal continues to inspire.