Hooray for Hollywood... films earn Glasgow £20m

SCOTLAND’S film industry is aiming to build on a successful year, after new figures revealed that hosting productions boosted Glasgow’s economy by £20.15 million in 2011.

The biggest contributor was the Brad Pitt zombie thriller World War Z, which took over the city’s George Square for more than two weeks during August, contributing £3.33m.

Cloud Atlas, starring Halle Berry, and Under the Skin, starring Scarlett Johansson, and the BBC drama Young James generated a combined total of £5.5m.

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A further £2.2m was brought into the city by “low impact” productions – film, television and advertising – which had one or two-day shoots in the city.

Glasgow City Council leader Gordon Matheson said: “The hard work of Glasgow Film Office and all the other council staff involved with the productions that come to our city has most certainly paid off, with over £20m coming into our economy. Such a figure underlines the financial importance of attracting film, broadcast and advertising productions to Glasgow.”

With 2012 marked as the year of Creative Scotland, the arts body that took over from Scottish Screen in 2010, building on last year’s successes is paramount.

An adaptation of Irvine Welsh’s novel Filth has started filming in Glasgow, while US animation giant Pixar’s forthcoming cartoon Brave is set in Scotland, and will feature Billy Connolly, Robbie Coltrane and Kelly Macdonald.

Although both Edinburgh and Glasgow’s film departments were upbeat about their prospects and spoke of “solid slates”, neither would name upcoming productions on the grounds of commercial sensitivity.

However, Ros Davis, of Edinburgh Film Focus, said that Glasgow’s success had benefited the whole country.

She said: “The sort of publicity that came in because of World War Z and Under the Skin was immensely positive for the whole of Scotland because it sends out a strong message that the country is capable of facilitating such big projects in an extremely helpful way.

“All of the cities and countryside are very well prepared to welcome filming. We’re very joined-up and often work together. Cloud Atlas was in Edinburgh and Glasgow, and so was Under the Skin.”

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Belle Doyle, locations department manager for Creative Scotland, said that the simple appearance of Scottish locations, even disguised as being in another country, on the screen could result in them being used by other productions.

She said: “People talk within the industry, and they’ll know how easy it is to get things done and what the local crews are like.”

However, she said that Scotland’s fortunes were often dictated by the strength of sterling and the incentives on offer.

Claire Mundell, co-creative director of Synchronicity Films and the driving force behind the newly-launched Mackendrick Film Fund, set up to attract investment in films with strong Scottish connections, said she hoped that Scotland’s own film industry would benefit from visiting productions.

She said: “It’s important to remember that within Scotland there are indigenous filmmakers, and hopefully some of the good fortune that comes our way with these very large studio movies coming to visit the city will be ploughed back into supporting indigenous productions.”