FILM schools, books, and old hands from the industry can give no end of advice on what it takes to get a first feature made and into cinemas.

Director Craig Maclean cuts to the chase in typically clear-eyed, Scots style.

"Having Michael Fassbender's name attached to it made it a lot easier," says the 42-year-old writer-director from Tayport, Fife, of his feature debut, Slow West.

Being able to say the Oscar-nominated star of 12 Years a Slave, Shame, and the forthcoming Macbeth was leading the western undoubtedly helped put money in the bank. But the Maclean hinterland, which included membership of The Beta Band and two successful shorts, had its own value. As did those shifts at the Cameo in Edinburgh when he was an art student, of which more later.

Whatever the mix of luck, cast, and directorial talent, Slow West arrives on UK screens next week [JUNE 26] having had its premiere at the Sundance Film Festival in January.

There was "a lot of trepidation" when he took his debut to the spiritual home of the western, but he sat in the audience and as soon as the first loud reaction - memory fails him whether it was a gasp or laugh - he suspected things were going to be okay. They were, with the film taking the Grand Jury prize.

Slow West is the story of a teenager from Scotland (played by Kodi Smit-McPhee) who ventures to Colorado in search of his first love. Lost and vulnerable, Jay comes under the paid protection of a traveller (Fassbender) who knows only too well how the west is being won - by violence.

Maclean had been a fan of westerns since being taken to see "some really terrible" ones by his dad. The Cameo later rounded out the education with the likes of Sergio Leone's Once Upon a Time in the West.

Maclean's father, like his mother a fine artist, also passed on an interest in the Highland Clearances and Scots and Irish migration to the States in the nineteenth century. Combining the two, felt Maclean, would bring a fresh take to the western. Fassbender and his production company, DMC, agreed.

Maclean first met Fassbender through his agent. The star had seen the videos Maclean had made for cult group The Beta Band, of which he was a member. "Even though the production was zero money I guess he saw some sort of inventiveness and offered his services for one day."

Maclean used the day wisely in his first short, Man on a Motorcycle (2009), having a pal play the part of the mysterious "man" only for Fassbender to be the "big reveal" in the final scenes. One day became three days on the Bafta-winning Pitch Black Heist (2011), and three days turned into playing the lead in Slow West.

The two hit it off personally, says Maclean, but more importantly they clicked creatively when discussing what sort of film Slow West should be. It was like being in a band, just riffing, recalls the Scot. He found the same neat fit with Jed Kurzel, who provided the music for Slow West and does the same on Fassbender's Macbeth, out in October.

Maclean does not like to put music on a cut too soon. "I resist music until the final hour because music can disguise, make things better than they actually are." More important is getting the edit right."As soon as you've got it all working as a cut then the music is really the icing on the cake."

Maclean went to art school in Edinburgh and London. His apprenticeship as a filmmaker, though he did not know it at the time, started with those family trips to the cinema, then going on his own to see Star Wars, Karate Kid, all the classics. "It always felt a little bit special. It never felt like oh we're just going to the cinema. It was always an exciting thing to do."

The technical skills on camera and in editing arrived when he made The Beta Band videos. Also helpful were those late shifts at the Cameo,

where a highlight was meeting a young visiting director by the name of Quentin Tarantino.

"He looked very different then and he seemed quite a different person. He still looked like someone who worked in a video shop," laughs Maclean. The Q&A was so inspiring it made Maclean feel that maybe he could make films too.

Fast forward, then, to Slow West, shot in Scotland and New Zealand, the latter doing a grand job of standing in for Colorado. Though the £3.8 million budget was relatively big for a first film, costs still had to be kept low. Maclean was glad of that in a way.

"The lower the budget the more control. We got enough money to make the film I wanted to make and no more so it was good, and that was all thanks to Michael."

An admirer of old school noir, he was determined not to make the usual first timer's mistake of not knowing when to quit the stage. At just 84 minutes, Slow West duly has the pace of a speeding bullet. "It's not like The Hobbit where you've got an hour of people saying goodbye to each other."

It is a determinedly moral film, even if the characters are painted in shades of grey rather than black and white. "It's important to make everyone human really," says Maclean. Slow West is also a picture that does not shy away from showing the hardships and dangers which met those arriving in search of what they hoped was a better life. While it takes no prisoners - the film has a 15 certificate - Maclean says he did not want to glorify violence.

"I didn't want to revel in any kind of gore or horror. I wanted it to be linked to the story but at the same time not avoid it because violence is a big part of that world. This felt like a fairytale to me and violence is a big part of fairytales."

Maclean, now a Londoner, has found himself the subject of American interest since the Sundance win. Scripts are coming his way, but he feels it is important to write the next film himself. It depends on where the tale is set, though, and one suspects the lure of America will prove irresistible at some point.

"I would love to make a film in America purely because of the light, the landscape and the architecture."

For now, he has to get Slow West up and running, which includes bringing it home to Scotland last month with a series of special Bafta screenings. Hearing him talk about the history of the west one naturally wonders how he would have fared as a pioneer. He laughs. A lot of survival was down to luck, he reckons. One wrong turn could lead to a whole lot of trouble.

"I was a boy scout, so I can light a fire. But at the same time I would have gone the wrong way."

[itals] Slow West opens in cinemas on June 26