No matter how deep you dig, the fact is there is no greater Heavy metal band on God's green earth than IRON MAIDEN. Since the dawn of their emergence onto the scene way back in 1980, fans across the globe having been flocking to their music in droves. Nearly three decades later, IRON MAIDEN is more popular than ever, and with their esteemed existence continuing to move onward into the future, it's a wonder if the band will ever stop.

The band have released album after album, several greatest hits compilations, and various DVDs, but never in the history of MAIDEN has there been a film documenting the band at their very best... until now. Directed by two talented Canadian film makers, Sam Dunn and Scot McFadyen, who are best known for their work on their first two documentary films, "Metal: A Headbanger's Journey" and "Global Metal", "Iron Maiden: Flight 666" gives fans a look into the first leg of MAIDEN's "Somewhere Back In Time World Tour, which took them 50,000 miles round the planet playing 23 concerts on five continents in just 45 days.

METALEATER sits down with director Scot McFadyen for this exclusive look into the making of "Flight 666".

Can you tell me how this whole project started and where did the idea come from?

"Well, I mean, we have a relationship with the band after our last two films, and Rod Smallwood, the manager, has always been one of our biggest supporters and really helped us out all the way along. So I'd just been emailing with him and I'd said 'p.s. maybe we should do a documentary on MAIDEN sometime.' And within ten minutes he had emailed back saying 'You know, I think that's a really good idea and you guys are the guys to do it. In 2010 we're going to do a new album and maybe we can do a documentary around that.' Then we saw the press release for this film and we thought actually this is the film to tour 11 countries in 45 days and 70,000 kilometers and Bruce (Dickinson - vocals) flying the plane. I just thought that's such an amazing, historical thing to capture that. So we spent some time - Sam (Dunn) and I flew to London and we tried to convince them on our idea and then Rod started to get cold feet thinking that the band would never agree to having cameras around in their face 24 hours a day. They've been a pretty private band up until now. So he (Rod Smallwood) said no and went back and I guess Bruce thought it was a good idea and he phoned - it was a month later - and said "Okay, let's do it.' We really only had two months, at that point, to pull everything together."

So how did the members of MAIDEN react when the idea was presented to them. Were they receptive?

"Well, I think that Bruce was receptive and then Steve (Harris - bass) said 'Yeah, I think this is the film we'd like to show our grand kids and as a memory of MAIDEN and the tours they've been through.' From there I think the other guys were not that receptive. Maybe Dave (Murray - guitar) was okay and then Nicko (McBrain - drums), but I don't think Adrian (Smith - guitar) and Janick (Gers - guitar) were that keen on it. You know, when we showed up the first day to Stansted (airport - in London) and we're walking towards the (IRON MAIDEN) plane, I mean they had a crew of 70 people with them and these guys are like English soccer hooligans and you can kind of just hear the feeling that they're like "Why is it two Canadians that are doing a documentary of Britain's biggest metal band of all time?' (laughs) So we kinda had some hurdles to get over, you know. We had to get the band to like us; we had to overcome the crew kicking the piss out of us, and within a couple weeks we had done it. Luckily Adrian's wife is Canadian and she had seen our films. She made her point to try to get all the guys in the band to just totally warm up to us. Once they did, it was amazing. Even to this day, it's like we're part of their family now. Like we play tennis with them, you know, we drink with them in the pub. I think once they realized we just great Canadian guys (laughs), they opened up to us."

When you were trying to warm up to them and have them warm up to you, did you have any ideas on how you could do that? How did you achieve that?

"We took it kind of slow, you know. Sometimes we would just hang with them without cameras, and then we would use smaller cameras and just work our way up to the cameras we liked, that we wanted to have. I think once they got to know us as people, and us just talk with them... you know, we played tennis with Adrian and Steve and we beat them which helped (laughs), and we'd hang out in the pub and have some pints with them and I think once they realized we had a good sense of humour they just slowly kinda warmed up to us. Janick was the last to warm up to us but now, he's a really funny guy. I really liked to hang out with him. He was kind of feeling that he didn't want to tear down the mystique behind the band and he was a little worried how we might present them. As a result, Janick was probably least present in the film."

Was that by choice? His or your choice or just the way it happened?

"Just the way it happened. Nicko is like the comedian of the film. That guy is hilarious, and I don't think people know... I don't think MAIDEN fans realize how funny the guy is. So he is just very present and he was always there for us and Bruce was totally comfortable with us. Steve's just shy, but he comes across in the film. Adrian now is actually one of my favourite guys in the band, so he's quite present. Dave just doesn't say very much and Janick - it took him a while to come around. We just presented it the way it was. I think you see it pretty clearly. But they come across really well like that. I think we showed it to a lot of people who are not MAIDEN fans or not even metal fans, just to kind of get their impression, and all of them came away with like a new respect for the band and actually said they'd go out and buy some MAIDEN albums."

How did the overall production go?

"This is hands-down the hardest thing we've ever done, the hardest film we've ever made. We had a couple of months to pull it together. It took that long just to get the visas for all the countries. We had seven crew (members). We had 500 hours of footage that we shot all in full HD, so if you think about that, that would take 12 weeks just to get it into your computer and then working 50-hour weeks and then it takes that long just to watch it. We had three editors cull it down over 11 months. The live stuff we shot over 23 shows, so the movie kinda goes between being backstage and with the band, and then we do one song, not the complete song, but one song from each, as we move through the set in different cities around the world, ending in Toronto with 'Hallowed Be Thy Name'. So we had to film all those with multi-cameras, shoot and edit it together. Just editing the live stuff alone took six months, and with one of the best editors in Canada. Honestly, it's way above anything (laughs) that MAIDEN's released, visually to this date. I mean, Steve Harris edited a lot of his old stuff (videos), right. So when you think about it now, he's an amazing bass player but editing is not his strong point (laughs). Now you have some of the best film editors in the country working on their (MAIDEN's) stuff, it's gonna make a big difference."

