Our horror film CREDO is now on sale on DVD in the UK in shops and on-line!

The last couple of weeks have been really exciting as there’s been  quite a bit of publicity in the press and on TV: a clip from CREDO was shown on GMTV and This Morning and we had press coverage in the Mail on Sunday, the Mirror, the Telegraph, the Metro and quite a few regional newspapers plus coverage on MSN, Yahoo, Virgin Media and also I think Credo is also going to be in a couple of film magazines. (Let me know if I’ve missed any!)

This is amazing considering CREDO is a small indie film with not much in the way of a marketing budget and with no advertising!

What is really exciting is that it’s finding an audience – people are writing their own online reviews and comments on CREDO and suddenly it’s got it’s own life, which makes me feel immensely proud!

Meanwhile, as we’re also selling the DVD from our own website, we’ve also become a little DVD fulfilment factory – processing online orders, printing address labels, stuffing envelopes, weighing parcels on our kitchen scales combined with numerous trips to the local post office.

I always seem to be served by the same lady at the post office counter and every time, she  tries to flog me the full range of Post Office phone cards, travel insurance, foreign currency exchange etc etc and each time I smile and politely say “No thank you” but inside I am screaming “You’ve asked me three times today already thanks!”

We’re also about to launch another DVD series in a couple of weeks (a factual series with nothing to do with horror!) – so things are about to get a whole lot busier…

Today a clip from our horror film CREDO was shown on GMTV!

It’s great publicity for us ahead of its DVD release on May 25th – (pre-order it now from www.credothemovie.com!)

It might not sound like massive news but to me it’s really exciting.

As a small UK indie feature film with a very limited marketing budget, CREDO is competing with the Hollywood big boys and so any mention on TV is a huge deal as it really helps raise awareness of the film’s existence!

The boys from Boyzone took over GMTV this morning and each of the band members had to present part of the show. Keith Duffy and Mikey Graham were reviewing Movies – they mentioned three movies; Night At The Museum 2, Angels & Demons and of course, CREDO.

They showed a clip featuring Stephen Gately with Colin Salmon and it looked and sounded great.

Mikey talked about the film’s storyline and then Keith complimented Stephen on his performance.

It was all over in about 90 seconds – but that’s a very valuable 90 seconds to us!  Thanks GMTV and thank you Boyzone!

Credo with Stephen Gately

The button is soon to be pushed for promoting Credo’s UK release on DVD on 25th May.

Lots of media PR is planned over the next few weeks to raise awareness of the film including some featuring Stephen Gately. All this so that people hopefully rush out and buy the DVD (or probably more likely the case nowadays, to saunter off and order online).

But none of it really involves me. Credo now has its own life, it’s own destiny. Credo’s fate now lies in the hands of the media, internet and press coverage. And hopefully, it will soon have it’s own fans!

It’s almost three years since we first came up with the idea to make Credo as a low-budget indie UK feature and it’s been a long and sometimes difficult process but it’s been a fantastic journey.

I thought at the time the hardest part of making the film was the shoot, but actually that was only just the beginning! As I’m not just the director, I’m also one of the producers, the hardest part was securing international and UK distribution. It’s been a steep learning curve and I’ve learnt many lessons.

Actually I’m really pleased and proud of the result, that amongst other territories we’ve sold, we’ve had a Lionsgate release in the US (under the name The Devil’s Curse) and also that the film is being released by Guerilla Films in the UK on May 25th.

I think if you’re a producer as well as the director of your first low-budget feature film, you’ll only know what that really means when you are half-way through doing your own spotting script as part of a very long list of deliverables as you have no money to pay anyone else to do it.

It will be late at night and you’ll be up against a tight deadline. You’ll be going through the film frame by frame and slowly going a little bit doolally, writing down every shot, every line of dialogue, every visual effect, every lighting cue, every sound & music cue and that’s when you really know what indie film-making is all about.

But then again. I wouldn’t want it any other way.

(Be interested if any other director /producer had there own spotting script moment on their own film??)

Anyhow. Hopefully you’ll soon see the results of the button being pushed for Credo. Let me know if / when / where you see Credo publicised!

Pre-order Credo now!

So last night was the UK premiere of CREDO and a world premiere of this extended edition never-seen-before cut including the special 11 minute prologue starring Stephen Gately – all ready for its UK DVD release on May 25th.

The screening was part of the London Independent Film Festival and it was a sell out, so the Roxy cinema was packed full of cast, crew, friends, family and hopefully horror movie fans!

Even though I’m really proud of CREDO and especially proud of what myself, Alex, the cast and crew and everyone else who worked on the film, of what we all achieved, this is only the second time I’ve watched the film in front of an audience.

I found it really nerve-wracking and ended up spending most of my time watching the audience watching the film. I was acutely aware of every single moment when the audience relaxed, when they were hiding behind their hands and every moment they jumped. All I kept thinking was that ok, in the next scene, will they jump at xxx? So not a laid-back experience but still, I enjoyed being a voyeur watching the audience!

Luckily we had an amazing response to the film and according to the audience, everyone seemed to have really liked the film and better still, CREDO delivered on the scares. (In fact my friend Emma said the film had scared her so much she was too afraid to go down to the loos in the basement after the film had ended. Not sure what she did instead…)

Then I did a Q&A after the screening and I was expecting some really tough Jeremy Paxman style interrogations but actually I really enjoyed the Q&A. I answered questions on everything from what the budget was, what was the hardest scene to shoot, what would I do differently if I had the chance to shoot the film again and what was I going to do next (hit the bar for a glass of wine thanks!)

So a really good night and many thanks to everyone who came along to support the film.

Credo DVD Pre-Order Now!

So our horror movie CREDO is being released in the UK by Guerilla Films on DVD on May 25th. Running time is 93 mins. Cert 15.

This will be the extended edition including the very special 11 minute prologue featuring Stephen Gately in his fantastic feature film acting debut.

But by special arrangement with our distributor, what is really exciting is that you can buy it direct from us, the film-makers at www.altofilms.com and you’ll be the first to see it!

Credo DVD

To celebrate its release, if you do buy CREDO from us (and you can pre-order it from the site right now!), then you will also get a set of 4 specially printed CREDO postcards for FREE. These postcards are available nowhere else in the whole world so it’s a bit of a coup.

Credo Postcard Set

On top of that, you can also buy the official CREDO poster – again available nowhere else. And Credo t-shirts are also coming soon.

Credo Poster available now to buy!

And we have also have links to buy our list of our all-time favourite horror movies.

The UK version of the DVD includes a 24 minute behind the scenes CREDO documentary called the “Five Essentials of Horror” which gives you the real insight into what making a low-budget horror is really like.

But there’s also a very special bonus feature. It’s a never seen before interview I did with Stephen Gately where he talks about his supernatural experiences, his belief in demons and his lifelong ambition to die in a horror movie…

So just think, if you do buy CREDO or anything from our site, it’ll most probably be the director herself that looks at your order, puts the DVD / postcards / poster into the envelope or poster tube, sticks on the label and pops along to the local post office to send them off. How is that for personal service from a film-maker!

So the countdown begins…

CREDO is being released on DVD in the UK on May 25th and you can pre-order it now from the usual suspects like Amazon, Play, Love Film etc. Our UK distributor is Guerilla Films.

Right now, we’re putting together a special DVD with some limited edition merchandising which will be available from the www.credothemovie.com website and again, you can pre-order.

In fact, don’t pre-order it from Amazon – pre-order it direct from us!

More details to follow soon…

Credo