CARRY ON COMMISSIONING

Boring, boring, boring, I know, but somebody has to keep an eye on the buggers.

Seems that the Cultural Commission's recommendations have been panned by the latest in a long line of Scottish Culture Ministers, Patricia Ferguson.

Sounds like a good call, missus - after all, what's half a million down the pan, not to mention the jobs dished out to pals without advertising? Plus the fact that there were no practising artists on the committee anyway. And for what? A manifesto calling for more admin (self-preservation being the name of the game) and a load of tosh about giving the population cultural rights - yeah right, like I need anybody's permission to watch telly?

The main recommendation of the Commission - to spawn a monster called Culture Scotland - didn't come out of nowhere. I guess the conspiracy merchants would have us believe it's a done deal because somebody thinks it's a good idea. And judging by the dismal track record of past Culture Ministers, Ms Ferguson will be out the door soon enough, so it may well happen.

Sadly one of the Commission's better ideas - scrapping Scottish Screen - now looks unlikely. Not that anyone would notice - SS's website's been down for a week and they don't return your calls at the best of times. In other words - about as visible as a fart in a snowstorm.

Those who do the creating - artists, filmmakers, writers, musos - will carry on working for free (or subbed by the buroo and Mac jobs) so that a bunch of self-appointed bean counters can award themselves fat wages. At least the creatives can take some consolation from knowing their work is more rewarding and a lot more fun than committee-sitting.

AN A-Z OF SCOTTISH FILM

Development Executive:
An office junior who never gets fired.

Digitizing
Giving the finger.

Deal Memo:
A reminder to go to McDonalds.

Dolly:
Quick to move; scantily-clad lassie dishing out flyers in Renfield Street.

DoP:
Sociable type never seen without camera operator, focus puller, clapper loader, trainee, gaffer, four sparks, grips plus one, or two, rigger, genny op, genny driver, etc...

DVD:
VHS killer, usually purchased for a fiver at the Barras.

Director:
TV: a trainee researcher. Film: someone who can't get work in TV.

DV movies:
Method of low-budget filmmaking borrowed from porn.

Deliverables:
Pizza, two burgers and chips, bottle of Tango.

Dyslexic:
Excuse for not reading the script; see Actor.

Deferral:
Standard method of payment for above-the-line talent.

Double Dipping:
Dealing with two rich pricks at the same time.

To be continued...

A MATTER OF FACT

Going to the movies isn't as much fun as it used to be. The parking. The queues. The overpriced tickets. The wee sticker they put on your extortionately-priced sweetie bag that says you're a thief. The non-stop chat through the trailers. The smelly trainers planted on the empty seat back beside you. The Orange adverts.

But there's something worse than all of the above - and it's FACT.

The Federation Against Copyright Theft is a self-appointed outfit that protects their members from video and DVD piracy. A few years ago they ran an advert (think BBC cop show) featuring a skanky market trader selling dodgy VHS tapes. At the time it was mildly amusing until we got a darker, blunter message - that piracy funds terrorism, drug dealing and prostitution - and it's your fault.

FACT's latest effort is thankfully softer by telling us the effing obvious about the poor quality of pirated DVDs. Maybe somebody should tell them that there's no point in putting up a phone number when we've already been ordered to switch ours off. Oh, and we're also supposed to grass up any suspicious looking guy pointing a camcorder at the screen - yeah, like an underpaid usherette is ready to take on a dangerous and possibly violent pirate singlehandedly - still, it might make for better entertainment than the movie.

Personally I think it's a close call between giving money to pirates or giving it to bloated multi-nationals who accuse us of criminality when we've paid good money just to see a flick. Maybe it's time I bought into home cinema - the popcorn would be a lot cheaper too.

THE MONEY SHOT

With most up-and-coming filmmakers turning to camcorders to make their movies, isn't it high time we paid our respects to cinema's most enduring, unsung yet seminal influence?

Let's hear it for the adult entertainment industry.

