Glasgow actor Daniel Kerr sets his sights on film festivals for Norm

Daniel Kerr, who won the award for his role in 2013 film The Wee Man, wrote Norm early last year and filmed it himself over the course of three months, cobbling together knowledge he found on sets.

He has now launched a GoFundMe in order to raise money to enter it in upcoming film festivals.

The 21-year-old says he is aiming to enter his film in early Summer so he can be part of the early submissions.

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Daniel said: "I would like to have a couple of film festival wins, that would be amazing.

"I don’t know how possible that is because film festivals can carry on for a year, and it’s really down to luck.

"I think because of the low maintenance of the film, I’m slightly worried that people who have done it with crews and stuff might overtake me in some respects, but I’ve spoken to quite a few directors and they’ve said ‘I would think it’s good enough to be submitted at the very least’."

The film tells the story of a character called Norm who has been cut off from his only friend and decides that in order to be acceptable to those around him he needs to go on a five-week intensive diet, but it becomes clear that his methods are not the right way to go about it.

Daniel, who has also starred in Doctor Who and Doctors, says he was inspired to make the film after he realised how judgemental he had become about his own weight.

He said: "I just realised this is not a healthy way to be going about things, it shouldn’t be such an encumbrance.

"I wouldn’t go on holiday because I was worried about people seeing me with my top off and stuff like that.

"So, I thought I needed to do something about it and just address those quite toxic feelings around weight.

"I think people are really quite nasty about themselves and about others needlessly about people that look a different way or have different diets and stuff like that, and it seems to be there’s a standard that everyone is expected to meet and if you don’t meet that then you can be met with pretty vitriolic abuse sometimes.

"So that’s what really kicked it off, me deciding to feel better about myself."

Daniel initially released the film on YouTube last year where it was met with a positive response, though he has now removed it to edit it with original music so it can be entered in film festivals.

He said: "Overall, the reaction’s been quite good.

"People have said ‘aw yeah I know exactly what this is like, getting in your own head to the point where you’re willing to essentially in some cases do yourself damage’ because you can be that single-minded on it and because body dysmorphia and expecting people to see you in a way you’re not actually seen can be really damaging.

"But I’ve had quite a few people say, ‘I really understand what this is like’ and I would hope that it’s a ‘how not to’ guide when it comes to weight and dealing with toxic feelings about your body image."

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Daniel, who is from Bearsden, says he would like to see more films made in Scotland and he hopes his film can be a small part of that.

He said: "Scottish filmmaking in general, it’s a market that’s quite empty, it’s filling up now we’ve got this new studio being built and I think it’s something that can be tapped into.

"Huge productions are filmed here all the time with World War Z, Indiana Jones, the Batman films, the Lord of the Rings TV show that was filmed in Scotland, and it seems to be that everyone comes here to film things, it would be nice if things came from here.

"I’ve no idea what my film would do for that, but it would be nice to see more homegrown talent make and create stuff."

You can view Daniel’s GoFundMe HERE.