Official Report 726KB pdf
Agenda item 2 is an evidence session with a panel of stakeholders on Screen Scotland. It is intended to provide an opportunity to discuss Screen Scotland’s performance, in the context of the recommendations that this committee made in our report “Making Scotland a Screen Leader”, which was published in June 2018—it does not seem that long ago, but it was.
I welcome the witnesses: Eric Coulter, director, Surefire Television Productions Ltd; Bob Last, a film producer; Barbara Orton, producer, True TV and Film and Arabella Page-Croft, producer and co-founder of Black Camel Pictures.
Screen Scotland was launched during our 2018 enquiry. It was intended to provide increased support for the industry in Scotland. What are your impressions of Screen Scotland? Is it providing the enhanced support that we hoped for?
Thank you for having me. It is nice to see you again.
There has definitely been significant progress and a big step up since I previously sat in front of the committee. The broadcast content fund is a great asset to Scotland. It is fantastic to see new leadership in Isabel Davis and David Smith. I appreciate that a lot of recruitment is going on at the moment and that the form that Screen Scotland will take is changing. It is hard to judge, but all the sounds and what we are witnessing seem positive.
That is my opening gambit.
I echo that. It is pretty fantastic having all the new funds, which are opening up a lot of opportunities. We welcome Screen Scotland.
I am slightly concerned about the emphasis on high growth potential, which we can talk about a bit later. There is an emphasis on that rather than on developments in the rest of the sector, especially in some of the smaller companies.
It has certainly brought a renewed focus on the sector, which has coincided with a period of peak disruption. All the old models are rapidly diminishing or going out the window. The new models are dominated by pan-global platforms and nobody really knows how it will shake out.
A long time ago, I was in the music business when it went through similar disruption, which happened before the disruption in film and television. Nobody got it right when it came to what would happen, and all sorts of business models disappeared, but, for example, vinyl is now selling more every week than it has done for decades.
It is unpredictable, but we are in a period of peak disruption. The models in which I used to operate no longer really work. For that reason, it is difficult to judge, but it has certainly brought a focus, and the new team has a real understanding and perspective. Much play was made of the new arrangements being a partnership and, therein, some challenges remain to be resolved.
My being here is slightly fraudulent in that, at the moment, I do not have any direct interaction with Screen Scotland. I used to, in previous incarnations, and I work for a lot of companies that do.
From a position of being slightly stood back, I think that the biggest issue is still how to manage the balance between attracting inward investment and supporting indigenous production. Everyone gets excited about companies coming here, and that is fantastic, but, in the long term, we need support for the growth of indigenous companies. That should be prioritised.
I am mainly a freelance producer and I work exclusively in television. In the productions in which I have been involved, the companies that came here and received money, whether from Creative Scotland or Screen Scotland, were by and large making television shows that were going to be shot here in any case. They did not come here because of the money; they were coming here anyway. The money was helpful to them, but I do not think that it would have made a difference to whether they came. Whether that money could have been spent boosting local companies needing a bit of infrastructure or development support is a key question.
The tension between supporting the indigenous industry and attracting international productions came out very much in our committee report.
Eric, you said that you had not had contact with Screen Scotland. Is that because you do not get any subsidies or do not look for grants?
It is probably because of the change in my business model. The committee papers say that I am the director of Surefire Television Productions, which is a company that I set up about 10 years ago with another person. However, I work more now as a freelance producer, so I work for other companies, most of which have received funding from Creative Scotland or Screen Scotland. I am involved in that in some ways but not directly. Ten years ago, with my company, it was a different story. I tried to find development and seed money, but I did not get very far with that. The classic example of that is trying to develop drama—I worked exclusively in drama—when we were starting up and did not have any great funds behind us. I went around all the usual places, such as Scottish Enterprise, Creative Scotland and BBC Scotland and I did not get a lot of support.
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When was that?
That was 10 years ago. That was what I did at that point but, increasingly, I have decided that my business model should involve work on commissioned projects.
That segues nicely into my next question. Screen Scotland was supposed to create a one-stop shop, so that people did not have to go around all those agencies. As you said, it is early days, but is it your impression that a one-stop shop has been created?
I will speak to that, because it relates to the partnership issue. The intention might have been to create a one-stop shop that the sector could use to tap into the resources of all the other partner organisations, through one focus, but I do not see that happening. It is a one-stop shop, in that it has the knowledge and ambition to interact across the sector, but I am not sure that it is funnelling other resources or expertise—indeed, it is going the other way. My impression is that it is teaching the other partner organisations about the sector. That might be a good thing but that was not the intended dynamic.
It will be interesting to see how the appointment of the business development person at Screen Scotland affects the producers. At the moment, a programme called FOCUS lends business support. However, we still do not understand what is happening with regard to business support at Scottish Enterprise and Screen Scotland.
I echo what Eric Coulter says about how we help to nurture and support the businesses of indigenous producers, who are crying out for priority attention. That tension between Scottish Enterprise and Screen Scotland remains.
The one-stop shop approach seems to have been interpreted as having a website that gives information. That falls short of the recommendations that were made in that June 2018 report. The call in that report was for all sorts of support, such as trainee schemes, mentoring and professional courses, which would go across the industry, from high-end companies to small production companies and from facility companies to craft skills development. It would be great to see that, and I echo what has been said here about the partnership. Screen Scotland is now an interagency organisation; it is great that the agencies have come together and that they are talking together, but the danger is that the talking goes on and the agencies revert to their original remits. We can see that happening.
Can you give us any examples of that?