More profitable than Hollywood, masters and mistresses of the world wide web and the mobile phone, the porn biz has always been ahead of the game when it comes to technology. What's more, they turn their movies into money without multi-million dollar marketing budgets. They don't test, they don't hold focus groups or schmooze the press - they already know who their audience is.

People talk about guerrilla film like it was invented last year, but way before the end of the last century, when digital filmmaking was getting jumped on by skint and/or washed-up moviemakers, the enterprising folks in porn were busily shifting tens of millions of units.

Just as polaroid cameras allowed everyone to shoot their own private parts, porn bought into video - in any old format - and mass-produced tapes at the very same time the legit movie business was crying over slashed profits. Then look what happened.

When the internet first went wide, porn made up around 80% of the traffic. Same goes for premium rate phone calls, giving many a bored housewife some pin money. One-on-one online chat puts a lot of girls through college/university. Call it exploitation if you want, but here's the reality - demand, supply and fulfillment. It's what porn has always traded on. The people who do it may or may not like it - but neither do they like the minimum wage. We can't all be CEOs or politicians or professional somebodies.

Or overpaid industry-machined filmmakers.

So when commentators blah about the long tail market, how niche will make you riche, how your camcorder-made DVD can be up there with Universal's latest stiff, they're not wrong. But they ought to know that whatever the tech-heads spring on us next, you could do worse than check out what our porn pals are up to first. No 2000 print runs for these guys. It's a little ironic that Hollywood, that monster of Mammon, who can't top porn's 10,000-plus titles a year sold mostly on DVD, now ape the same tactic. So much for the prestige of theatrical releases, red carpets and starry, starry tantrums. What's even better is this: thanks to porn's inspiring business model, like Amber's legs, what's open to Hollywood is open to me and you.

That's not egg on your face, is it?

CREATING A STUSHIE

It sure takes a lot be creative in Scotland.

The same three adjectives that sum up the average Weegie male - hard, tight and short - could equally apply to the inspiration, time and money needed to ply your arty wares. So it's a slap in the face for filmmakers to find themselves excluded yet again by the Scottish Arts Council as they announce their sixth annual Creative Scotland Awards.

The SAC claims the award is to reward, honour and celebrate established artistic talents. But not if you're a filmmaker (same goes for architects and designers). In other words don't bother applying. Which poses the question - in what way are filmmakers not creative? And how come a novelist, a bagpiper or a dancer (does lap dancing qualify, I wonder?) can make movies with the 30K freebies on offer? Is the SAC still miffed that Scottish Screen made off with the Lottery Production Fund a few years ago?

Ironically, filmmaking's probably the most creative endeavour out there. It involves writing, drama, photography, music, design and craft, be it from actors or joiners. It's also a lot more collaborative than playing the fucking harp in a draughty hall in Inverness.

When it comes to handouts some might argue that film's already well catered for, but it's only a fraction of what opera currently gets, or the latest venture, the National Theatre of Scotland - where already there's been a bit of growling in lovieland because you can't buy a ciabatta in scummy Easterhouse, but that's another story. Film also gets a lot less subsidy than empty art spaces such as Glasgow's CCA and Tramway.

So what's the answer?

Maybe if Scottish Screen stopped slushing TV companies out of their meagre pot they could see their way to rewarding some of us hard-working self-starters - people who actually make films. Because where would they be if we all decided to jack it in to become stained glass artists?

PAR FOR THE COURSE

As the nights draw in, thousands of people are looking for ways to keep out of trouble. Or the pub. Or maybe attract a partner. Some might even want get away from the partner they've already got, but that's their business. The rest of us just want to learn something useful like Conversational Polish, Advanced Bellydancing or Emergency First Aid.

Welcome to the wacky world of evening classes.

And when it comes to film-related courses, would-be students are in danger of option paralysis. Me, I gave up counting the number of screenwriting courses on offer - which made me think - if there's that many scriptwriters out there, then how come nobody's making any movies?

One possible reason is that people sign up for this stuff to get out the house, the one place they ought to be if they're so keen on screenwriting. But no, they actually enjoy spending winter nights in unheated, dismal rooms in some underfunded college in say, Coatbridge.

