In rare winter sunlight I seize my chance to shoot pickups. Trouble is, the patron saint of Paisley, St. Mirin, is stranded on a traffic island at the intersection of Incle Street, Gauze Street and the Glasgow Road. Standing a camera in the centre of five lanes of brisk traffic in search of a viable angle means risking my neck.

The statue, unveiled in 2007, looks deceptively old, as does the sandstone plinth it stands on, inscribed with…

I’m at Govan Cross. It’s been a while. During the year I spent volunteering at Sunny Govan Community Radio, a group of young Home Counties-types, underwritten by Oxfam, arrived to discuss the issue of malnutrition. They expressed astonishment at how it was easier to buy a can of Tennent’s Superlager in Govan than a tomato. Or how the local fruit and veg shop only survives because it also operates as a florist, whose brisk trade in tributes to the…

On the day the Glasgow Film Festival announces a screening of my movie – Sat 23 Feb at GFT2 – I travel to Tinto Hill to reshoot a sequence, not content with the original shot during the summer of 2009 because of poor light and low contrast. If there’s one thing you can’t buy it’s the weather, especially during a Scottish summer.

In 2007, the year I began shooting The Devil’s Plantation, I became obsessed with weather since virtually…

Last Saturday, while travelling eastbound on the M8, I notice some weirdness going on in Stanley Street, these days a prime billboard site. Never one to miss a trick, I exit at the Tradeston/Kinning Park off ramp – bizarrely two inner city areas unrecognised by the city’s local newspaper, the Evening Times.

Moments later I discover that the Gray Dunn Biscuit Factory, a place that looms large in my memory, is being demolished. Incompetently and dangerously. The reporting of this,…

Out of the blue, last summer brought an email from a man claiming to own half of the Cochno Stone, the most elusive of all the places mentioned by Harry Bell in his Gazetteer of Sites. My search for the Cochno, or Druid Stone, features in an earlier blog. The stone, arguably the most significant cup-and-ring marked stone in existence, became something of a lost cause for me.

Measuring 55 by 35…

To make a feature-length film in six weeks is a challenge, regardless of budget. To make this feature-length film in six weeks is a miracle. Whether it will make sense to an audience is another matter. Initially I felt it was a risk to present the narrative in a linear form as opposed to the random storytelling of the original website but after reviewing the cut the other night I was pleasantly surprised at how well it sustains its…

On Saturday 23rd February,The Devil’s Plantation finally screened at the Glasgow Film Festival. Billed as an eagerly-awaited world premiere, it was only completed last Wednesday, the day I learned it had sold out. To say I was surprised is an understatement.

On the morning of the screening, I rush to the GFT to check that the film is glitch-free. Here I meet Barney McCue, their legendary chief projectionist, who tells…

Anyone following the fortunes of The Devil’s Plantation – film and app – may be glad to know of the positive responses so far. Foremost is the news this week (March 8) that the app was selected by Stuart Dredge at The Guardian as a top pick, who commented astutely on the rise of interactive storytelling. It also received a five-star rating from Apps Magazine so kudos to my indomitable partner, Owen, for all his hard…

With over 400 apps released every week, it’s hard to get attention so it’s especially pleasing to learn that the latest issue of Apps Magazine has a two-page feature on The Devil’s Plantation app. I was quietly amused to see it described as Thomas Pynchon meets Trainspotting but what’s more gratifying is the observation that –

Devil’s Plantation raises the bar in interactive storytelling above children’s stories and comic books. Arguably it can go toe-to-toe…

Today’s Herald features a piece by Phil Miller on that perennial plea – voiced this time by Iain Smith, producer and current chair of the British Film Commission about the need for a Scottish studio. In the article an uncredited ‘spokeswoman’ for Creative Scotland is quoted as saying that £1m has already been ring fenced for this purpose, on the back of a £75,000 feasibility study into the viability of a fit-for-purpose four-waller, the elusive missing…