Nations & Regions: Glasgow

Glasgow is very much the beating heart of Scottish TV production.

Home to both BBC Scotland and STV, at the imposing Pacific Quay development, it is also the where the majority of Scotland’s indie production companies and nearly all of its 300-plus facilities firms are located.

With a co-operative city council and the support of the Glasgow Film Partnership – a multi-agency assembly of 50 or more production- related service companies – it is a popular shooting location, with a varied mix of locations in the surrounding area.

In 2014, at least £14.2m of local spend was attributed to projects filming in the city – and that figure is based on just those that contacted Glasgow Film Office.

Glasgow hosted the Commonwealth Games in 2014 and the BBC’s Sports Personality Of The Year, plus there was the small matter of the Scottish independence referendum. But arguably the biggest TV story in Scotland last year was the arrival of Starz TV drama Outlander (pictured right) in nearby Cumbernauld.

The country’s largest ever inward investment via film and TV, Outlander gobbled up 400 crew and cast for 38 weeks of shooting across 2013-14. It also generated an estimated spend in Scotland of about £20m, a figure that is said to have helped the value of film and TV production in the country to double in the past four years.

Its success highlights the importance of attracting high-end TV drama to the country, but also serves to emphasise the ongoing debate about the current lack of a large-scale fi lm studio. Northern Ireland has one; so does Wales. But Scotland is still dragging its feet. There have even been calls for the government to set up a taskforce to address growing concerns about Scotland’s difficulties in attracting more shows on this scale.

Things are starting to move, however. In February, Creative Scotland secured an additional £3m to support production and skills development – on top of its annual £9m spend – and Scottish culture secretary Fiona Hyslop has hinted that a deal to build a national studio is imminent.

However, despite Glasgow’s heritage and pre-eminence in Scottish TV and film, rumours that the facility in Cumbernauld where Outlander was shot will be redeveloped are creating unease.

“Glasgow for many years has been the centre of the fi lm and broadcast industry in Scotland, usually attracting more activity than the rest of the country combined,” a Glasgow City Council spokesman told Broadcast. “The city has proved its infrastructure and expertise, from the smallest independent to Hollywood blockbusters. With additional production capacity, we could move on to the next level.”

While Glasgow will ultimately benefit from the new studio wherever it is located, the feeling locally is that it would be easier to sustain if it was in the heart of the city, alongside existing talent, infrastructure and services.

While more than 60% of Scottish commissions are in factual programming, a genre in which the country has a rich heritage, the mix has started to even out in recent years.

The BBC’s devolution to the nations and regions has boosted entertainment and comedy production, and it is a good time to be a freelancer in Glasgow. “I have been here for nearly 10 years and there are busy times and quiet times,” says freelance editor Gordon

Hayden, whose credits include Transplant Tales for Matchlight TV and Building Dream Homes for Raise the Roof. “But there are a lot of good editors here and lots of good independent production companies, as well as the BBC.”

Property shows still make up a fair pro portion of the output, but Hayden also highlights long-running daytime series such as STV Productions’ Antiques Road Trip (BBC2) and Tiger Aspect’s reality gameshow I Survived A Zombie Apocalypse (BBC3), which was shot in Scotland and edited in Glasgow. He adds: “The variety makes it a good place to work, but it’s hard to be a specialist. You need to be able to cut all manner of programmes. But for me, that makes for an interesting life.”

In network factual commissions, Question Time is produced by Mentorn Scotland, while Lion TV’s Homes Under The Hammer is now made out of the All3Media indie’s Glasgow base. Remedy’s Channel 4 gameshow Fifteen To One and 12 Yard’s BBC2 quiz Eggheads are both shot at the Pacific Quay studios.

Children’s TV is strong in Scotland too. Recent successes include Katie Morag (Move on Up for CBeebies) and Plum TV’s TeaCup Travels (also CBeebies).

Drama still accounts for less than 10% of Scottish commissions, although its bigger budgets mean it is worth significantly more.

The demise of BBC1’s Waterloo Road, which ceased production in August 2014, will not help this situation, but there are a lot of single series in the offi ng, among them the upcoming BBC Scotland/Slate North adaptation of Ian Banks’ rite-of-passage novel Stonemonth for BBC1 Scotland and BBC2, which was shot in locations around the nation.

Shot in and around Glasgow by a predominantly Scottish crew, Clerkenwell Films’ 6 x 30-minute comedy series tells the story of romantic twenty-something Dylan, who uses his STI diagnosis as a positive journey of self-discovery.

With a narrative structure that jumps backwards and forwards between the recent past and the present day, the show required two different shooting styles.

Shot on Arri Alexa and Arri Amira cameras, hired from Visual Impact Scotland, the majority of the effects that accentuate the differences between the two periods were done ‘in-camera’.

Edinburgh-based DoP Simon Vickery shot present-day scenes hand-held with hard lighting, a wide-angle look and in a documentary style. The flashbacks were then captured in a softer way, using longer lenses, a more classical framing style and Pro Mist filters, which produced a pearlescent halo around highlights.

“Some of the differences are very subtle,” he says. “A lot of these things viewers wouldn’t even clock. By doing it in-camera, we could retain control at the point of shooting, which is a reflection of the speed at which we work these days. “You don’t always know if you are going to be at the grade. So by shooting what you have discussed with the director in the fi rst place, as close as possible, and doing it in-camera, you get a better chance of the pictures appearing on TV as you intended them.”

To ensure that the crew were happy throughout the shoot, Visual Impact made a point of sending a technician onto the set once a week for a breakfast meeting, whether there had been a problem or not. “You have to have your wits about you,” says Eileen Byrne, manager of Visual Impact Scotland, which provides both sales and rental services.

“We pride ourselves on our support and find that often prevention is better than cure. You can solve niggling little problems that wouldn’t have otherwise been reported.”