REGIONAL CASE STUDY
SCOTLAND
A
lan J ‘Willy’ Wands, a producer on the
remake of
Whisky Galore
, knew he had
found one of the film’s key locations
when he arrived at the fishing village of Port-
soy in Aberdeenshire, Scotland. “The minute I
saw Portsoy, I knew it was Todday,” he recalls.
“It’s got a unique 17th century harbour and it
was very easy to take it back in time.”
The fictional village of Little Todday and
Great Todday feature in the beloved 1949
black-and-white Ealing Studios production,
inspired by the true story of the SS Politician,
which ran aground in the Outer Hebrides in
1941 while carrying 246,000 bottles of whisky.
It is now being remade in glorious colour,
financed by private investors and the UK film
tax credit, with director Gillies Mackinnon
(
Small Faces
) at the helm and a cast including
James Cosmo, Gregor Fisher, John Sessions,
Eddie Izzard and Ellie Kendrick.
Having found their ideal location, the
crew also enjoyed huge local support.
“It was sensational the way everybody
in Portsoy got behind it,” Location
Manager David Taylor notes. Aber-
deen City Council was “absolutely fan-
tastic to work with”, he adds, and the
production was able to shut down
traffic in some areas of the village
and clear boats out of the harbour
for a fortnight.
Wands, who has previously
worked on projects where alternative locations
such as Romania have doubled for Scotland,
knew that
Whisky Galore
had to be shot at
home. “You couldn’t have done the Western
Isles anywhere else,” he asserts.
Grand designs
While they did not shoot on the islands, the
production worked in creative ways with main-
land Scotland’s shooting spaces; tank work was
done in a Glasgow canal and one of the city’s
former warehouses was used for interior sets
such as the Todday post office and the interior
hull of the ship.
The production also shot along the Ayrshire
coast, Loch Thom, in the former shipyards at
Govan, the Auld Kirk of St Monans in Fife, the
village hall in Luss near Loch Lomond and
the dramatic cliffs near St Abb’s Head.
One pivotal location was Geilston
House, a National Trust property. “It’s a
period house, so with minimal
dressing we could turn it
into what we wanted it
to be,” Taylor says.
“Being at Geilston
saved us on the
cost of building
more sets.” In par-
ticular, he credits a
strong
working
relationship with
Anna Rathband, Filming Manager for National
Trust of Scotland.
Creative Scotland supported the production
by paying for eight days of early location scout-
ing, and being on-hand throughout production.
“The location department at Creative Scotland
are great,” says Taylor.“When I’m filming I speak
to them on a daily basis. They have a good
knowledge of all locations. If you need a little
jaunt along with a particular local authority,
[Creative Scotland’s] Brodie Pringle can help
cut through the layers of bureaucracy.”
Wands adds that shooting in Glasgow has
improved greatly after the creation of the city’s
film charter and Glasgow Film Office, “which
helps a lot”. He also praises the assistance of
the city’s roads department and police, helped
by their experience on big shoots such as
World War Z
.
“Scotland has so much to offer and it’s full of
stunning locations,” says Taylor.“We are a small
country but it’s rural, so there are many areas
that can look so different. And the cities [can
be turned] into any other cities in the world.”
UK
“
PORTSOY HAS A UNIQUE
17
TH
CENTURY HARBOUR,
AND ITWAS VERY EASY TO
TAKE IT BACK IN TIME
”
Alan J ‘Willy’ Wands, producer
The team behind Whisky Galore knew they could only make their film in Scotland, a region
that offered the support they needed to realise their homespun yarn.
Wendy Mitchell
reports.
DRAM CATCHERS
Producer Alan J ‘Willy’ Wands on the set of Whisky Galore
GRAEME HUNTER PICTURES
Eddie Izzard on the
set of Whisky Galore
70
