THE BORE WAR

Life in the sticks may be career death for any UK filmmaker, but some parts of the nation fare better than London when it comes to handouts. Then again, looking at our national - sorry, regional - screen websites, it occurs to me if they had a league, there'd be no prizes for guessing which agency would be up for relegation this season.

Last month Scottish Screen launched a new site and about time too. Their old one went down last November when the company looking after the agency's online presence went tits up - at least that was their excuse. Great, you might think, here's a platinum-clad opportunity for SS to finally get its shit together and launch a site that means something to the people using it. But no. If you wanted a more pointless and boring online experience you could always turn to www.margarine.org - currently a contender for the world's most boring website. I could tell them different.

But hang on a minute. Isn't film and telly supposed to be the world's most exciting and glam business? As universities scrap worthy-but-deathly dull departments like say, chemistry, the numbers of film, drama and media studies courses are heading north. The very idea of making telly or movies is a bit like entering X-Factor, only with a three-figure IQ (well, for some of us) but where year-on-year a brand new crop of hopeful graduates are turfed out and turned into sub minimum wage fodder by TV production companies in the guise of work experience. If they're lucky. The rest of us end up in call centres or pulling pints.

Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe Scottish Screen's making a point by putting up a website written in a bizarre corporatese that reads more like a local government traffic regulatory body than a starry-eyed-entertainment industry vehicle. It's trying to put us off. With a canny eye for illusion and judging by their site, SS is playing more to their backers than those they should be backing - filmmakers, TV companies, cinemas, training bodies and archives - the folks keeping them in a job. Not that they'd ever call it now they're finally being scrapped. From 2007 SS is being folded into a new animal shape - Creative Scotland - alongside their arch-enemy the Scottish Arts Council. Sounds to me like a marriage made in OK Magazine and without a pre-nupt, one that looks doomed already.

If you don't believe me, find out for yourself - www.scottishscreen.com

But be warned. You'll find no news, no information, no links that mean anything, no forum, no greatest hits to boast of yet they funded several non-duffers in the past. There's no downloads, no list of awards and crucially, not a single moving image, not even a still from any film they've ever backed. Instead, all you get a set of mission statements that ring hollow, like they're trying to convince themselves, let alone anyone else. Scottish Screen boasts 45 staff, but there's no contacts, no names, no numbers. MI6 is more open door than this mob.

Compare and contrast with Northern Ireland. I came across the NIFTC site via Screendaily. After a quick look, I'm tempted to up sticks and move to Belfast. Unlike Scottish Screen's dismal effort, the NIFTC site looks inviting, with downloads, pictures and real information. Even better, they list a range of awards that make sense to any aspiring filmmaker. It's also written in plain English, not policy document garble. All in all, a paragon of public service.

Check it out - www.niftc.co.uk

Where you'll find - ironically - NIFTC is currently offering subsidies to anyone daft enough to attend one of the shiny new screen academies, specifically the one in Scotland. Why bother? It's cheaper to fly to London. And a whole lot less boring.