Then again it might be a social thing, a bit of lively chat that begins with genre and plot analysis - but soon deteriorates into an argument about some piece of franchise, like say, Batman Begins, and soon escalates to a riot over whether Liam Neeson's 'tache deserved it's own winnebago.

Maybe night school appeals to a masochistic streak in us, when a student's own efforts come up for a kicking by some smartarse whose greatest hit is a shared writing credit on a 1998 Tartan Short. But who still hasn't written their first feature.

My own pet theory goes like this: as with booze, class As, and 12-step meetings, some folk are simply addicted. In the end it doesn't matter if it's Screenwriting or Quiltmaking (probably more useful) because as pastimes go, it's cheaper than most habits and if you're lucky you might even manage to score some extracurricular nooky.

At least then you'd have something to write about.

AN A-Z OF SCOTTISH FILM

Call Centre:
Scotland's main film funder.

Camcorder:
TV's weapon of choice.

Co-producer:
Anyone who can spell their name correctly on a Lottery application.

Carpetbagger:
As above. See: Ken Loach.

Cashflow:
Money down the toilet. See Lottery Funding.

Contract:
A document summed up in its first three letters.

Calling Card:
First film; what burglars leave on your rug.

Casting Couch:
Where a potato turns into a producer.

Cameo:
Edinburgh cinema; good cure for insomnia.

Cinematographer:
A guy with a VHS-C camcorder. See Wedding Videos.

Courier:
Foolproof way to lose your rushes. See TNT.

Casting Director:
Maker of opt-out fishing programmes.

Call Sheet:
As fictitious than the script, but shorter.

Catering:
A van with a man and a pan. See: Honeywagon.

Completion Bond:
Licensed robbery.

Contingency:
Fool's gold.

To be continued...

SOCIAL-UNREALISM IN GOVAN

Strange things are happening south of the River Clyde. Especially in a place called Govan, a squalid district of Glasgow, once home to a world-class shipbuilding industry - Queen Mary, Queen Elizabeth and QE2 and countless luxury liners, as well as war ships (very much in business, thanks to BAE). But in these post-industrial times and with honest toil replaced by speculative property development, the sorry landscape of Govan is having a major makeover.

It's a little known fact but the marbled splendour of Glasgow City Chambers once stood in as a double for the Vatican. Which must have impressed the City Fathers, since Vatician politics seemed to have rubbed off on whoever persuaded Scotland's two major broadcasters - BBC Scotland and Scottish Television - to up sticks to shiny new headquarters in the Govan area. It's like moving the White House to Idaho, or the Houses of Parliament to Catford.

Something's not adding up here.

It's bad enough - but no great surprise - that the local media has gone to sleep on this one, but a little digging wouldn't hurt. After all, the site of the city's new creative industries hub has probably turned up more than a few stiffs - this is murder capital of Western Europe, after all. So questions beg to be asked - why? Why are two competing outfits prepared to move from prestige sites north of the river (west end, city centre) to a location that looks like Mars only with even less chance of scoring a skinny latte?

Try asking Scottish Enterprise, an economic development quango who answers to Scotland's recently devolved government, the Scottish Executive. It's their idea. Or is it? Try the city of Glasgow's form-fillers, expert tapper-inners into EU cashola set aside for deprived regions of Europe - and believe me, Govan qualifies. How can this possibly happen? Well maybe by finagling matching funding by siphoning off funds from other, more needy causes. Or, if you're into recent history, consider the 1988 Garden Festival, where you may find huge portions of Glasgow's prime real estate were compulsorily purchased, planted with nice flowers for six months as a piece of PR then palmed to key developers at fire sale prices ... allegedly.

I'm no lobbyist. I'm not a hack looking to dish the dirt. Why should I care? Well, I care because I believe the people of Govan are being lied to, because the ghosts of my granny, my aunties and uncles, who all lived there would be as spectical as me. These ventures, apart from offering minimum wage jobs to cleaners - which means, as Chris Rock reminds us - they'd pay you less if they thought they could. A walk down Brighton Street or Wine Alley is proof enough that these alien developments will do nothing for the locals, who have every right to say fuck your regeneration. No sane person will ever open a trendy cafe in Copland Road for the media tarts likely to work in these flat-pack sheds, because like it or not, class-wise and culturally these are parallel universes.

