My name is Sam Firth and the main job I do, the thing that seems to be the reason d’etre for everything else, is writing and in particular writing scripts for feature films. Screenwriting is a lonely painful job and it’s extremely rare to get a feature film script made, so I do a number of other things too. I teach screenwriting, I help other people realise their vision as a script editor, I help young people to make films and have been a producer too.

I got to be a screenwriter mainly by doing the things I enjoyed as much as possible and avoiding the things I didn’t. Many years ago, while at university, I got a summer job doing work experience for a small production company, which lead to working for the 39th London Film Festival, which in turn lead to working for another small production company this time as a development executive. I discovered later that this meant reading and working on scripts, which I loved.

This lead to being assistant producer of a small feature film called Chunky Monkey. I didn’t enjoy this so much so I went back to working on scripts. I became a freelance script reader and read hundreds of scripts for about ten different film companies, I would write a page or two on whether they were any good or not and get paid a meagre amount, but I loved it.
I did an Arista course in script editing and got paid a bit more to be a script editor, whilst still reading scripts. Learning about screenwriting inspired me to do an MA, so I packed London in and did an MA in Screenwriting at the Northern Film School. I learnt a great deal about what makes a screenplay and discovered I was an okay screenwriter. I got more from writing than anything else I had done.

Whilst studying, I was also asked to help with a children’s film project funded by First Light, this lead to doing a lot more work helping young people to make films. I lived in a small village in the Pennines while I studied and got a taste for remote living. After the MA, I went back to London, got an agent, got some lottery funding to write a feature, and a part time job at a university lecturing in screenwriting and seemed to hit the ground running. But it was all a little too much. I came to the Highlands to escape the pressure I felt to write what other people wanted me to, and discovered Knoydart where I now live.

I still write and have a feature film script almost ready, I have a director attached and am making the finishing touches before looking for a producer. I also have several other more embryonic projects on the go. I now mentor First Light films visiting the children and the adult filmmakers, giving advice; the last project I mentored was in Skye. I am also producing First Light films and recently worked with the primary age children on Munchatreeaforest a film about woodland regeneration. The next plan is to make four films with young people each in different ‘buy out’ community giving them a chance to make a film about where they live and I already have part funding from HIE to do this. I am also about to teach a short screenwriting course in Fort William in a few weeks time.

At some point in the future I hope to direct my own work and have a short film script I’d like to make. I’d also like to do more teaching and write a novel, but it may be a while before I do the latter. Still, Knoydart is a great place to hunker down for the winter and write.
I never planned to stay in the Highlands this long but there seems to be a surprising amount of opportunities here and my skills seem to be called for which, is great, there is also much to write and make films about here. It might be a while before I leave.