Yes. For example, Screen Scotland has employed a high-growth strategy for development, which is a Scottish Enterprise strategy. A lot of things are going down that route. Although that strategy is welcome for some companies, it does not suit the broad spectrum of companies in the production sector. As has been said, people are looking for additional support for the indigenous companies.
We seek more clarity on the difference between the high-growth strategy at Scottish Enterprise and the one at Screen Scotland. That question might be worth digging into so that we all understand it.
I also co-chair the Scottish Government’s creative industries advisory group. It is interesting that you raise the issue of high growth, and that it has emerged immediately in the questions. The high-growth strategy relates to an economic insight from the 1950s but, in Scotland, we still spend a lot of time talking about it across all the creative industries. I have no idea why, as it is no longer the 1950s. However, there is a lot of evidence in the Scottish Government of a real understanding of and sympathy for the fact that microbusinesses and nanobusinesses across the entire sector, not just film and television, are the drivers of economic sustainability and ultimately growth. Therefore, there seems to be a continuing unresolved tension.
I hate to individualise specific agencies, but the bottom line is that Scottish Enterprise has obsessively maintained a commitment to that 1950s economic perception, which gets in the way of effective intervention. On a positive note, I think that Screen Scotland now has the gravitas, expertise and resources to educate its partners.
That is interesting, and I am sure that other members will pick up on some of those points.
In the report that this committee issued almost two years ago, we recognised the need for a film studio and for increased infrastructure and opportunities in Scotland. That report followed on from an Enterprise and Culture Committee report from a few years before. We then took evidence from Screen Scotland, again almost two years ago, which told us that it was limited in what it could say because of commercial sensitivities, but that there was an option of facilities in Leith. So far, we have had no studio announcement, and we still do not have any significant studio space in Scotland.
What is the panel’s understanding of progress on that issue, and what is the impact of Scotland not having the facilities that we see in Liverpool, Leeds, London, Northern Ireland and other comparable places?
I have been working in the business for almost 40 years, and one of the first things that I did was to look for build space for studios. I am still doing it 40 years later on productions, and it is dreary and boring.
We get confused about what we need. I work exclusively in television, and if we go to Manchester or Bristol, for example, the studios are very simple; they are not huge. I am not an expert on the matter, but I think that we get wrapped up in trying to attract big productions, such as “Star Wars”. However, that is not really the issue. People are not going to come to Scotland just for the studio. It is not the same as when people go to shoot in South Africa or Eastern Europe because the studios are there and it is cheap to use them. We are not in that business, because we cannot compete. Therefore, people will come here to shoot because they want to be in Scotland, but then the lack of a studio becomes an issue. For example, “Braveheart” and “Game of Thrones” were shot in Ireland.
Not having a proper studio is obviously an obstacle, but film studios are not elaborate buildings—they consist of four soundproofed walls. I know that all sorts of projects have been mooted, and others might disagree with me, but I think that any studio should either be on the west side of Edinburgh or the east side of Glasgow, on the M8 corridor.
I have just been involved in quite a big television production for which we were looking for studio space in Glasgow. We did not even look at Leith, because we would not get the crew. I know that the effort is being put into Leith, so I am sorry to pour cold water on that, but I think that the location will be an issue.
I was the executive producer on a series of “Rebus” with Ken Stott, but we shot the majority of that in Glasgow and then came to Edinburgh for some technical days. That was purely an economic decision. Therefore, the M8 corridor or central Scotland is where we should be looking.
On that point, for how long can crew be expected to travel before we have to pay for overnights?
About an hour, such as the time that it takes to travel from Edinburgh to Glasgow. Unfortunately, for people who live in Edinburgh, everybody expects them to come to Glasgow and will not pay if the situation is the other way round. The reason that we did not shoot “Rebus” fully in Edinburgh was because we could not afford the overnights. If you build a studio, you want crew to sleep in their own beds.
A studio might be relying on specialist skills, which we do not really have, although “Outlander” has made huge difference to that. We are not in the same league as the big studios producing films such as the “Mission: Impossible” and “Star Wars” series and will not be for a long time. We could be, but as a starting point we need studio space like the Space Studios in Manchester, which we have used. It has three studios of, I think, 12,000 feet—it is a converted industrial unit—and television and film productions are in and out of there all the time.
How do other panel members feel about the proposals? What is your understanding of the progress that has been made and what kind of studio do you think that Scotland needs?
I am not sure where we are on the progress, but I have picked up from the crew that people are concerned about the travel time between Glasgow and Edinburgh and into Leith, because that is on the wrong side of Edinburgh for the majority of crew, who are Glasgow-based. That additional 40 minutes or whatever it takes to get to the motorway back to Glasgow will impact on crew decisions about whether to work over on the east coast. Bob Last is probably more up to speed with where progress is at the moment, but everybody is still waiting for decisions.
I echo everything that Eric Coulter said, but I also say, strongly, that we need to be in it to compete and we should not think too small. We are in a disruptive, golden age of television and must not miss out on those millions of pounds-worth of production. We need to get on with it. Why are we still having these conversations, several years later?
I believe that people from Screen Scotland will appear in front of the committee next week. Given all the promises that have been being made for a long time, it would be fairly surprising if they did not give you some clear news.
I take Eric Coulter’s point. The notion that a studio in Scotland is a one-stop solution to a complicated ecosystem of production is a kind of false thinking. It is a very disruptive time in the market. The huge international peripatetic productions go to different places for all sorts of reasons—they have different needs. It has never been the case that any of the more ambitious studio propositions that I have seen would also serve the smaller productions. I have looked at the studio saga over time—it has gone on for decades—and as a producer I have often thought, “Great! If they want to build a big studio, that is lovely, but I am still going to find a very cheap shed for my lower-budget productions.” The studio will not solve everything.
