NEW SLAVE LABOUR

Heard it.

More non-paid shenanigans. Last night’s Channel 4 News reported on Danny Dewsbury, the media graduate at the centre of the row between him and his ‘employers’, The Labour Party.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJlhClw4Qng

education.guardian.co.uk/students/news/story/0,,1879042,00.html

The job ad Danny replied to reads as follows –

Director/Cameraman with own mini-DV camera required to film interviews for Labour party conference 2006. No fee, but expenses paid and great experience going around the country filming cabinet ministers."

This is worryingly normal these days. Not only do you work for free, but you have to supply your own gear. Labour’s justification? Well, Channel 4 hires plenty of volunteers too. So that’s okay then. These days you can exploit anybody because everyone else is at it. And here’s me thinking - probably more to the point - that Labour’s strapped for cash, now the peers-for-cash scam is sitting in the in-tray at Scotland Yard.

But is whistle-blowing a good career move for young Danny? It’s mighty brave of him, but I don’t know too many companies in the market for a grass. Then again, he might be fighting off job offers galore. I hope so, but not as a cameraman, judging by his dodgy hand-held of Hazel Blears looking very much at home at the checkout of her local supermarket.

Shame on Labour. Not a lot of point patting yourself on the back for the minimum wage if you can't pay it. And as for Channel 4, as I reported in an earlier blog about the Boom Room, it’s the pot calling the kettle black. Same goes for all these bogus unpaid gigs masking as training schemes. Like I say - if you can already do the job, then they ought to pay up. If you can’t, do you really think you’ll get hired?

The nuance of what’s an employee as opposed to a volunteer isn’t what matters. What matters is if you let them get away with it, they’ll keep getting away with it. What’s worse is the rise in so–called training endorsed by the government and exploited by greedy no-hopers like PAL, WarpX or PropellerTV, say, who tap into Skillset, Film Council, Arts Council and all the other free public dosh out there.

Talk about collective delusion. Are we meant to fall for it when the government tells us that the creative industries are set to become the UK’s biggest employer? Isn’t it a lie to say that with enough training, one day we can look forward to paid work? Because for how long can anybody’s overdraft wear working for free before they jack it all in and get a job at Gap? You only have to look at the chancers posting on Shooting People for slave labour on their movies. No wonder the screen biz is riddled with the offspring of rich tax dodgers – the buggers need something to do in between shopping and snowboarding.

New Slave Labour. Thanks a bunch, Tony.

SCAMMERAMA

Good old allmediascotland.com, thanks for alerting us to the latest scam from WarpX.

What’s she on about now, you wonder?

Whenever I go to see a film these days, which can be anything from the latest Hollywood schlockbuster to the standard British no budget dud, I’m amazed at the number of producer credits. These come in many stripes, e.g.

Producer – the guy who puts their house up for the movie and does all the work

Line Producer – the guy who hires their mates then pays the rest of the crew in Whoppers

Executive Producer – the guy who gets paid more than he chipped in and does no work.

Co-executive Producer - ditto

Associate Producer – who the hell knows?

I first noticed this trend years ago, on the credits for American TV shows, you know, the ones with names like Randy Fischfinger or Amy Dwong, that last through to the advert break? Credit where credit’s due, you’d suppose – at least you’re watching something they spent money on.

By comparison, the UK equivalent’s a bit pathetic because it looks like anybody who read the script gets a producer handle. Usually this means some eejit from the BBC or Channel 4, plus any number of payrolled public servants whose egos get the better of them where a screen credit’s concerned.

Which brings me back to WarpX.

As far as I know, Warp, a record company with lots of pals called Chris, managed to con the Film Council out of a pile of cash for a low budget film scheme a while back. They put out a call to hungry filmmakers asking for submissions that were a) genre, b) contemporary and c) set in the UK. The more sceptical among us already knew the films were a done deal with their mates, so didn’t bother to apply. And what did they commission? A period drama set in France. Good one, guys. Public money well spent and I don’t think.

But here’s the thing. Not content with kidding us on about a level playing field, WarpX has decided to jump on the horror bandwagon. On a premise flimsier than my knickers, they’ve hooked up with another dodgy outfit, Threshold Studios, whose one-page website looks like it was cooked up last night, to promote a scheme for female directors to make horror films. The reason? Because according to them, more women watch horror films than men, so it’s really sensible that women should be making them. It’s on a par with women making porn films, like they’ll bring some unique sensitivity to the genre, when all you want is a bit of horny titillation before the money shot. And it's vaguely insulting to women.