And here's the clincher.

As part of the 'creative industries cluster', some public service eejit decided to throw film into the mix. But since we have no film industry in this country, no-one has the dosh to build their own flat-pack palace on the riverside. Enter Govan Town Hall, long dilapidated, going begging. And enter several players - the local Film Office (who, admittedly try their best) and a local producer, together with a few well-meaning facility companies are trying to remodel the entire Scottish Film Industry by recreating Film City Copenhagen, built on the back of Zentropa, the company fronted by a couple of inwardly shrewd but outwardly bonkers Danish filmmakers, Peter Aalbeck Jensen and Lars von Trier. And their accountant.

Trouble is, this grand old building's already occupied. By Glasgow Social Work Department. Until 2008. Oh dear, somebody didn't talk to somebody else who probably doesn't want to talk to them now. A long time to be put on hold. But never mind, what with all that developing to do, it's unlikely that the script will be ready before say, 2010. By which time their marketing executive (recently advertised at a salary of 25K) might have something worth plugging.

So for the time being, addicts, homeless, battered wives, abused kids take precedence. And rightly so. They're the ones who should be benefitting from the EU cash, not the stockholders of SMG and various property scammers. Instead, soon they'll be pushed even further to the margins. Personally I'd work out of a phone box, because a decent sound stage, in fact any sound stage would be a lot more useful rather than a fancy refurbed office in Sim City.

I may be dead wrong, but something tells me the launch of Film City Glasgow will be less spectacular than the Queen Mary. And a lot more likely to sink.

ONCE UPON AN ACTOR

Renee Zellweger's 4 month marriage on the rocks. Russell Crowe (pic) attempting to dodge the phone rage rap. Catherine Zeta Jones buying bottles of Welsh air.

If they're not the weirdos, then who is?

Pity the poor actor who gets the break. One day you're starting out, starry-eyed, full of hope and optimism. Your first love is the stage but the money sucks. Then you get a tiny part in someone's short. You get a break in a TV drama. Next you get a lead role in a low budget, indie feature. You get a better agent. You get bigger, more lucrative and higher-profile gigs until you get listed in the bible of actor's grosses so beloved by agents and casting directors. As your book price soars, so does your fee. You get an even better agent. You also acquire a manager, a PR person, a lawyer, an accountant, a trainer, a full-time stylist.

By now you need the machine to keep working because otherwise you're not working.

You do jobs you don't want to do because you need to maintain a profile, freeing you up to do the good stuff. Your agent makes demands on your behalf because they need to reinforce your worth. You get a rider, you get the biggest winnebago, the exclusive hair and makeup artists, the chef, the personal assistant. The only people you can be seen with are people like you. The only people who can 'relate'. You think about quitting. But you can't. You love and hate what you do, who you are in equal measure.

You no longer fit with what passes for normal. The good stuff never happens.

If you don't succumb to self-abuse, you abuse others. If you do, you still abuse others. But since no-one is prepared to tell you the truth, no-one will tell you what an asshole you've become. Your trappings become your only refuge because you can't trust anyone anymore - your celeb boy/girlfriend, your nail artist, your shrink, your guru. All your private stuff goes public, so you own nothing but your money and the right to say no a lot. Your abortive studio-lot production outfit went south, not because of you - it was never commercial enough. You put your trust in people you don't know - your fans, only because you don't know them. But soon you hate them - pushy people in malls and restaurants wanting autographs you know they'll sell on Ebay. You realise you are not a person, you're an icon - because you did that Vanity Fair cover in 2003.

And now you're scared.

And because you're scared you do strange things. In public you have spats in hotels with staff on minimum wage. In private you kick your lover out at 4.00am and she/he kisses and tells. Are you surprised? You have righteous anger, but you also have a 7.00 am call. You are getting into your role, which divides your self into other selves - those stock characters so beloved of the machine. All the time you're keeping it all in check. But all the while you worry - why you're not thinner or younger or intelligent or sensitive or beautiful.