If there is a studio of scale, it will bring with it lots of other infrastructural challenges that will have to be risen to. One such challenge would be the crew base. I am a lifelong resident of Edinburgh, so of course I have a different perspective on the notion of a Glasgow crew base. However, we need to have a central belt crew base to service big productions, which will take a long time to develop. If there is increasing infrastructure, the crew issue will have to be resolved over time.
However, we do have studios. We have Wardpark, which, thankfully, is busy. We cannot say that it is a problem that it is busy; it is great that that is the case. The studios have had to drive a considerable increase in the skill set and the crew base, so it can be done.
My side of the business is really documentaries. Therefore, I am not so involved; I just have anecdotal information about the studio. I talked to crew and other people who were working on “Outlander”, who said that they could be busier and that there could be more productions such as “Outlander” in that specific place.
My understanding is that Sony spent a lot of money on that place, but it does not own it. The original person owns it and he will not do anything that might impinge on “Outlander”. That is Sony’s choice, because it can afford to have that space.
Yes, but we need lots of different spaces, in other words.
We rehearsed all of this when we were producing the report, but what do you think the barriers are? Why have we not developed a studio space in Scotland, whether to increase capacity for big productions or to provide facilities for smaller productions?
Sony has invested hugely in the Wardpark studios in recent years exclusively for “Outlander”, and there is a question mark about what will happen to the facility when “Outlander” has finished. That took a private investor to come in, but why are there not more of them and what are the problems in relation to Government involvement? State aid has been brought up, but Manchester took a different approach and was able to build a facility that was supported by the public sector. Why is that not happening here?
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The issue is how to make money out of it, if it is a private studio. Like Bob Last, we will just go into an old shed; we are used to not paying a lot of money. If someone provides a studio, it could cost five times what it would cost to use an old shed. It seems to me that the reason that it has not happened is because private investors have looked at it and wondered whether they can make money out of it. If it would be occupied only 35 weeks a year, there would need to be some form of support.
It is important to distinguish between the wider economic impact of “Outlander” or of some other big production that comes in and the business model of a studio. As Eric Coulter has pointed out, a studio is a very simple thing and it has a tight margin as an economic proposition in itself. It can create or facilitate a massive amount of other economic activity, but that money does not go into operating a studio. That is the answer to Claire Baker’s question.
There are other spaces, such as those at Film City Glasgow, and people are looking at smaller-scale spaces. It is not that there is nowhere to shoot.
I will follow on from what Eric Coulter and Bob Last have said. The point about the difference between converted and purpose-built studio space has been made to us before by the likes of the Association of Film and Television Practitioners Scotland. In Leith, in particular, does the effort to convert a space into something substantial match with the priority of getting in large productions and large production companies, which is in Screen Scotland’s strategy? You are used to filming smaller or lower-budget productions in a shed, as long as it is soundproofed.
They are never soundproofed. We have to stop when it rains.
Another example is my problem when I looked for a studio space two years ago. I looked at the old black-and-white building on the outskirts of Glasgow, which would have been fantastic as a permanent studio. It had the floor spaces, ceiling height and all sorts of things, but there was no way that I could afford to spend money on it for a production that needed a space for three or four months. Productions therefore end up in buildings that are inappropriate and, in the past—not so much now—dangerous and not good for health and safety or working hours. Those are big issues. Productions quite often end up working in environments that are not ideal.
Is the issue that purpose-built space is not being pursued? So far, the developments towards a studio that have been driven by Screen Scotland have been about converting space, particularly in Leith, rather than a purpose-built studio, such as those in Manchester, Liverpool and Bristol.
A lot of the studios in Manchester are conversions. I do not know about the economics of a new build as opposed to a conversion, but it is interesting that most of the spaces have, I understand, started from a building, although some are purpose built. If money was not an object, I think that a purpose-built studio at Harthill would be built, with six stages of different sizes. Obviously, however, that would take a lot of money.
As has been pointed out, what it comes down to is the economics of running a studio. It is a tight-margin business, and a substantial increase in capital investment to achieve the facilities is being talked about. One would assume that that is why, with regard to what Screen Scotland is doing, the debate about studios in Scotland has not changed much for the past 15 years.
I read an article from 1935 about the need for a studio in Scotland. [Laughter.]
The answer to Ross Greer’s question is that it is a simple business matter. The capital cost of a new build from scratch is higher, so the economic model of operating it is more problematic.
The wider issue is Screen Scotland’s strategy and a focus on companies of scale. From looking at Screen Scotland’s business plan and its strategic vision so far, as a whole, do you think that it is getting the balance right between attracting large-scale international productions and providing support for the indigenous sector?
I want to talk about support for the indigenous sector. It goes back to asking the right question. For example, if you ask how we can develop three companies to have a £10 million turnover or whatever over a certain period of time and develop a further 20 or 40 companies in the future, the answer will be one kind of strategy, which will focus on business development and growth. If you asked a different question, such as how a screen agency could create the opportunities for more quality films to be developed in Scotland, you would get a completely different strategy, which would point towards co-production and international co-production. That is what the recommendations called for: we wanted a sector that would support international co-production, with training and mentoring schemes, and relationship and partnership building. There were a lot of suggestions about the detail of that. That is what people are looking for. If the perceived weakness of the sector is a lack of good-quality, market-ready projects, the question is, what is Screen Scotland doing to remedy that situation? If there are schemes and initiatives to develop those market-ready projects, what is it doing to broker them into the international marketplace, the domestic marketplace, or any marketplace? What is being done?
