112002 Scotsman

JAMES Bond, Rob Roy and William Wallace have all visited in recent years. But efforts are being stepped up in the Highlands to ensure more big names arrive in future.

The region has become a popular location for film and TV productions which bring in business worth about £3 million a year to the economy.

Films such as Braveheart, Rob Roy, Loch Ness and The World is Not Enough have been partly shot in the Highlands, which has also been the setting for TV series including Hamish Macbeth, Monarch of the Glen and the forthcoming Rockface.

Next week, shooting begins around Tomintoul and Badenoch and Strathspey of Bum’s Rush, a feature starring Scots actor Dougray Scott, while a British-German production is planned to be partly filmed in Sutherland in December.

Next year a £20 million film studio is planned to be built in Inverness, further enhancing the area’s attraction to directors and producers.

But with 27 film offices elsewhere in the UK and more than 300 worldwide, the Highlands has to work harder to attract the business and to ensure everyone from B&Bs to public authorities is reading from the same script.

Today, Highland councillors will be asked to support moves to set up a film friendly charter in the area which will help make it even more attractive to film and programme makers.

It will make the area the first in Scotland to sign up guest houses and other accommodation providers as extras in the strategy to win more film work.

Pilots have already been carried out in Lochaber and Skye and it is now planned to extend the scheme to the whole Highlands.

Trish Shorthouse of the Highlands and Islands Film Commission, said: "Some of these film crews can be quite demanding. One of the most important things is flexibility; if they want to film a sunrise they will be up at 5am and want breakfast then. Or if they are on a night shoot they will want a bit to eat and have the bar open at 11 or 12 at night.

"Not every establishment will want to do that, but we need to know about those that do have the facilities and staff who are flexible enough. It’s an additional selling point which makes it easier for us to promote the area.

"In a sense these people are business tourists and the impression they get, who greets them, where they eat, the person who drives them in the taxi, all count. We can do so much to get them into the area, but we are dependent on every other service they come across thereafter."

The charter will also seek to develop stronger links with other agencies, such as council departments and police and fire services in the same way as cities such as Glasgow, Edinburgh and international film locations like New York and Vancouver have.