VIP TREATMENT IN VIRGIN FIRST

2017 has been a highly satisfactory year travelwise… thus far I’ve spent a glorious month in Thailand, 12 glam weeks in Cali for the LA Film Festival and I’m just back from Cannes and three weeks in the Riviera making business a pleasure. Such is the life of the treatment writer. For someone who’s lived and worked in London, Singapore, HK, Indonesia, Thailand, Australia, Malaysia, Vietnam, Cambodia and the US that’s a good but not untypical year… see for yourself on Facebook or Instagram. But now for a wholly new travel experience: I’m settling into the scenery with a bacon sandwich in Virgin Trains First Class and trundling into deepest barbarian country (as we call it in London) or bonnie Scotland as the locals adoringly refer to the homeland. Yes, I’m heading up to the land of kilts, clans and claymores for a wee bit of schmoozing and carousing with the production community that’s rubbing its hands with glee as there’s a pretty parcel o’ groats up for grabs… a cool £1,000,000 in the shape of a Production Growth Fund available to qualifying productions in the form of a nice fat non-recoupable grant. Free money! Are there any sweeter words to stir the larceny a Scotsman’s heart? And I’m quietly confident that no small portion of that will end up the in the Paulie warchest. Like the daring and dashing gentlemen adventurer of old, I shall be hawking my arsenal of treatment writing and design services to the assembled clans. Currently I’m heading to nearby BBC Scotland to meet a couple of production houses with their eyes on the prize, ears open to ideas and a nose for a keenly motivated creative mercenary to add the armour piercing warhead to their pitch.

Rest and respite from this feeding frenzy is to be provided at the luxurious Malmaison Glasgow highly reccommened by an all wise producer from Scotland’s top agency Leith. A fav with local production houses and Scottish-based crew, the M is a great base for the Scottish-based production facilities, lavish restaurants and unbearably hip bars that nourish the local industry (or so I heard from the buzz at the Glasgow Film Festival).

I’m a bit embarrassed to never have been here before. The highlands are a director’s wet dream with stunning mountains, rugged landscapes, gothic castles and unspoilt wilderness. Little wonder the Scottish film industry attracts some of the world’s leading filmmakers and television producers. Few places are as photogenic as Scotland – it’s home to the UK’s highest mountains, deepest lochs, largest tracts of forest and, of course, buzzing cosmopolitan cities like Glasgow, Edinburgh and Fife. So no surprise that Scotland’s film industry has evolved dramatically over the last decade and now boasts a cinematic repertoire which attracts some of the biggest names in the business including recent productions featuring Brad Pitt, Scarlett Johansson and Daniel Craig. While I’m here, I’m planning to take in some urban grit à la Trainspotting, a couple of anciently ruinous castles and a good dollop of untouched wilderness. The best discovery is learning that it has the longest daylight hours in the UK which means 18 hours of daylight – pure joy for a morning person like me and of course some of the longest shoot days in Europe. Out of my window, I have to say the settings for filming in Scotland are undeniably breathtakingly beautiful: from the haunting beauty of the glens and dales. Stay tuned for your treatment writer’s adventures… more to follow soon.