DON'T LOOK NOW

Type the words ‘Scottish Film Lobby’ into Google and top of the list you’ll find an out-of-date article on The Movie Blog with the headline ‘Scottish film industry failing’. Surely not. This piece of trivia just about sums up the state of play here, despite the recent gnashing of teeth in the media by the group calling itself the Scottish Film Lobby. Their complaint? The end of support for film production by Scottish Screen, current holders of the Lottery pot and the main source of funding.

So what’s happening? Not much – at least nothing that’s being reported. This is where the film lobby’s missing a trick, because when you can wheel out a few ‘famous’ names and grab yourself some column inches, you need to keep the show on the road. That’s what lobbies do. You chat up the hacks, get the great and the good onside and appeal to the folks on the ground.

On my one outing to the EIFF I met a producer (or so he said) who told me about a similar protest years ago by a mob calling itself Scottish Stand who tried to go up against the funding body and failed because, he reckoned, you can’t put a bunch of filmmakers in the same room without them cutting each other’s throats. Seems to me this is a very Scottish pastime, with apathy at the other extreme. So what can we expect this time round?

If they get that far, the film lobby’s idea of setting up a separate film office isn’t bad, but it totally lacks imagination. Besides, when you already have one funding body that doesn’t return your phone calls and emails, what’s the point of having another?

The individuals who put their name to the lobby probably had good intentions but I don’t think for one minute they give a toss about struggling young filmmakers who’ve managed to make their own films. I doubt any new film office wants to make shorts just as I doubt they’d ever take a punt on a first time feature director, not unless they're called David MacKenzie or they’ve already shot twenty-six episodes of Taggart. Which is exactly what Scottish Screen are up to, with their new-found admission that they plan to support telly above all else and by scrapping - sorry, streamlining - their shorts schemes.

Five minutes rooting round the internet shows what the Scottish film lobby’s up against. Here you’ll find two main broadcasters, plus Channels 4 and 5. Then there’s PACT, Skillset and the Research Centre – every one dominated by television executives. Add the growing list of major London-backed TV independents cashing in and there you have it – a giant voice drowning out film.

Where’s film’s version of the Research Centre, I wonder? Wouldn’t it be better if Creative Scotland, if and when it ever happens, set up a Film Centre for Scotland? Instead of giving companies the dough to pay researchers slave wages – as advertised recently – surely they could pay writers? Because as it stands, no producer I’ve ever talked to can afford to pay a writer. They - and SS - want the first draft for free. And as we all know, the only good script is the one that's sold. In fact, it might help if producers could learn how to find money in the first place, instead of acting as the middle men between you, the starving writer and the likes of SS and the Film Council.

And maybe it would help if our pals at SS recognised the fact that writing takes time, especially when you’re holding down a day job to sub it. Training won’t solve the problem. I've been on the courses and I've yet to meet anybody who actually wrote a script because they're too busy yakking about it in the pub. Recently I got an email from a mate advertising a 22 week course on how to write a short. Yes, a short film script. No offence to the course, but half a year? What's to learn? Turns out the scheme’s backed by SS and the Scottish Arts Council, which makes you wonder how long a course in how to write a feature would take. Okay, let’s take a short film, say, ten minutes long. Multiply by ten for a 100 minute film and you’re looking at what, four and half years? I think the keyword here is clueless.

And that’s before you get knocked back for script, sorry - content - development.

Good luck to the film lobby, I say, but until you come up with a better idea than a miniature version of what doesn’t work already I don’t rate your chances with the Holyrood heid yins, not when SS are out on the road, telling all the no-hopers that the future’s in kid’s TV shows, video games and parochial comedies. Having Tilda Swinton in your corner might get you a mention in the rags but if you can’t come out fighting, if you’ve got nothing new to offer and if you ignore the next crop of filmmakers, then maybe we’d be forgiven for thinking you’re only in it for yourselves and your next bunch of two million quid flops - none of which will star the lovely, underfed and overpriced Tilda.