There already are such schemes. The European Union, through its Creative Europe media programme, has pioneered the kind of training schemes that create a socially and economically developed cultural sector, which has resulted in a diverse film culture in Europe. Those schemes exist. The kind of training that such schemes offer is called training, but it is really about opportunities to market. There are integrated, project-based programmes that take producers and production teams, regardless of the size of the company, and quality projects and develop them for the market. It is competitive: the projects must be of quality, and their quality is measured by whether they have distribution potential. It is not a question of how big the company will grow—or not.
It was worth setting out that detail, because what those schemes look like is really important. Such schemes are project based: they develop the storytelling side, written proposals, pitches, treatments and trailers with project teams to get quality, market-ready projects. They run in three-week blocks over a year or 18 months. Once the project is developed, there are built-in opportunities, such as in business support schemes, which cover things such as how to make financial plans, how to make deals in an ever-changing market—given that the new streaming services are coming on board—what deal packages look like and how to put deals together. That is coupled with opportunities to pitch the project to the market. The brokerage is built into the training programme. The whole point is that the scheme is integrated and any producer of any size can get on to it, as long as they have a quality project that has international distribution potential.
It is fantastic that we have the European media desk based in Screen Scotland. It can broker producers and teams from Scotland into such schemes. My worry is that that will all end with Brexit.
Two days ago, the British Government announced that it was not going to negotiate participation in the Creative Europe programme, so what do we have left in Scotland? That is now an urgent question. We need those kinds of training schemes, which represent a different strategy—an international strategy and a co-production strategy. They could be applied across the board, and indigenous companies in particular could benefit. They are crucial, especially with the new streamers coming into the market. Apparently, we do not have enough quality projects to be brokered into meeting Netflix and Amazon as producers.
We will definitely ask Screen Scotland about the post-Brexit strategy next week.
I will make a final point. We do not currently have an integrated scheme in Scotland. We have lots of different bits of schemes; there is a business scheme called focus, and there are skills development schemes and professional development schemes. Some of the skills development schemes that the training agencies do are really fantastic, but they are not joined up: they are bits and pieces all over the place. That is not what was called for in the committee’s report. I think that members are well aware of all that.
We need a scheme in Scotland that is run by independent agencies, not production company-led agencies. A situation has been allowed to develop in which production companies have done a lot of new talent training, which has become a real conflict of interest issue in the production sector. Basically, it is unfair competition. It is crucial that indigenous companies have opportunities not only to develop those projects but to get brokered into a marketplace.
I certainly recognise what Barbara Orton is talking about. There is no doubt that that needs to be looked at outside the EU. One has to recognise that it would be very resource intensive to do that properly. It relates back to the genesis of Screen Scotland and the issue of high-growth rhetoric and large-scale companies. Developing some large-scale companies would be great, of course, but at this moment of peak disruption they would not look like what we thought they would five or 10 years ago, so we have to be a little careful.
It is worth examining the measures of success that were embedded in the creation of Screen Scotland. I think that they are problematic, and I said that to many parties at the time. I think that they are entirely unhelpful and unreasonable and that they were based on flaky numbers in the first place. The organisation has unhelpful key performance indicators, which are based on dubious numerical starting points.
That is useful. Can you give some examples of that? That is exactly the kind of thing that we could raise next week.
I did not come prepared to quote chapter and verse on that but, in essence, Screen Scotland has been put in a position in which the only way to hit its numbers and deliver on its remit is to bring in big high-end productions. That would be a great thing; it would be great for Scotland and, if it could be sustained in the long term, it would be great for the whole ecosystem and industry. I am not being negative about that at all. It is very important; we are missing out on it as a country, and everyone else is in there. Screen Scotland needs to have KPIs that allow it to focus on the sort of thing that Barbara Orton talked about. It is tied back into the same embedded 1950s rhetoric. I urge people to look at reviewing that part of the organisation’s remit.
Are you saying that the KPIs that Screen Scotland has on attracting international production are too narrowly focused on immediate economic return rather than on the broader benefit to the indigenous sector?
That is not exactly what I am saying, because the KPIs do not specifically relate to international production. Screen Scotland has numbers that it is supposed to hit in return for getting additional resources, which is just stupid. That has nothing to do with effectively measuring the value of the sector to the country. It is the wrong approach. There are, of course, some narrow areas in which one can use numbers, and I am not opposed to metrics, but those numbers are arbitrary, the baselines are meaningless, and the way in which they are embedded makes it more difficult for the organisation to focus on particular areas of its remit.
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I can add a point about the approach as part of an international strategy. We welcome some of that inward investment, because it is great on all sorts of levels. However, if, as part of that, there were a robust set of terms and conditions that actively made partnerships with the production industry in Scotland—from the hiring of local crew right through to facility companies and production partnerships—everybody would benefit; it would be a win-win for everyone. The incoming companies would, of course, benefit from the finance; Scottish Screen would benefit from the promotional opportunities in that it could say, “Here we are with this big headline-making film”; and the indigenous companies would benefit from a whole range of benefits such as skills development and on-the-job work training.
I would like to see that as part of the vision that Screen Scotland continues to develop. That is more than just a business development vision. I would like to see a wider vision that includes an international strategy to address inward investment and indigenous companies.
That is really useful. Thank you.
