A health-check on the Scottish screen sector was at the heart of The Herald’s latest week-long impact series.
Our in-depth look at where Scottish film and TV is now – and where it may be heading in future – has painting a mixed picture to say the least.
There is undoubtedly much to be optimistic about.
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The industry appears to have bounced back significantly from the double whammy of the Covid pandemic and the Hollywood strikes.
Several crucial factors have played a part, especially over the last year, when the level of production appears to have gone up a few gears.
Firstly, huge numbers of big-budget film productions have been filming across Scotland, particularly in Glasgow, which seems to have a rolling production line of crews building sits and filming dramatic sequences over the last year.
Secondly, Scotland’s expanding network of studio facilities has attracted growing investment and interest.
The opening of FirstStage Studios in Leith five years ago has helped attract Amazon and Netflix shows like The Rig and Dept Q, while a Sky series partly filmed at a former Ministry of Defence base in Stirling is about to lead to it become a permanent base for productions.
Thirdly, Scotland has become home to a growing number of drama productions.
Some of these are part of the BBC’s expanding slate of returning series, which have seen Vigil, Granite Harbour and Rebus join Shetland in the last five years. There are also high hopes for Counsels, a new legal drama currently filming in the city with a cast of six relatively unknown young actors in the lead roles.
More one-off made-in-Scotland dramas are expected to air in the coming months, including the BBC shows The Ridge, Mint and Half Man, Channel 4 dramas Summerwater and Maya, and ITV thriller The Dark.
Elsewhere, several BBC Scotland comedies have been greenlit for returns in response to audience demand include Scot Squad spin-off The Chief, Only Child, Dinosaur and Two Doors Down.
The Scottish film industry, which is been in something of a slump in recent years, is seeing a number of new films launching at festivals, including I Swear, California Schemin’ and Glenrothan, which some of our best screen talents, including Peter Mullan, Shirley Henderson, Alan Cumming, James McAvoy and Brian Cox are involved in.
Scotland has been enjoying the impact of the time-travel fantasy series Outlander, which went into production at Wardpark Studios in Cumbernauld in 2013, for so long it is almost taken for granted.
But with an eighth and final series launching next year and a second series of spin-off prequel Outlander in production, there is little doubt that the show has opened the eyes of many to the benefits of having studio spaces available for the biggest productions.
Outlander’s use of multiple locations across Scotland is also at the heart of Scottish screen tourism phenomenon, which has been valued at more than £140m and is only likely to grow over the next decade if the country can continue to remain attractive to productions seeking studio spaces and the huge range of locations the country can offer.
The Scottish Government is understandably upbeat about the prospect of the value of Scotland’s screen industry reaching a £1 billion target by 2030.
The latest figure of £718m, revealed in The Herald as part of our series, seems almost certain to be surpassed given the increase in activity since 2023, the year that was analysed, and the fact it coincided with the Hollywood strikes.
With countless new made-in-Scotland shows and films to look forward to over the 12 months, and other new BBC Scotland series like The Young Team and Grams, going into production, there is plenty to celebrate at the moment.
But as the Herald has reported over the last week, below the surface there appear to be deep-rooted problems.
A key complaint is that far too many of the productions which have been filming in Scotland have not been produced by Scottish companies.
There are concerns that too many shows are being cast from outwith Scotland and that Scotland-based actors are being either overlooked or dropped from productions in favour of London-based talent.
Then there is the issue of whether crews are being brought into Scotland to work on some of the biggest film and TV productions.
A combination of rising costs, dwindling commissioning budgets, declining advertising revenue and changing audience habits – in cinemas and at home - is also said to have made it much tougher to get productions greenlit, despite the number of productions which have been in Scotland recently.
Screen Scotland, the Scottish Government's screen agency, was pretty clear to The Herald that it would like its "war chest" to support productions, which currently amounts to less than £10m, only marginally more than what it was when it was created in 2018.
That appears to be an embarrassing level of investment for an industry with a £1 billion target - no matter Scotland's current popularity for shooting productions in.
A common complaint raised with The Herald over the last week is that the Scottish screen industry is way off realising its full potential given the ambitions of the country's screenwriters, producers, director and actors.
Increasing that level of public investment meaningfully as soon as possible should be the very least of the nation's ambitions if is serious about the home-grown industry going to the next level and beyond.
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