A young filmmaker from Thurso determined not to let his visual impairment stop him has vowed to keep making “good stories” this year.
Mitchell McKechnie is a self-taught filmmaker who was born with brainstem nystagmus, a condition which causes his eyes to move involuntarily.
Describing it as being like “walking around in a fog”, Mr McKechnie cannot recognise people and uses a white cane.
Despite this, Mr McKechnie has been interested in filmmaking from a young age, originally wanting to work as a cartoonist.
When he was a teenager, he picked up a camera and started teaching himself how to use it. He then started creating short films and has been progressing ever since, aiming to up his game with each film.
“The camera can see better than my eyes,” he said. “Focusing the camera is a very big issue, if I’m just behind the camera I can do it easily, but very minute things like that are very problematic.
“When I’m making films I already see it in my head, I’ve already visualised what I want the film to look like to begin with.
“You just replicate it from your head as best as you can, so it doesn’t necessarily take me that long in that sense.”
Visual impairment won’t stop the filmmaker
The young filmmaker is determined his visual impairment will not get in the way of his dreams, but admitted it can be frustrating at times.
It can be difficult for Mr McKechnie to meet new people as he finds it somewhat upsetting to introduce his condition to someone who has never heard of it.
Most people are welcoming, but he finds it daunting not knowing how people might react to him and his disability.
Taking inspiration from horror novels, the 22-year-old writes and films his own work while also acting in scenes.
He said: “I feel like horror is such an interesting way of telling a story essentially. In modern cinema, when I think of a horror movie nowadays, I think it’s very gimmicky, they’re not telling a story they’re telling a situation.
“When I think of a horror book, like a Stephen King, Salem Lot, or a Richard Layman book it’s kind of more interesting.
“You can read and your imagination is going to be far stronger than the majority of horror movies.”
‘It feels very fulfilling’
Recently, he finished a short black and white film called Autumn Nocturn about a Scottish poet struggling with alcoholism.
Now Mr McKechnie is currently editing his new work, Zen Mist, which is his longest piece yet.
He hopes to upload the new murder mystery to his YouTube channel by the end of January.
“It feels very fulfilling,” he explained. “I’m not just making stuff for the sake of making it, I’m doing it because I think it’s a good story or a good film.”
His work can be viewed on his YouTube channel Mitchell Zen.