I have a few questions. My first question is on the issue of the one-stop shop, which we touched on earlier. Is there still a feeling that, when an organisation contacts Screen Scotland, it will potentially be redirected to another agency, particularly Scottish Enterprise? Is that the message that was coming from Black Camel Pictures earlier?
Probably not—if you are an incoming company or an inward producer, you will be directed to the right place. We were talking more as indigenous producers who are working here today.
In addition, the problem arises more around the business support. If you are trying to access support or information on a project basis, it is pretty clear; however, it becomes more complex around business support, in the way that Barbara Orton talked about. Obviously, that business support was—as I understand it—a key part of the intent of Screen Scotland. Following on from this committee’s report, among other things, the intent was that it should start delivering a joined-up approach. However, it is difficult for me to speak directly to what it is really like if you come in cold.
There are two different situations: coming in looking for a co-producer; and trying to find money. There is a big difference between projects and business, which we are always wrestling with as indigenous producers. You are looking for money to develop your projects and you are trying to keep your business alive while you get your projects made, where you may earn a fee—if you are in TV, you may earn bigger fees. That is the challenge.
Apropos a lot of that, I am interested in asking Screen Scotland to drill down on data in relation to what indigenous producers are working with—for example—the BBC, Channel 4 and the British Film Institute. Personally, I feel that our producers are being really left behind in that we are not developing or making enough projects with those other agencies and broadcasters. That is the sort of thing that has the potential to be transformative for our indigenous companies. That data would help us understand what we—as producers—are converting with those other partners, and whether the memorandums of understanding will be effective.
The data would also be useful with regard to issues such as diversity. For example, how many female director projects have been supported in the past decade? Those are the numbers that we need to look at, as well as perhaps giving bodies strategic goals in terms of the numbers that we are trying to hit. That would be great.
I do not want to go off on a tangent. However, one of the things that we are missing in brokerage and marketing at the moment is the market leaders programme, which has stopped. It was not perfect, but it was a great programme because it meant that producers had a broker to help them get access to people—for example, we could ask it to help us get access to Netflix or certain people at BBC films. It is hard to get into those huge organisations. As an indigenous producer, having more brains to help us to get access to Amazon or another organisation or get to Los Angeles or talk to agencies such as Creative Artists Agency or WME was really important. That help is gone and, as far as I know, nothing has replaced it. Now, every time that we go to the documentary markets—the Berlin Film Festival or MIPCOM in Cannes—we do not have that third-party to help us set up meetings. We have to apply for grant funding. Experienced producers who have made the amount of work that we all have find that they have to complete application forms every five minutes to get £1,500. We are being micromanaged and made to do huge amounts of paperwork to try and get small amounts of money. It would be nice for someone to tell key people that we are experienced producers and we should be given an allocation for markets. That is what the people at market leaders did—they said, “Do you want to come to Berlin? What are your projects? What are you pitching? Okay, you’re in, and you’ve got support.” That was very helpful.
I echo that. The role that the market leaders programme played cannot be overestimated. However, an independent agency needs to do it. Delegations, pitches and training initiatives cannot be production company led. It is okay for that to happen sometimes, but it is an unhealthy situation if that is the only funnel for access.
The call in the committee’s report was for Screen Scotland—which was the screen unit at that time—to adopt an employment strategy that would bring producers into the team for three or four years. The idea was along the same lines as the Danish model. I do not have to go into that again, because you have heard it a million times. The call in that report was for entrepreneurial-type producers to fulfil those brokerage roles in Screen Scotland. That has subsequently been said over and over again. However, looking at the staffing structures that seem to have developed, I cannot see that that has happened. It might not be articulated yet, but I cannot see how the new positions will take on that role.
We only ask that the people who are employed come from the industry, speak our language, are not bureaucrats and have experience in the field. That is what will make a big difference to us.
Will they be employed permanently? That was not the model that was suggested: the model that was suggested was that people from the industry would come in for three or four years and they would suspend all of their production projects while they were in the agency, as they do in Denmark. They would then go back into the industry with more skills, contacts, expertise and knowledge, and all of those benefits would accrue to the sector. Although I am not saying that Denmark is perfect, that has been a good strategy for development there.
My question is on infrastructure. The possibility of having a studio based in Leith was highlighted earlier, and it has been discussed a great deal. Has there been dialogue between Screen Scotland and the sector about further studio space?
There is a studio working group. I am not on it; it is not my remit.
I do not know. We get fixated on the studio but the discussion needs to be broadened. I work almost exclusively in television drama, and one of the biggest barriers to the growth of indigenous production is a lack of commissioning power. There is an issue about “following the money”—there are a lot of film companies in Los Angeles because that is where the studios are, and the same thing goes for production companies in London.
In the past 10 years, I worked mainly in Scotland on productions that went through BBC Scotland. None of those companies was a Scottish company, although the productions were always classed as Scottish content, and the money came through the BBC’s internal workings. Certainly in drama, there is virtually no commissioning power in Scotland—or most of the rest of the UK; it is very centralised. When we are considering how companies grow, that is an issue.
That is an important point. Infrastructure, in the conventional sense, matters, but so does soft infrastructure, which is, in a way, what Eric Coulter is talking about. There needs to be an equal focus on soft infrastructure, not least because hard infrastructure does not work if it is not embedded in the right soft infrastructure, which is the infrastructure that sustains smaller businesses and helps them to grow.
My understanding is that there is a real determination to focus on that, but I come back to the fact that the Government has to take responsibility for the KPIs that it has given the organisation. I think that the organisation has the capability to help to develop that soft infrastructure, and it certainly speaks about wanting to do that.
