scotlandart.com has become the first port of call for production crews and designers who need paintings and other works of art to breathe life into their sets.
Some of the shows and films that have used the Glasgow-based gallery include Succession and T2 Trainspotting, as well as Black Mirror, Rebus and James McAvoy directed California Schemin.
The city centre gallery has provided art work for all of these and Maia Mellentin, the gallery manager, admits it is exciting for them to be involved even if it can be stressful trying to get everything ready at short notice at times.
She said: “We’ve had a good spread of indie films, Netflix and really big stuff too. The biggest one is Succession. We leased a couple of works to an episode set in Dundee, we’ve had T2 Trainspotting, an episode of Black Mirror called Loch Henry.
“We released works by Caroline Miller to that one and there’s a still in Loch Henry where you can see the three works on the wall beside the character really well.
“We released to an Indie film called Sebastian more recently and within shows that are set in Scotland we’ve had Rebus, Vigil and quite a few other crime dramas.
“It’s a bit of a process to work it out. Some who have worked with us know what they want and use our website and come to us and say ‘Can we have these ones?’ and we’ll say yes or no. It’s usually yes but occasionally no.
“In that instance we generally have to work quickly, they’ll ask for it to be collected the next day and there could be 15 paintings so we have to do a lot of wrapping quickly but that’s the joy of the TV and film industry.
“More recently we had a show set in the north of Scotland and they had a particular room they wanted to furnish. They had a mood board but didn’t know exactly what they wanted so they gave us the mood board and I selected a selection of works I thought would work for them and were in their budget.
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“That was really fun for me and they really liked them so sometimes we have more involvement in what they choose than others.”
Among some of the other shows and films that have been supported by the gallery are Amazon Prime’s new psychological thriller Fear, Cold Water starring Andrew Lincoln, and they have also been working with the BBC on The Primrose Railway Children.
It’s not the work Maia or her colleagues Lily Ball and Eve McGlynn would have imagined they would be doing when they joined the gallery but the gallery manager admits its not massively different to day-to-day dealings with customers who want something to brighten up their homes or offices.
She continued: “It is quite similar to our day to day job. There’s a lot to do but I suppose it’s quite similar to talking to customers who will come in and will really like a painting but they want it to work well in their home so you have to quite quickly get a grasp of who they are and what they want their home to look like.
“They might also come in and say they have a space and want a painting which is a bit harder but its fun because you need to know the right questions to ask to dig down to what they really want and often it works out because we find something they really love and its really rewarding.
“It has been growing over the years and its seasonal which is interesting. It tends to happen from late spring to early autumn which I suppose is to do when people are producing films.
“I think it also depends on what is being made in Scotland so over the last five years Scotland, and in particular Glasgow, has become a popular destination for Hollywood films. We all see the city centre closed down with American flags up and that has partly led to a growth.
“A lot of crime dramas are made in Scotland and we have a lot of great Scottish crime writers like Ian Rankin and Val McDermid so they are probably our main audience.”