Before all you girlies rush to apply, a word of warning, because if you read the blurb it looks to me like WarpX and Threshold are a wee bit confused about what a director does. They say you don’t need to have a writer on board, but they still want not one, but three ideas for films from any budding director. Huh? Also troubling is the idea that through a ‘process of residential workshops, ‘specialised’ script editing and a lot of public fund-raiding fannying about, only two of the ideas will go ahead and if you’re lucky, in three years time you might finally get to make a crappy no-budget horror movie. Assuming the gravy train keeps on rolling for WarpX and Threshold, whose site promises they’ll be ‘broadcasting soon’. Broadcasting? Is that not another word for telly fodder? Of course it is – why else has Skillset got its grubby little moniker on it?

Where film and TV is concerned, here we have the biggest lie of recent times. It’s bad enough when a cheapo film boasts ten producers, but to have ten companies involved in so-called training when it’s unlikely that a film will come out the other end just shows how much of a mug’s game this ‘opportunity’ is.

What do aspiring female directors expect to get out of this scam? A couple of weekends in a crappy Ibis hotel in Sheffield, funded by taxpayers and Lottery money. If you're really lucky you’ll also get a weasly contract that steals your rights, pays you eff all and keeps the folks at WarpX and Threshold in salaries fatter than Jade Goody’s arse.

Quelle horreur…

THE LYING, THE TWITS AND THE WARDROBE

Q: What lies steaming in the corner?
A: A drunk jobby.

By adding the letter ‘r’ to the above joke, here you have a glimpse of the future, a future where a single click of the mouse adds to the profits of the major media conglomerates while your overdraft/credit card bill gets depressingly larger.

How does that work, you wonder? Well, when you decided to buy that new HDV camcorder/MP3/digital stills camera/laptop, I bet you didn’t think you were capitalising big outfits by helping them to get your content on their netspace. Welcome to the world of User Generated Content.

Following on from my blog about YouTube, I have Andy to thank for this link –

technology.guardian.co.uk/weekly/story/0,,1876697,00.html

In a nutshell, it comes down to this – by uploading your movie/music/snaps of your cat – you’re handing over the rights to big business. By agreeing to their terms and for as long as you stay on their site, they become the owners of your content. In other words, they’ll make the money, not you. Why? Because unlike you, they can. They own the bandwidth, they own the marketing muscle – and in the end it’s their brand, not yours.

We should have seen it coming. Recently, while watching the decorating show, Home, on BBC2, tiny alarm bells went off while watching a set of pictures of other people’s bedrooms uploaded to the BBC website. With no incentive other than their own vanity, viewers were invited to send in their snaps. It soon occurred to me that when the programme makers eventually sell through to Estonia, Venezuela and wherever else they flog this stuff, the unwitting, houseproud punters supplying snapshots of IKEA wardrobes won’t get a cut of the profits.

Just how bad can it get I wonder? If you cast your mind back to BBC’s ‘Video Diaries’, what we saw on screen then was the infant of reality broadcasting. This kicked off a trend in DIY telly where the subject became the author, with the schedules chock full of camcorder confessionals, from gardening shows to bad drivers to plastic surgery – all on prime time TV, all ultra-cheap to produce, all grabbing ratings. How could it fail? How long has You’ve Been Framed been running? The best you can say about YBF is they’ve always coughed up for the clips.

We're all willing participants. After all, you bought the damn camera and that edit package - what else are you going to do with it? How long before the BBC start soliciting entire homegrown soap operas, light entertainment shows and six-part dramas? You don't think in some corner of Shepherd's Bush there isn't an office working out how to get you to do their work for them and not pay you? At a time when a 30 quid rise in the BBC licence fee is expected, how long before we vote with the remote?

With the rise of the internet and interactivity, we’re all content providers now where, by sharing the same space, the cream and the scum rise to the top. Some might argue that these sites give the undiscovered the chance to shine from some dingy corner of My Space (owned by the News Corporation) If only it was that easy. Go tell it to Sandi Thom and the Arctic Monkeys, who had more than a bit of bandwidth behind them to thank for their careers. For the vast majority, they’ll stay where they are – in obscurity - with 6 downloads and no comments.

There’s always Creative Commons, you might argue. Well, I’m not so sure that by choosing the CC method of licensing, both the BBC and Channel 4 are falling over themselves to share the spoils with the UGC providers, and not when a growing slice of their content is commissioned through independent production companies. Try untangling that in a courtroom.

