Edinburgh Press Release - Aug '06

By Handheld Productions Ltd.

New Flagship title, 'Edinburgh and Beyond' added to the 'Beyond the Cities' catalogue.

One year ago Handheld Productions Ltd. started a brand new venture with www.beyondthecities.com. The idea was the brain child of husband and wife team; Douglas and Sabrina Campbell. Douglas has been working for the last twenty years as freelance director/cameraman and TV producer and during the dog days of January they dreamt up the idea of making a film for tourists about Glasgow and the surrounding area and 'Beyond the Cities' was born.

The Campbells moved to Glasgow 20 years ago and quickly fell in love with their adopted city. Moving from the sprawling conurbation of London they were amazed not only at Glasgow’s rich architectural heritage but also by the sublime Highland scenery that lay at their doorstep. The film is a voyage of discovery that includes all the main tourist attractions but also reveals some of the lesser known treasures in and around Glasgow and has been purchased by people planning a visit and by those who want a souvenir of a memorable trip. Apart from the more obvious attractions we were also keen to include the unusual and the idiosyncratic; so as well as Mackintosh and Greek Thomson the film also includes the public lavatories at Rothesay and an exceptional delicatessen in the village of Kippen. With no budget for location fees gaining access to all the locations we wanted to film at proved to be a challenge. Stirling castle was filmed from a neighbouring graveyard and access gained to the castle via The Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders who gave permission for filming in their marvellous museum.

Encouraged by the success of their first venture they decided to add Edinburgh to the catalogue.

'Edinburgh and Beyond' proved to be a far bigger project and at a running time of 70 mins is nearly 20 mins longer than the Glasgow title. The big advantage in producing 'Edinburgh and Beyond' was that both the National Trust for Scotland and Historic Scotland, having seen the quality of the Glasgow film, gave Handheld Productions Ltd. carte blanche to film in all of their properties. Again they were keen to show some of the lesser known attractions in the city so as well as covering the main galleries and museums they explored some of the lesser known galleries such as the exquisite Talbot Rice gallery with its marvellous collection of Dutch paintings. They also included the Royal college of Surgeons with it’s fascinating and sometimes grisly exhibits. You will even be taken to the exact table were J K Rowling wrote the first Harry Potter novels.

'Edinburgh and Beyond' was again a family affair with Sabrina tirelessly twisting arms to get them into locations and various children being co-opted to carry tripods and equipment across muddy fields.

Thier editor Dianne Barry worked tirelessly shaping the hours of material into the finished film and their second title in a year is now ready for release.

Scottish Enterprise contributed a small amount of funding to enable further development of www.beyondthecities.com and Handheld Productions Ltd. have a lot of exciting ideas for exploiting the material via the web which they shall be testing over the next few months.

Both films have been entirely self funded and 'Glasgow and Beyond' has covered it’s costs and they are hoping to recoup the costs on 'Edinburgh and Beyond' even more quickly and continue building the brand www.beyondthecities,com.

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