I'm assuming you guys use Macs for all the work?

"Yeah, we do everything in Final Cut (software) and we shoot on Sony - the cameras that we use. Just to give you an idea, once we finished the footage it took up 10 terabytes of space on the computer (laughs)."

Wow. That's a lot. The Mac Pro is really the only machine that can handle that, and the rendering.

"Yeah, well even that, honestly we were crashing like ten times a day, so we were pushing the limits of what it could do."

Even on a Mac Pro?

"Oh yeah. We have several Macs. We have like state-of-the-art, top of the line computers, but it was crashing. One day I think we crashed like 15 times, 'cause if you think about full HD, we had all the cameras multi-layered, so we'd have 23 full HD concerts layered on top of each other in the system so we could go between them. Anyways, not complaining about Macs (laughs). It is the only way to do it, but it's not perfect yet."

Oh you can't even use a PC for that, and even if you tried to you'd probably crash like 50,000 times a day.

"No. The only way to go is an Avid, which is specifically made for editing film. It's like a whole other system, but it's much more expensive than Final Cut."

So how was it working with the band and Rod Smallwood as a unit?

"I think we have a really good relationship with Rod Smallwood. He's kind of notorious... he's like a full-on bully, you know? (laughs) He wants things done his way. Just for him to open up creatively to new people was really challenging for him, but he was really good. He's really been supportive. I don't think there are many bands that have a relationship with their manager the way that (MAIDEN do). We're doing a documentary on RUSH right now, for instance, and their relationship with their manager is so different - like it's so hands-off compared to Rod and MAIDEN. So Rod just has a lot of input and a lot of say. And the band, they really just came in at the end and gave their sign-off and their approval. It's been a good experience."

Now, you guys have obviously traveled through several countries to capture all this footage. Can you tell me some of the highlights of your journey together, both you and Sam and your crew?

"Well, I mean, honestly when we did 'Metal: A Headbanger's Journey' and before it was released and Seville bought it and they said 'What do you guys want to do? What's one of your goals?' And we said 'Well, we'd really like to see the world and travel.' And they said 'Well, I don't think that's going to happen.' I don't think we knew what was gonna happen but it was... 'A Headbanger's Journey' took us all over the world for film festivals. We love going to Norway and our films do really well there and Gaahl (GORGOROTH) buys us drinks every time we go, so that's always good (laughs). There are so many - we went to China and we go to Tokyo and have a lot do to with either press for our films or filming, With 'Flight 666' I think highlights in just hanging out are different than what we captured on film. Like Colombia was amazing. That's the first time we'd been to Colombia and the band had sold 60,000 seats with standing room at the stadium. There were people camped out ten days before. You know, just what we captured with them. There was like a near riot outside and it was pretty amazing to see, but also kinda dangerous (laughs). Man, we've probably been to about 30 countries and just multiple times going back to Japan. It's been a bit of a whirlwind. Now we're looking like we're gonna do a TV series for VH1 and that's also gonna take us around the world again."

When you guys first started doing this (film making) did you ever expect to be where you're at now in your career as film makers? This is only your third film, but it seems to me that you guys have achieved quite a bit of success thus far. Did you think that you would have reached this point so quickly?

"I don't know. In some ways it's hard to gauge, but it seems like we've been doing it for awhile (laughs). But it definitely feels like something has happened. We've hit a certain level, but at the same time we have to think 'what's next?' You always think it's just gonna get easy but you have to keep on top of it. Now we have a staff and we have a production company. It's always thinking about what's next. I mean, I'd hope so, but frick I'm 40 years old (laughs)."

Do you guys want to continue doing this sort of thing where you document bands?

"Honestly, it's a lot harder. I thought it would be easier. I mean we're doing RUSH and that's pretty epic. But there is so much more pressure involved in getting it right, you know 'cause there are so many fans that are gonna judge it, and the band that you respect so highly, you wanna make sure they're gonna like it, and you also have to make a film that you like. So there are all these different pressures. The series for VH1 is gonna be based on 'Metal: A Headbangers Journey' on the Genealogy Chart, so it's gonna have like an episode on each of the Metal subgenres - like everything from Power metal to Black metal. That's also gonna be a new challenge, trying to pull off eight episodes in a year and then one documentary a year. Sam probably has a greater passion for metal and I have a passion for film making and I love metal, but I want to do narrative. I'd like to do the first film we do outside of metal, so I think that's one of the next challenges."

Looking back on this "Flight 666" with IRON MAIDEN, what have you taken from this experience and how has it influenced you and how do you think it will influence your future projects?

"Well, I think technically it's like a leap forward compared to our other documentaries. It's a real sort of experience. It's like a real cinematic kinda I say, blockbuster documentary experience because it's much bigger with the 5.1 surround sound. I think we're just learning how to make something that really works cinematically. So I think that is something we'll take. You've got to get the story, but also it's really fun just to have something that's much more experiential than heavy in dialogue."

So in a couple of sentences, what can fans expect from this documentary film?

"Well, I mean fans of IRON MAIDEN are going to be blown away. It really is amazing and the best. You'll never see the band in this light and the songs and all the countries - it's a whirlwind ride around the world with MAIDEN. But non-fans too, I mean I think it really is a film that can appeal not just to IRON MAIDEN fans. So I think if you're a MAIDEN fan it might be - for MAIDEN day - I would say bring your non-MAIDEN buddy to the show because they'll have a greater understanding and probably become a fan after the film." [FIN]