No wonder you look in that mirror and worry about that person before you. You could blame yourself, but that would be unfair. Once upon a time, all you had was a little hope that you could do a job you thought you'd be good at. Make some cash, get by, fall in love. You succeeded. What you do is amazing.

It's not your fault. You're vulnerable. So what's the problem?

The problem is the executives who invest billions of dollars of other people's money into you. Which is where the real madness lies, since you - Renee, Russell, Catherine and your many co-workers - are evidently dysfunctional and ought to be getting serious treatment for what ails you. As long as you're in the machine, you're a serious risk. You're psychos. But you're our psychos.

Until we're told otherwise. Until you're toast.

AN A-Z OF SCOTTISH FILM

Bluescreen:
Rangers DVD.

Braveheart:
Best movie never made in Scotland.

Barras (The):
Scotland's biggest film distributor.

Back end:
The rear of a dodgy vehicle.

Boom Op:
Graduate of local Jobcentre.

Bacon Roll:
The only known mechanism for getting the sparks to work.

BAFTA Scotland:
Charitable organisation devoted to alcohol consumption.

BBC Scotland:
Where talent goes before rehab. See Ubiquitous Chip

Begbie:
Bobby Carlyle before he started acting.

Budget:
The reason you're working on minimum wage.

Buy-out:
Remarkable process which turns ten hours into fourteen.

To be continued...

TALES FROM THE ZONE - PART THREE

Why bother going to the movies when all the drama's on your doorstep?

Late one dark and cold night, I'm in the red light zone of Glasgow when I chance on a girl, late teens. Not your usual looking-for-business type - jeans, t-shirt, no goosebumped flesh, no pinpricked, smacked-out dead eyes. I guess she's what passes for normal. But what makes the scene slightly off-kilter is the hairbrush in her hand - the kind of thing that makes you want to revise your sexual repertoire.

A beat-up, J-reggie Datsun slides up and the girl leans in the passenger side window. I scope the punter, a man of Asian persuasion. Sorry mister, she tells him loudly, I don't do blowjobs, but you can have a really good blowdry. Next she waves the brush across the street to what looks like the real deal, judging by the slap, the tiny skirt, the heavy denier tights worn to cover the tracks - and to-die-for, long flowing dark blonde hair.

Then it clicks. The young crimper's the pimp.

HERE'S TO THE SPORTING LADIES

A little off-topic, big deal. It's a little-known fact, but back in 1982 Edinburgh was the first city in the UK to legalise prostitution, which just goes to show how the Athens of the North is a product of the Enlightenment.

The oldest profession has always enjoyed a brisk trade in these parts, no doubt on account of the numbers of judges, bankers and minor aristos. Recently, and since the Scottish Executive moved in, things are on the up again (pun intended). But rather than improve the working conditions of sex workers through licensed saunas, the girls live with threats of closures and the withdrawal (okay, already!) of so-called tolerance zones. Two weeks ago, girls working in Leith received letters - Dear Madam - I kid not - warning them that anti-social behaviour orders will be issued if they don't get their booty off residential streets.

So that's okay then. A girl can ply her wares in dark, deserted industrial zones and put herself at even more risk, so that the good folks of Edinburgh can avoid temptation and stop twitching the net curtains. Which puts this otherwise fine city back in the dark ages, causing no end of inconvenience to those upstanding members of the legal and financial professions.

AN A-Z OF SCOTTISH FILM

Amateur:
The status of all Scottish filmmakers.

Application form:
A document devised by a committee, the purpose of which is to get mislaid.

Anamorphic:
A sleep-inducing film shot using the wrong lens.

Apple Mac:
A machine that lets you do the ironing/floss teeth/have a manicure while you render.

Actor:
A bar worker who can't walk and talk at the same time. See dyslexic.

Associate Producer:
Director's mother.

Agent:
Individual allergic to telephones. Usually works for ten per cent of zero.

ADR:
A second chance for actors to blow their lines.