The hypocrisy here is the idea that somehow UGC is about community and sharing. Yeah, right. While MTV Flux bleat on about ‘finding new talent’ (where have I heard that before?) none of these outfits seems willing to pay you, the mug providing the free content. The moral? If you think Tiddles deserves a shot at fame, fine, as long as you know it's about their kitty, not yours.

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.

NO TUBE LIKE A YOU TUBE

You borrowed money from your family and mates. You melted your plastic. You gave up this year’s holiday. You raided your brother’s wardrobe. You turned your flat into storage space. You became a taxi. Your mobile bill went north. You shared a bedroom with a bad tempered computer. Which is okay, because you gave up sleeping ages ago…

Congratulations. You made your short.

Now what? Burn DVDs for your pals? Fork out a fortune to withoutabox and submit it to the Berks County/Tucson Slow Food/Smogdance/
Sunscreen Film Festivals? Or maybe you could upload it to one of the hundreds of film sites now on offer? I mean, what could possibly be wrong with free hosting?

Well, it’s hardly a new story but it never hurts to remind the stupid. Boingboing and the Movie Blog recently put up alerts warning filmmakers to read the small print on YouTube. Which goes something like this –

…by submitting the User Submissions to YouTube, you hereby grant YouTube a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, sublicenseable and transferable license to use, reproduce, distribute, prepare derivative works of, display, and perform the User Submissions in connection with the YouTube Website and YouTube's (and its successor's) business… in any media formats and through any media channels."

And it’s at this point your eyes glaze over.

As I’ve mentioned in previous blogs, it’s not just YouTube. Similar clauses turn up on other hosting sites. So what’s the problem? It’s not like they’re asking for an exclusive deal and anyway, they have to make their money somehow because a few clicks on a banner ad won’t keep them in business.

The great mystery here is how any of these sites make money. In the past I’ve criticised Propeller TV for demanding the right to re-edit your work, even add a new soundtrack or, if you’ve uploaded a music video say, vice versa, by taking the track and chucking away the pictures. Before you can say royalty payments, an ad for toilet rolls plays on real telly with your music on it. And you have no comeback. Whatsoever. At all.

There’s also the issue of library-building. By handing over rights, you’re giving these sites an asset, an asset that’s transferable when they get bought out by the big fry. Okay, maybe YouTube/Ifilm/
Propeller etc can claim to have 10,000 titles, of which 9,990 are on a par with clips out of You’ve Been Framed, only without the laughs. It doesn’t matter. What matters is they hold the rights to your film which, as long as you keep it on their site, means any money they make is theirs, not yours. Big business doesn’t give a toss whether your film’s any good or not – it’s all about being able to claim an audience, about having a few hundred thousand mugs listing their personal details so they can be targeted. About what looks good on the spreadsheet, not on the screen.

So why do people do it? Well, you could ask why two-bit film festivals set up ridiculous ‘film challenges’, you know, like ‘shoot and cut a movie in ten minutes with your pals’? It’s the modern day equivalent of downing a pint in a oner – it’s a distraction, a way of filling in a boring weekend, appealing to a weird kind of egoism that lets joe average think they can write/act/direct and who knows, even get paid. Or get famous…

It’s no different from my dad being in a band thinking him and his pals were the next U2 or (God forbid) Simple Minds. Never mind they were a bunch of no-hopers, but for about five minutes back in the 80s they believed they were on their way to a major deal and stardom. Back then buying a guitar was a lot cheaper and easier than trying to make a film. Now everybody owns a camcorder and a computer, we all want to be movie moguls, me included.

Sites inviting you to upload your movie only perpetuate the delusion that somebody out there will recognise your talent and pay you for it. It’s a modern myth. Most of us will end up doing whatever we need to do to stay alive. You only need to watch the X Factor auditions to know that only the few will be chosen. And just like YouTube and their pals, X Factor cashes in on the duffers – if you don’t believe me go buy their ‘Greatest Ever Auditions’ DVD. You think the talent-free punters get a cut? Tell it to Steve Whatshisname. Or Simon Cowell's accountant.

They don’t call it YouTube for nothing.

GONG HO

Apropos nothing, Scottish Screen has just published a list of its top ten films. Or rather, ten films they’ve put a bit of money into. According to an item in Scotland on Sunday, these movies received £6 million in public subsidy and made ‘at least’ £13 million. This is the trouble with numbers. Who was it that said if you squeeze the figures harder enough, they’ll squeal? Because you’d be forgiven for thinking that £13 million was found kicking and screaming its way into Scottish Screen’s bank account.

