Scot McFadyen


Scot McFadyen is a Canadian film director, producer and music supervisor whose work focuses on the subculture of heavy metal. He co-owns Toronto-based production company Banger Films with Sam Dunn.

Films

Metal: A Headbanger's Journey

McFadyen's first film, co-directed with Dunn and Jessica Wise, was released in 2005. The film follows Dunn on a journey to document the origins, culture and appeal of heavy metal. It also explores the themes of heavy metal: violence, death, religion and Satanism, gender and sexuality.

Global Metal

Released in 2008, McFadyen and Dunn co-directed a new film, Global Metal. In the film, McFadyen and Dunn set out to discover how the West’s most maligned musical genre — heavy metal — has impacted the world’s cultures beyond Europe and North America. The film follows metal fan, host and anthropologist Sam Dunn on a whirlwind journey through Asia, South America and the Middle East as he explores the underbelly of the world’s emerging extreme music scenes — from Indonesian death metal to Israeli Oriental metal and Chinese black metal to Iranian thrash metal, etc. The film reveals a worldwide community of metalheads who are not only absorbing metal from the West, but are also transforming it and creating a new form of cultural expression in societies dominated by conflict, corruption and mass consumerism.

Iron Maiden: Flight 666

McFadyen and Dunn co-wrote and co-directed the 2009 documentary Iron Maiden: Flight 666. The film chronicles the band's 2008 tour in which a converted Boeing 757 was flown from country to country by vocalist Bruce Dickinson.

Rush: Beyond The Lighted Stage

In 2009, McFadyen and Dunn started working on a documentary about progressive metal band Rush. The film premiered at the 2010 Tribeca Film Festival in New York on April 29, winning the festival's Audience Award.

Filmography