Assistant Director:
Person whose wristwatch only counts up to ten.

Alt-W
Initiative for new media. Alt = alternative. W= wannabes. See Scottish Screen.


To be continued...

READER, I DID HIM

Am I suffering from deja-vu or is there really a new version of Pride and Prejudice about to be released? Featuring the lovely Keira Knightley (a name for sex-addicts to conjure with) and her self-confessed ass-double, this latest slice of content provision will no doubt do what the others did - bankroll the producers' alimony. The by-the-numbers appeal of Austen's literary tosh is easy to fathom - girl meets rich guy, claiming she's not in it for the money, girl plays hard-to-get with said rich guy, claiming she's not in it for the money, girl falls for same rich guy, claiming she's not in it for the money, girl gets rich guy and... aw, go read the book. Or the latest issue of OK or Heat magazine.

And spot the difference.

So why bother with the expensive frocks, stately locations and the trappings? Surely a savvy producer could do a contemporary take, so why not? Here's why - they already made Pretty Woman. And the one thing Julia Roberts couldn't be in that movie was independently wealthy, just like all the other anorexic plots featuring good-but-poor girls. Hello, J-Lo. In the final reel, they all have to put out, lie back and think of all the Gucci handbags and the great kitchen they're about to buy. Assuming they got past the pre-nupt.

Like, who would ever greenlight a movie featuring a 700-an-outcall hooker who genuinely falls in love? I say this with a little insider skinny because I'm deep in research for my new script. Some girls I've met are not only cute, personable and intelligent - they make Donald Trump look like a rank amateur. The fact that they're upfront about sex being the commodity as opposed to say, virtue, doesn't diminish them as human beings.

In this life - male or female - we all sell our asses and some are worth more than others. Tell that to the chick who played Keira's.


PS. My thoughts today are with all affected by 9/11. Which is more than Bush is doing in Louisiana and beyond. So much easier to mourn the dead than help the living. Nuff said.

TALES FROM THE ZONE - PART TWO

Glasgow is the UK's most surveillance-happy city. Nowhere is this more evident than on the streets of the council-endorsed red light zone which during the day doubles as the city's financial district, starting somewhere around Argyle Street west of Central Station and ending at Bothwell Street, where a casual stroll reveals more cameras than Jessop's window.


That's a lot of wide shots. But guys, where's the money shot? This thing just won't cut together.

Here's my suggestion. Reality CCTV! We've already had Big Brother, so why not Little Sister? The everyday story of girls and their johns getting it on. Give the lassies a makeover, a decent wage and profit participation in exchange for their time and talent. Give them a costume budget and sponsorship from New Look and Barry M. The cameras are rolling anyway, so the set-up costs are zilch. You could even provide a shagging cabin with hidden cams - cosier than a cold lane and more spacious than a N reggie Nissan.

You could set up a premium rate number too, so viewers can vote off their least fave hooker. And for that extra frisson, how about a sin bin? Put a couple of cops/bouncers out there to collar the most skanky punters, then line them up for a choice of punishment voted by you, the audience. I haven't even started in on the sleb version - you could invite all the previous BB winners - like cute Anthony (pictured) - he's gonna need the work. So press that red button now.

And with all that cash rolling in what's the worst that can happen? A rebate on the Council Tax?

T (AND A) MOBILE

Scottish Screen's latest scheme, the vaguely sleazy sounding Pocket Shorts, is calling for submissions (surely the Scottish filmmaker's default mode of behaviour) for a series of teeny weeny viral movies. Eight will be commissioned, four live and four animated, each with a max duration of 60 secs - with - quote unquote - characters capable of being worked up into a series, which is more than you can say for River Shitty. The gig's worth three grand, but no small print I can see says who gets to keep the rights.

Nice try guys, but which cave have you been sleeping in?

Eons ago my neighbour Gudge stopped me on the stair to show off his latest downloads (the chat-up line du jour). Produced, he tells me, by an enterprising bunch of students. First up was an animation. Okay, it's hardly Disney, but it was entertaining - a stick figure guy at a bus stop getting his head kicked in, backed by a soundtrack of gritty Weegies extolling the joys of gratuitous violence. Next, a live action piece featured three topless obese chicks merrily singing It's Raining Men and looking like they've been hard at the Lambrini. Go for it girls!

