{"id":5004,"date":"2017-04-11T10:04:12","date_gmt":"2017-04-11T10:04:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/?p=5004"},"modified":"2025-12-27T12:08:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-27T12:08:07","slug":"pinewood-to-pentland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/2017\/04\/pinewood-to-pentland\/","title":{"rendered":"Pinewood to Pentland"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Scotland is set to have its first film and TV studio following a decision<\/a> by the Scottish parliament to greenlight a proposal for the outskirts of Edinburgh. The \u00a3250m Pentland Studios<\/a> is expected to house six movie sound stages and hopes to be open for business late next year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The move can be viewed in different ways. It is a major statement about the country\u2019s future from an SNP government pushing for independence, but is also part of a scramble by the UK\u2019s regions to get in on an industry that has long been dominated by south-east England. At a time when Brexit could produce a gold rush for the UK\u2019s film business, it raises questions about whether Scottish independence could prevent the new studio from fully playing a part.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Considering Scotland\u2019s distinguished screen history, it has long been a curiosity that it does not have a studio. It boasted innovative talents like directors Bill Douglas<\/a> and Bill Forsyth<\/a>; writers like John Byrne<\/a> and Irvine Welsh<\/a>; and numerous classic films about aspects of Scottish life such as Whisky Galore! (1949)<\/a>, I Know Where I\u2019m Going! (1945)<\/a>; and The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1969)<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But if Scotland has consistently punched above the limited media investment funds available, the creative credits and revenues have drifted towards London and overseas. Mel Gibson\u2019s Oscar-winning Braveheart (1995)<\/a> delivered most of its US$200m (\u00a3161m) box office to the US, despite filming in Scotland for six weeks. Little wonder many have been calling for a Scottish studio for a number of years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Boomtime in British film<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The studio plan comes at a time when the UK has developed into a major global supplier<\/a> of creative services for film and television. UK film production was worth<\/a> \u00a31.4 billion in 2015, part of a general trend upwards<\/a> over the years. Around \u00a31 billion of the 2015 total came from Hollywood and other foreign producers, attracted by tax relief<\/a> and the strength of British production talent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Star Wars franchise is now firmly based<\/a> at Shepperton<\/a> near London; Stephen Spielberg\u2019s science fiction movie Ready Player One<\/a> was recently shooting in London<\/a>; and Marvel\u2019s Avengers: Infinity War<\/a> has taken Captain America to \u2026 Edinburgh<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not only does all this shooting provide livelihoods for many scores of people working in the business, it produces a \u201cmultiplier effect<\/a>\u201d that benefits everyone from outside caterers to film tourism businesses. The British Film Institute reckons<\/a> this multiplier contributes a total of \u00a36 billion to the UK economy, most of it enjoyed by the south-east through studios like Shepperton<\/a> and Pinewood<\/a>, home of the famous \u201c007\u201d stage. The Scottish move is one of several regional efforts to take a slice of the action.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A Yorkshire film studio was recently opened at a former airfield at Church Fenton<\/a> outside Leeds. It is currently filming ITV\u2019s Victoria<\/a>, the big-budget drama about the formative years of Britain\u2019s 19th-century queen. Down in the south-west of England, meanwhile, the newly created Full Picture Company<\/a>, run by Bond-franchise art director Peter Lamont, is reported to be<\/a> planning a new studio complex, too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Decentralisation<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

These moves have benefited from the fact that the concentration of UK media production near London has become highly politicised. The BBC\u2019s move<\/a> of certain key activities from London to Salford in the north-west of England in 2013 was the first effort to rebalance the cultural economy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is renewed talk<\/a> also of Channel 4 being forced<\/a> to leave its London HQ and making Birmingham or Leeds (or somewhere else) its commissioning epicentre. And in Scotland, the BBC recently announced<\/a> plans for a dedicated \u00a330m Scottish channel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This plan sheds further light on the significance of the Pentland decision. A BBC Scotland channel marks a recognition that the corporation\u2019s public service remit<\/a> \u2013 and licence fee funding \u2013 must accommodate an increasingly fractious UK. At the very least, the new Edinburgh complex will likely benefit from BBC Director General Tony Hall\u2019s stated intention<\/a>to increase TV production north of the border by \u00a390m over the next three years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then there is Brexit. This will relieve the UK of EU competition rules <\/a>which have restricted its ability to offer tax breaks to films that are in some way \u201cculturally British<\/a>\u201d. The UK has already interpreted this liberally, causing controversy<\/a> for example when sci-fi thriller Gravity<\/a> (2013) was ruled a \u201cBritish film\u201d despite starring Sandra Bullock and George Clooney and being directed by Mexican Alfonso Cuar\u00f3n. It\u2019s a fair bet the UK will boost tax incentives to unleash a content production free-for-all after Brexit<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If Nicola Sturgeon, the Scottish first minister, achieves independence and manages to keep Scotland in the EU, this might make it harder to take part in this bonanza. On the other hand, Scotland will for the first time have the real estate and probably the associated critical mass of talent to full exploit EU funding<\/a> to promote the creativity of small nations against the might of Hollywood\u2019s global players.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This helped attract Game of Thrones<\/a> to Northern Ireland, for example. Whether Scotland could find a way of having its cake and eating it remains to be seen, and would have to be weighed carefully by voters at the time of any second independence referendum.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So the Scottish studio announcement is perfectly timed to take advantage of the shift in the UK\u2019s cultural economy away from London. It is a statement about Scotland\u2019s own increasingly cultural confidence, independence or no. Either it will add much needed capacity to a growing UK industry or it will turn a great location into a rich creative hub for a newly assertive Scottish nation. How this plays out and how it affects the studio\u2019s competitiveness will be fascinating to watch over the next few years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

First published by The Conversation<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Photo of Bill Forsyth by Martin Burns CC-By-2.0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“So the Scottish studio announcement is perfectly timed to take advantage of the shift in the UK\u2019s cultural economy away from London. It is a statement about Scotland\u2019s own increasingly cultural confidence, independence or no.’<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":151,"featured_media":5008,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[122,85,61],"class_list":["post-5004","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culture","tag-brexit","tag-scottish-devolution","tag-scottish-industry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5004","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/151"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5004"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5004\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17873,"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5004\/revisions\/17873"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5008"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5004"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5004"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5004"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}