This is where I think SS is getting it wrong – but not because they don’t make money from their films. Never mind the Lottery losers that the rags are so fond of airing – even critic's faves such as Morvern Callar or Young Adam didn’t return anything to the public coffers.

When a half million is put into a £3 million film, say, with all the accounting trickery pulled by sales companies and distributors, you can be sure that the public funders are last in the queue for a payoff.

But profit’s not the point here. There’s also kudos to consider. First, because the idea that awards matter is no bad thing, that when your film’s only ever played on six screens, you can always take comfort from winning a gong somewhere. Second, because the films SS backs are low budget, mainly non-genre and generally made by first-timers, they don’t make money anyway. Okay, maybe Magdalene Sisters made a few quid, but I seem to remember reading a piece in the Daily Record where Peter Mullan complained he was still owed his director’s wages. Maybe you can’t up your overdraft by showing off your Golden Lion at the bank, but you can get yourself a better paid gig.

Where distributors get all excited by some US indie effort that screened at Sundance, when it comes to Scottish films made by Scottish filmmakers, they’d sooner crawl over broken glass. In an earlier blog I asked the question – on how many of the 400 or so screens in the UK will Red Road (which features on the list) play when Verve gets round to releasing it? 20? 60? Will the average joe look at the poster and go, oh wow, it won the Prix du Jury at Cannes - it has to be worth parting with six quid? Doesn't matter - what matters is Andrea Arnold will get another shot at making a film. Here's where the interface between the audience and the business goes a bit squiffy - because punters don't fund films, they only get what they're given. It's the biz that will decide whether AA has a career. Or not.

Scottish Screen doesn’t need to play the profit and loss game. What matters is that films get made and win prizes. Surely it’s enough to keep people employed, give some real experience to trainees, find some new talent and keep the country on the filmmaking map. If the odd picture breaks out and makes some money, then great. In a world that turns on the latest press puff, SS could do a lot worse. Let's face it, you can’t roll out the red carpet for another series of Re-edit, Re-edit, Re-edit.

RUFF TIMES AHEAD

Welcome to my special first anniversary blog…

After mentioning the film lobby on Sunday, I thought I’d check out the original letter that caused the fussette in the first place.

http://www.netribution.co.uk/2/content/view/681/182/

If they can be believed, the numbers are pretty revealing. So what I’d like to know is this - does Scottish Screen think it’s good value for money to spend £60K plus on wages and expenses to oversee £150K worth of development funding? And why do we need three development executives anyway? Are they suddenly being deluged with scripts? The SS website names a trio of new recruits - Robbie Allen, Becky Lloyd and Leslie Finlay. The question is, is this good news?

Is it a lack of candidates or pure coincidence that all three new execs share a background in TV? And if so, does it offer a clue to those worried about the likely direction of SS and the future of the Scottish feature film? After all, wasn’t the first ad hastily redrafted before it appeared in the Guardian media jobs page to include the word ‘film’?

Why should it matter anyway? Surely writing is writing and a good script is what counts.

If only it was that easy. Becky, Robbie and Leslie are all coming out of telly in one form or another at a time when SS seems to think the future's in TV. Their job is to decide who and what gets funding – so what’s it to be? TV or film? My guess? Both - because it doesn’t take a genius to work out that only indie TV companies looking to break into drama will win public funding for film. This has got less to do with talent or ability than having the chops to run a business. Or look like you’re running a business.

It’s also got a lot to do with PR because judging by the drip feed of negative press over the years, Scottish film producers have been attacked on various fronts – miserable films, insolvent companies, bad debts – all adding to the perception that filmmakers are inept. I’m sure some of them are eejits, but not all – how else did the film lobby rack up around 150 films between them? They can’t all be crap.

Making movies from scratch is a lot harder than getting a commission out of BBC Scotland or C4 to make a comedy or a cheapo lifestyle series year in year out. Those who make TV shows don’t have the same problems as feature film producers when it comes to getting their work shown. Producers need to knock on the doors of London companies, not only to raise the funding to make a film but also to get it in front of an audience. A bit harder than handing a tape in to a broadcaster, no?

Some might argue that if film producers are that skint then why don’t they go off and make telly? Seems to me if you’ve set yourself up as a film company, it’s kind of hard to persuade the powers that be that suddenly you’re in the telly game, especially when the big London outfits, when they’re not buying out the small fry, are opening branches all over Scotland. So for the average local film producer, 'diversification' looks like a non-starter, made all the harder when you’re already remortgaged up to the hilt and feeling just a wee bit suicidal.

