If Scotland wants a film industry we really are going to have to make some films

Today an award-winning Scottish film director has accused the Scottish Government of being more interested in attracting Holyrood movies to Scotland than in supporting Scottish filmmaking. It's not just that he's clearly right, this has very obviously been the case for some while now and is entirely consistent with the primary governing philosophy in Scotland.

Scotland is now fed a steady stream of stories about the 'success' of Scotland as a filming location. This is often presented as a success for 'the Scottish film industry'. But bringing big-budget Holywood films to Scotland is nothing like the same thing as an indigenous film industry.

What we are doing is celebrating films in Scotland but seemingly at the expense of films either by Scotland or about Scotland. Few people in the world will ever know about Scotland's film 'success' because Scotland is very rarely Scotland in these films but a stand-in for other locations, often US cities at various moments in history.

Or, to put it another way, what industry in Scotland is this promoting? Is this sustaining film careers in Scotland? Big budget films do not turn up and recruit important filmmaking roles for a specific section of a shoot. All the key roles in these productions will travel to every location. Some low level jobs and roles such as 'runners' (dogsbodies who fetch and carry on set) will be recruited locally.

And being a runner is often seen as the first step on the ladder to a film career and so are often seen as desirable in a flourishing film culture. But there has to be a second rung if that is going to work. Recruiting a dogsbody and then leaving the country with little if no real film legacy isn't developing a film industry.

So when we hear about these films the next thing we always hear is the 'economic gain' statistics. What are those about? Most of this economic gain is probably in the form of hotels and catering. Film catering is the one industry with any connection to film in Scotland for whom this actually works. Much of the rest goes to hotel chains (largely foreign-owned).

Of course there are more film jobs on these sets, including local location managers and other technical trades, and it is good that these get any support they can. But traditionally what supports these kinds of jobs in a film economy is a TV economy. It's not getting a two-week gig on Batman or Indiana Jones every so often that sustains a film industry, it's returning dramas like River City.

Those keep people employed year-round, and then when people get together the funding to make a film in and by Scotland, these people are the workforce. But not only are we making little or no efforts to support domestic filmmaking, we are undermining our film industry by cancelling River City.

All of this is depressingly par for the course in Scotland. Our entire national strategy is haunted by the concept of 'inward investment', the self-defeating belief that we're rubbish at everything and so must beg others to come here and establish an economy/film industry/rural land management system for us.

This is a gross misunderstanding of the role of filmmaking. You do no support film because of its vast economic contribution (which is very seldom vast) but because of its much greater cultural contribution. One breakthrough film like Trainspotting or Rob Roy or Braveheart does massively more for Scotland culturally and internationally than a decade of being a backdrop for foreign films.

There is a simple rule about all industries which applies here; if they can't sustain themselves over extended economic cycles, they don't survive. An industry that is switched on and off repeatedly throughout the years is doomed. Something must sustain them. The rule with filmmaking is even more brutal; nine out of ten films loses money – but you have to make them to find the one in ten which covers all those losses and often much more.

The failure rate in Holywood is atrocious – and it always has been. That's why consistent investment in a broad industry making a lot of content has enabled it to thrive. It is the opposite of what Scotland does. Scotland foolishly believes we can survive on the scraps of other people's film industries until the administrators at a quango identify the one-in-ten films which can make the big money so they can fund that one project.

It is a delusion. The foundational quote about Holywood came from the great screenwriter William Goldman (All The President's Men, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid) who said “nobody knows anything”. Everyone knows this is true. In advance, no-one knows the hit film.

Either Scotland makes a lot of films and a small proportion will be great, or we continue to be the 'pretty backdrop people with the catering and hotels' that we currently are. Either the Scottish Government changes track and funds diverse filmmaking in Scotland or we're just a stage set for others.