I do not know the detail of the MOU with the BBC. I am slightly dubious about the effectiveness of MOUs. The BBC has a long track record of not really honouring its commitments to spend locally, as Eric Coulter has just highlighted.
There is a lot of local spend. Earlier, I gave the example of “Monarch of the Glen”, which ran for years and was very good for Scotland. It employed lots of crew and did all those things for seven or eight years. When that finished, that production company went back to London. There was no intellectual property left in Scotland; there was no legacy in terms of development funding and so on. If that had been an indigenous company, after seven years of production, or whatever it was, it would have had a base that would have funded its development and its overheads—all the things that come with returning series.
In Manchester, Red Production Company, which has now been bought over, is a very big company and it has made such a difference to that economy. It has had returning shows and has been able to grow. We need two or three companies like that.
A lot of the spend on productions in Scotland is great in that it employs a lot of people and is good in economic terms, but it does not leave a legacy.
That goes back to Eric Coulter’s earlier point about not being able to find money for development. I have been working for the past couple of years with all3media, which is a distribution company. When I say to it, “I need to be in drama development and I need more investment,” it says, “As soon as you convert your first six-part drama into production, we will invest in you.” I have said, “No, you’re missing the point. If I don’t have the investment now, I can’t get my first six-part drama to production.”
That is the chicken-and-egg situation that producers are in. You have to take so much risk to be out there developing, but, for producers, it is really worth the risk of investing in development. It is really hard, in the market, to get to that point. I know that, if Claire Mundell, who made “The Cry”, was sitting here, she would be saying how long it took her to get her first project across the line and into broadcast. That is one thing.
On the MOU, I would say that there has been collaboration between BBC Scotland and Screen Scotland on some digital content and programming that is coming through, but the budgets are not sustainable. I have just produced two 15-minute dramas for £20,000 each. I am not even really paying the living wage. We have to hold accountable our screen agency and the BBC for the productions that are being made and ask them whether their producers are paying the living wage. We are all desperate to get opportunities to make drama in Scotland, but when I am being asked to produce—and we are good producers—I am left wondering how we will make the series happen. I am going out to the market with a very small amount of money and saying to myself, “Well, the BBC and Screen Scotland are on, but I need to go and get more money,” but the BBC is saying that it wants all these rights. I mean, I have not got any negotiating traction, either.
The issue that is arising for so many producers in Scotland is that, although we have this new channel, there is no money. For example, I have just done a £4 million deal with Sky on another series that Bob Last and I are working on, but my current deal with BBC Scotland is for £100,000. Producers are having to go elsewhere, because the money is not here.
09:30
Has the committee spoken to Ewan Angus since he left the BBC?
Not yet.
I think that you would find that conversation interesting.
We are going to have to bring in other committee members.
Good morning, panel. The discussion thus far has been very interesting.
On the issue of the skills strategy, Creative Scotland had said that a draft strategy was to be complete by the end of 2019. Has that happened, as far as you are aware? Obviously, we could check with Creative Scotland, but I would like to hear your views.
You would have to check with it. I am not entirely sure where we are with skills at the moment.
There is an overall training strategy, which has not yet been published but I think has been delivered through a consultant.
The collective absence of a good answer might, in fact, be the answer to that question.
I see—it is the answer. Obviously, the committee will pursue that point. I just wondered whether the intention had become a reality.
Irrespective of the stage that the work on the new skills strategy might have reached, where would you like its focus to lie? Should it be on new entrants, for example?
I have talked about that a little bit. I would like to see some sort of integrated training—not just skills development, although a professional course on that is needed.
There has been an emphasis on new talent, by which I mean people who want to get into the industry. However, as I heard a Creative Skillset executive say the other day, training and development should be not just about the people who want to get in but about those who want to get on. Many mature producers in the sector still have training needs, because the market is changing all the time. In its broadest sense, training should be about opportunities to make relationships and partnerships and to develop projects. That should be the overall emphasis.
But it is also about accountability. We have to drill down on the data and look at where investment in skills is paying off. For example, we should be asking how many new directors have made their first films this year, or how many female directors have made their first feature film in the past five years. Considering such questions will enable us to see where skills are developing.
As everyone is aware, there is a really big problem with getting first films made, because it is difficult for first-time—or even second-time—film makers to secure finance. It would be interesting to take a lead from Screen Ireland, which now has a programme to fully finance first films made by female directors. We should be considering such groundbreaking initiatives and innovative schemes and asking ourselves how we can do likewise, or even do better by creating our own interpretations of them. I would hope that such skills initiatives would improve accountability and outcomes.
There seems to be a lack of planning for training new cohorts of producers, who are often left out. Fundamentally, a producer’s job is to connect creativity and money in an effective manner. That is not a simple thing to do, because it requires them to be across quite a complex array of issues and factors on which there is a shortage of relevant training. Arguably, if there was a bit more focus on training a good, new cohort of producers, that would naturally have a multiplier effect, because it is they who have to bring productions together and enable them to happen.
Another issue relating to producers has always been of interest to me. Recent data—I am not quite sure where it came from—showed that the pool of British producers is, largely, privately wealthy. I am not; I am thoroughly middle class and have always had to work for my living. Training will be important if we are to achieve economic diversity among producers. At the moment, the only way in which someone will get any experience as a producer is by either putting their house on the market or being privately wealthy. The situation is extremely difficult. I would advocate that that not be left off the training agenda.
