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?