And Him

Faced with being a burnout creative, Colin stumbles into a family tradition by learning the timeless melody of Scotland the Brave on his father’s bagpipes. Bagpipe performance included.

Creative team

Writer/director/producer: Colin Waugh

Filmmaker’s statement

And Him is a true story from 2013 when I actually learned the bagpipes to surprise my father for his birthday.

A terrible performance, but the moment was real.

At the time I was a recent graduate from university, but unemployed and bumming around the house. It didn’t help that my older brother became a doctor that year – so I had an inside look at how careers play such a large role in our concept of social value.

Jordan Bloemen (who did narration and sound) was an amazing partner on this project. We were given the directive to explore ‘tradition’ and my bagpipe story seemed like a perfect fit.

Jordan and I have worked together on a number of projects, splitting up our duties between eyes and ears. Jordan rewrote the script to fit his writing style, then narrated and composed an original score. He did some really interesting work, taking traditional melodies and playing them with instruments like the marimba – so good.

I then went about pitching the project to my family.

It’s kind of funny how casting your mother in an indie project is normally problematic, but in this case it worked.

One of the goals was to see if a story could be told through a series of portraits. No camera movements, no wizardry, just a series of still frames and a solid narrative. It was half out of necessity (as a one-man crew) but also as an exercise to not stress over intricate crane or stabilizer shots.

I also had to relearn the bagpipes but, like riding a bike, you never seem to forget.

About Colin Waugh

Colin Waugh is an award-winning film and commercial director based out of Edmonton, Alberta.

In addition to And Him, Colin has completed a number of projects including the fly fishing short Castles In The Air that received top honours at the 2015 Outdoor Writers of Canada Awards, a children’s short – Monster Space Bungalow – on Telus Optik TV, and an ever-expanding resume of award-winning commercial work.

Colin is a pretty normal guy – in a good way – focusing his projects on relatable experiences and striving to entertain.

A product of the new wave in filmmaking, he’s grown up with the technology and works to master both the artistic and technical sides of the process.

Colin currently works in-house with the creative agency Sticks & Stones, developing films, podcasts, commercials, animations and pretty well anything creative with an awesome team of beauties.