We should absolutely recognise that. A report was published in the trades recently that said that the average wage of a producer is £6,000 a year. I recently talked to a young producer about a film that she was about to make, and asked her what her fee was on that project. She said that it was £20,000, and I said that she would lose half of that closing and that she would not be able to live.
We are looking to develop new producers. However, Screen Scotland must help them, as must we. We have to protect the producers’ line and empower them in closing. We might need to release some money in order for them to get their first films made, but we also need to ensure that some overheads and wages go to them. Producers are the ones who are out there taking the risks, developing the talent and representing Scotland and all of us on the market.
Have any of the panel members been asked to give their thoughts to Creative Scotland’s skills working group?
No.
I do not know who the producer is on that project—we can find out.
You are saying that none of you has been involved in it.
None of us has.
With regard to downstream issues, if Screen Scotland suggested that possible funding conditions should relate to skills and training opportunities, for example, would you support that? Should any conditions that relate to the promotion of skills and training opportunities be attached to any funding that Screen Scotland might award?
Do you mean as part of an inward investment strategy?
I mean as part of Screen Scotland’s funding grants. If it awards funds, it has, to some extent, the opportunity to say what it would like to see, and I suppose that it could argue for greater skills and training opportunities.
That would be helpful. However, going project by project, the biggest issue is training. There are very few productions like “Outlander”, which is a returning show that comes back every year—it is a 12-months-a-year operation. As such, it can offer a great training programme. It is very difficult for productions to offer training, and putting the onus on them to do so is dodgy. When a producer sets up a project, they have two or three months after the green light has been given to put people in place, and training is the last thing on their mind.
There has to be a strategy for those opportunities, but it has to be led by Screen Scotland, the BBC or the broadcasters. Putting the onus on productions to do that is not the best way forward.
Things are a little different in animation, which I am involved in. Animation productions are set up for relatively short periods of time. There is a different timeframe—a year or a year and a half. We are always actively involved in training and are able to bring in trainees. It is critical that, if the onus were put on productions to offer training, the process would need to be made very simple and straightforward. We will not do it if it is complicated.
Shadowing, for example, is easy and straightforward.
Even shadowing is not straightforward now, if one wants to interact—
It is a form-filling thing.
Exactly. We will often put trainees in, and we will not bother trying to integrate access for them. We are too busy, and we give up.
It is so time consuming.
Productions have trainees, but the paperwork has to be done. Someone has to come and say, “This is your trainee. This is what we’re doing with them, and we are paying them.” Productions often do not want to bear the cost of trainees, because they are not needed to make the production.
On-the-job training is essential. I speak to quite a lot of people who have been students and have come out with an MA in film and television. I say to them, “That’s great. You will start by being a runner, because you need to get on-the-floor experience.”
For some years.
Yesterday, the creative industries advisory group had a meeting with Mr Jamie Hepburn. It is worth noting that the issue that the panel is talking about is a cross-sectoral one in the creative industries. The business patterns in other sectors or subsectors of the creative industries are very comparable, as are their challenges in accessing support. The Government is clearly willing to support training, but craft and textile businesses face exactly the same problems as those that the panel is talking about.
One has to remember that, even on major productions, everyone from the producer downwards is freelance. It is a freelance business, so the training is different from training in a normal sector. A few key people—maybe three or four—will be employed full time by the company and the other 70 or 80 people will all be freelance, so training has to be looked at slightly differently compared with training in other industries.
We are in Scottish apprenticeship week, which is an awareness-raising week. Are there any modern apprenticeships in your line of work?
It is really difficult, because the scheme involves having to take the apprentice on for a year, but we work in a freelance business. However, there is a willingness—
I would love to have a trainee apprentice in my office if there are any going.
That is interesting. It is obvious that, in the longer term, we will have to find some way forward on training because, if we do not train people, we will not have a sustainable industry. Thank you.
Good morning, panel. Arabella Page-Croft started optimistically by saying that there has been progress in the sector, but I have heard a lot of deep frustration come out in your responses. I would like to put the progress in context. I am struggling to see it in financial terms, because the figures that we have are that the value of the production sector fell from £95 million in 2017-18 to £67 million in 2018-19, which is a drop of about 30 per cent, although indigenous production went up by about 40 per cent, from £16.8 million to £23.5 million. In the same year, the UK industry was worth £3.6 billion. Scotland delivered less than 2 per cent of that, which is an alarmingly small amount.
Do you believe that Screen Scotland’s business plan to more than double last year’s production spend to £138 million within three years is realistic? If so, how can it be achieved?
I draw your attention to my earlier comment that I do not believe that the baseline numbers are meaningful. It is not possible to answer the question because the baseline is just an arbitrary number. It captures some things, but fails to capture others. I had the misfortune of having to look at it in some detail. It is very problematic, and it needs to be revisited.
You asked whether the spend can double, or triple—
The plan is to double production spend.
It is possible. In scrutinising Screen Scotland, it is important to recognise that we are in a moment of enormous global disruption of the industry, so it is difficult for anyone—us as independent producers or Screen Scotland—to have a clear, linear picture. However, the platforms are spending enormous amounts of money on high-end drama and, if we are able to get our share of that, it will be possible to achieve those numbers.
I think that my colleagues have been keen to emphasise that the only way that we can achieve the big numbers is by bringing in income or money, but it is important that we do not just do that.
In the past five years, with all the video on demand, the production spend has really gone up. For a conventional BBC show, we would maybe get £1 million to make an hour of drama. With Netflix, it is £3 million or £4 million. If we can get those kind of shows in, we can really up the money.