As for writers, having three dev execs at SS means three times the excuses for a knockback. Take your pick...

‘we’d really need to see a draft’
(translation – go away)

‘we’ve read an awful lot of horrors/romcoms/Charlie Kaufman knockoffs this year’
(no really, go away and stop annoying us)

’we already blew the budget on draft 15 of that historical costume drama’
(your script’s utter shite, so will you please just leave now?)

So who’ll win development funding from SS? My money’s on the box. Maybe there should be a prize for guessing...

READER'S INDIGESTION

You have to admire the persistence of the wannabe Scottish filmmaker. Poring over the local Sundays online, I couldn’t help but notice a bunch of loosely related articles about film. To take our hacks to task about the way film gets reported here needs a blog of its own, so until then I’ll stick with the crop in question, namely a piece on Douglas Gordon, a report on the Scottish film lobby and a pair of features about two local filmers.

Interviewed in an Edinburgh wine bar, we learn Douglas Gordon wants to make a film version of James Hogg’s The Sins and Confessions of a Justified Sinner. Not that old chestnut surely. Ever since the late Bill Douglas wrote a spec script back in the 80s, the idea of turning the book into a film has floated around – and sank. Actor/director Peter Mullan was supposedly up for it one time – and yes, nothing happened. But if anyone can pull it off, then surely it’s our Dougie who, having reinvented himself as a filmmaker, can simply bend a few well-connected ears. In the end though it’s a non-story. The journalist could as easily have interviewed me – ‘yeah, well, I’m thinking of doing a remake of Taxi Driver set in the mean streets of Paisley. I might even approach Bobby Carlyle to play Travis Bickle’. Doesn’t quite have the same cachet, does it?

Meanwhile, in another non-story, the Scottish film lobby gets quoted in the Sunday Herald, following a meeting of the Scottish Screen/SAC board on Friday, discussing the ‘mounting support’ for a separate film body as part of the proposed Creative Scotland.

Do we learn what the board said?
No.

Do we believe another bureaucratic outfit can solve the problem of not getting films made?
Nope.

Do we care about three ex-beneficiaries of SS lottery funding trying to hitch their bandwagon to a decommissioned gravy train?
Not really.

Are we enlightened in any way by this article?
Nah.

For some useful comment, I point you to Ruth Wishart’s informative piece in the Herald –

http://www.theherald.co.uk/features/68958.html

Let’s move on to a heart-warming little tale of an Edinburgh student who made it to the EIFF with a film that cost £200. It’s the kind of article that turns up in the Scottish rags all too often – plucky but hard-up filmmaker makes short and wins the day. ‘Well, y’know, we were so skint I had to sell my sperm/granny/arse to get the film made’. Jamie Stone managed to make his film, Fritz, and get it all the way to the festival. But what kind of career can he expect when so-called established filmmakers can’t get it together? I’m all for can-do and DIY, but you can’t take your camcorder short to the bank. And with Scottish Screen girning about too many pointless short film schemes (that they created), where do all the Jamie Stones go? How many self-funded calling card shorts does it take before anyone thinks your talent’s worth paying for?

Slightly higher up the food chain is Martin Smith. No offence Martin, but while the States has Martin Scorcese, we have you - Martin ‘I’m not part of that short filmmaking world’ Smith, with three shorts and a bunch of music vids to your name. So what world are you part of? Beats me why the Sunday Herald bothered to write you up because it’s not like you’ve scored a major deal or anything – one film festival outing isn’t news, even if it’s in LA - a bit like Penilee with sunshine. So what if, like me, you’ve written a feature? It’s not much of a story when you can’t walk into a Glasgow pub without falling over somebody with a script in ‘development’. I seem to remember reading about you in another non-article a while back and even then I wondered, how long can your pals in the press keep talking you up as the next big thing? At least the Aberdonian boys got their sci-fi feature made…

Maybe a little less wishful thinking by the media and a little less empire-building by the quangos is what’s needed. Instead of how Jamie scraped to make his short, we need some real reporting on the problems of trying to make films in a hostile climate, how telly taps into public funds and how much moolah gets burned on salaries for public servants seemingly incapable of making decisions, let alone the right ones.

Now excuse me while I eat my fry-up and turn to the Nudes of the Screws for some quality journalism…