This was the first ad I ever produced for VisitScotland, under their old title as The Scottish Tourist Board. Directed by the Douglas Brothers, it was written by Simon Scott & Andrew Lindsay when they were still the Creative Directors at Faulds Advertising and featured the late great Norman McCaig reading some lines from his poem 'Celtic Cross.'
On the shoot, McCaig was reluctant to read it at all, saying not only that the audience wouldn't understand it but that he wasn't sure that he understood it himself. I'm glad he changed his mind.
This film had a very long gestation period. The original script by Ian Allan and Ross Thomson lay around for about a year before the thrusting young team of Chris Muir and Al MacCuish inherited it in 1995.
Having just worked on the multi-award winning BBC Radio Scotland campaign with Tomato, we were very lucky that not only did they agree to direct it for the princely sum of 4/6d, but that Underworld allowed us to use their song 'Cowgirl' as well.
Then our esteemed client, Michael Forsyth, the Secretary of State for Scotland (allegedly) decided that it 'encouraged teenage promiscuity' and the spot was canned for almost a decade before it finally hit the screen.
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