As a producer who goes to market a lot, I would say that, if your national agency has your back and you have a really trusted relationship with it, and if you as the producer are bringing in a project and you hope that you can guarantee that Screen Scotland money will be forthcoming, you can bring in co-productions, which is a good way to sustain your business. Sometimes, you have to put your own projects into hiatus while you make a co-production, but that is how you increase the spend. I hasten to add that, if we send our producers to markets—we like our producers to be out in international markets—there has to be trust. They need to know that they can deliver the money when the applications come in.
09:45A couple of times over the past five years, I have been in situations in which Screen Scotland or Creative Scotland has not delivered the money for me. That really weakens producers at the table. They spend months nurturing, negotiating and bringing people back to Scotland, but then they do not get the money. Having spent months and months working on a project, that is devastating.
We can hit the spend, but Creative Scotland must have producers who bring in co-production projects or bring in Amazon or Netflix. That amount of money is very attractive to incoming productions.
I do not know how the mechanism would work, because it might be different. The high-end tax break is, of course, UK-wide. When I go to shoot in other countries, I have to work with a local company to be able to access a tax break. Those companies work primarily not as co-producers but as service companies, and that income is the basis for their developing their own projects. If something such as that happened here and Screen Scotland gave out money with the proviso that the recipient had to work with a local company, that could change things.
That is still not formally in place. Creative Scotland has resisted that, and I am not sure what Screen Scotland’s policy on it is. It is currently looking at its guidelines.
If someone goes to Canada, they cannot get anywhere near Canadian money without a gatekeeper producer to guide them through the system. It is all about enabling the producers there. They, and not the agency, are the gatekeepers.
I have found your written submissions and your comments this morning really fascinating, and I would like to ask loads of questions, but we are running short of time.
We have heard about everything from the need for studios of some description in specific geographical locations—in Harthill, for example—to the need for third-party support to try to open doors. What would be your three priorities—some might be the same—to turn around and grow the Scottish industry as you would like it to grow over, say, the next five years?
We have heard a lot today about the big studio and the big money potentially coming in with that, and about long-run returning series. Those are mantras that have been talked about for years, and we need those things, but not all the energy should be directed to them.
Screen Scotland is between a rock and a hard place if it is expected to increase production spend and do all the other things that we are talking about. I am not saying no to the high-growth strategies, but there should be more emphasis on co-production and enabling producers—from the small ones to the big ones—to go into the marketplace to bring in more co-production money. Indigenous companies would benefit from that. It would not bring in huge spend, but it would bring in sustainable spend for production companies.
Screen Scotland is also between a rock and a hard place in being expected to go out, consult and develop policies. Scotland needs a screen policy that is developed by the stakeholders in the industry in much the same way as happened when the stakeholders came together under the screen leadership group. They should be the mechanism to create policy—an industry-based strategy—because the industry knows what it needs to develop.
The policy could be made and instituted by the Scottish Government, and Screen Scotland could become the agency to implement it and be accountable for delivering it. Screen Scotland would then have a straightforward role, and it would not be charged to be everything to everybody and to have to go out to consult the industry all the time. It is difficult for Screen Scotland to do that, because, as you have heard from the panel, there are all sorts of industry groups. It could end up consulting every five minutes, as well as holding partnership and interagency meetings. It needs to get out of that talk shop and into looking at a policy and the best way to implement it, based on data and driven by the needs that are articulated by the industry. That is what I would like to see.
That was only two things.
Sorry.
We do not have much time left. The Secretary of State for Scotland will be in quite sharp next.
I was just trying to round it all up.
I probably have five things to suggest. Business company investment or a loan system would really help. We do not have a soft loan system, which would be interesting. I would like market and broadcaster brokering to help us with access. Everyone will always want the studio, but a co-producer status so that people cannot get to our funding without having a Scottish co-producer is a golden ticket. I probably speak for all producers in Scotland on that. We should also drill down on the data.
Screen Scotland also said that it was going to do that.
If I had good answers, I would be working at Screen Scotland.
Partnerships need leadership. They need to be led, and a strong leader is best placed to create effective partnership working. I would like to see that clearly embedded in the on-going governance of Screen Scotland. That is important for its ability to deliver across all the things that have been talked about.
Screen Scotland is working on clearly articulating its different interventions because, as people have said, clarity is needed on inward investment and its role, and indigenous company development. Those are different strands, and the more clearly Screen Scotland articulates its interventions towards each goal, the better. To quote a phrase, it is not a one-stop shop.
We as a sector also have to be realistic. We are a small country, and there is a lot of shouting about Screen Scotland, as there was about Scottish Screen. If we want Screen Scotland to operate effectively, we have to shut up a little bit, because it cannot do everything for all of us. We all—myself included—love it when Screen Scotland gives us money; it seems to us to be a failing, poor agency when it does not do so. That is only human, of course.
I think that we are all saying that we have made a massive step in the right direction.
We are all saying that but, in general, there is sometimes a lack of realism. Screen Scotland cannot do everything. Sometimes we end up asking different organisations to do everything, and that makes their job more difficult.
Arabella Page-Croft covered pretty much everything that I would say. The one thing that I would add is that we need support, because it is an international marketplace out there now. The joke is that even going to London for a meeting is a £250 cup of coffee. We have to recognise that being on the periphery—we are on the periphery of the business, whether that is in London or Los Angeles—requires some extra support.
That is a good way to wind up. I thank all the witnesses for coming to see us today. The session has been really helpful and has given us lots to think about and to put to Screen Scotland when we have it in.
I suspend the meeting briefly.
09:53 Meeting suspended.