THE MISSING HALF MILL

Big pat on the back for yours truly, being first on the block to predict (Making Hay, Feb 24th) that none of the half million doled out to Scottish Screen by the Scottish Executive will be coming to a screen near you any time soon.

Today's allmediascotland.com reports that 'an industry source' claims the dosh will be allocated to 'other areas of the industry such as distribution'. What's to distribute? The Tartan Shorts back catalogue on DVD? They'll be queuing up for that and I don't think, unless you like films about weans, the staple subject matter for most of these wee Scottish films. Or maybe, just maybe the money will (ho-hum) subsidise TV companies, now that everyone and their dog with a doco or a comedy series to their name is breaking into DIY DVD.

See, distribution's a confusing term. It used to mean sending big cans of film to a cinema. These days it's just as likely to mean mobile phone downloads, podcasts, online movie downloads (doomed to fail) and not forgetting those low-cost, high margin DVD releases. But one thing's for sure. Scottish Screen will make it mean anything it wants it to mean.

So I don't know why 'industry sources' are in a stushie. You only have to look at the revamped Scottish Screen site to find that development and production funding has all but ceased to exist. It's ironic too that the single image used on their site (see above) - invites all of us struggling filmmakers to draw our own conclusions about where SS would like us to go. And it won't be to Cannes.