Nice to see the whole 3-G thing kick in, I say, but how much? Two-fifty a pop, he informs me. I do the sums. Even if the tiniest fraction of the 30 million men in the UK buy into this - say 1% - on one download, you're looking at 750K. Multiply that over 40 territories and KA-CHING!!

Forget Scottish Screen, where's my camcorder?

PAY AS YOU GO-GO

They're not exactly separated at birth, but lap dancing and filmmaking share an uncanny resemblance. Let's tick the boxes.

Both are about money, self-expression and entertainment. Both rely on an audience. Both are about production (you turn up on time with the right bits of kit) and both involve exhibition (ahem). And if you think I'm being flippant, at least dancers get paid, unlike the actors and crew regularly told to cut their minimum rates by salaried TV execs. On schemes such as the misnamed New Found Film (Same Old Telly, more like) the budgets suck big time, all part of a newish yet unreported scam that allows broadcasters to dip into the Lottery till at the expense of genuine filmmaking. This is cunningly disguised as providing 'opportunities for new talent'. Yadda, yadda, yadda. Opportunism for old hacks, I call it.

The sad thing is, we fall for it. I've known actors to give up decently paid bar work for one line in a crap drama. I've known camera crews yawn their way through the shoot, busily texting for their next gig on a insurance company corporate, depressed because they're on sixty day invoices. But the sorest losers in this game are the wannabe filmmakers - already on pish money or deferrals - their dream of the Croissette cut off at the knees when their big debut feature, mangled by the machine, cut by some guy whose CV boasts Scotland Today or Shuggie goes Fishing, goes out at half eleven on a Wednesday night on opt-out.

So if you ask me which is the more respectable, my money's on the dancing every time. Because while you sometimes get grief from the clients, you'll never get fucked up the ass.

TALES FROM THE ZONE - PART ONE

There's no scripts out there - the mantra of every would-be producer who crosses my path, because let's face it, the number of producers who've actually made a film in Scotland is a bit like the number of virgins in Destiny's - chuck a fiver in a phone box and you've got a conference.

There's a million stories out there, crying out to be sold. It's just that nobody wants to pay the writer. Ever. To me a spec script's like a blowie - nice girls should never give it away for free. Recently I found myself taxiless late one night in Glasgow Council's designated red-light district. Ever wondered why the Radisson got built there? And who's got the DVD rights to the CCTV footage? There I met a nice guy, a bit down on his luck - let's call him Davie - who told me about his experiences as a junkie rent boy and the request he got one night from a client. All Davie wanted was a warm bed, maybe a bit of cash. Instead he got a fat, forty-something, middle class guy begging to be pissed on up a cold, dark lane. All for a lousy tenner. I would have shat on the guy for less, I said, because he sounds like a film producer I know. Nah, replied Davie, he works at Scottish Television.

Bet you won't read that in Roughcuts.

AYE, RIGHT...

If, like me, you're a filmmaker living in Scotland, you may wonder why you're not doing something more useful with your life, such as getting a REAL job. Just kidding. But undiluted cynicism you can't take to the bank, Cannes or the multiplex. There are enough naysayers around. Like all addicts, sooner or later we have to take that first step and admit we've got a problem. We need to admit we don't have a film industry in this country. Instead what we have is a kiddy-onny Executive sponsored set-up which at one end keeps the chair polishers in their non-jobs while at the other, decent, hard-working lassies like me are reduced to taking their clothes off for the satisfaction of legless St Mirren players just so I can pay off the plastic for my camcorder and my new laptop (laptop dancing anyone?) Elsewhere another bunch of deluded hopefuls seem prepared to hand over their house, dog, furniture and dignity - all for the privilege of being scriptless (kiss your rights goodbye) and indebted to the powers that be. Don't take my word for it - read the small print on Scottish Screen's 22 page application form for script development.

And you thought Lottery money was free.