The secrets behind how Scotland dazzles on film and TV

Lloret Dunn, right, has worked as a location manager on TV shows and films for the past 28 years and has got to know almost every nook and cranny of the country.

As well as finding picture-perfect backdrops, she is responsible for obtaining permits for filming, overseeing road closures and liaising with residents and nearby businesses, as well as troubleshooting problems should they arise.

Although it's not simply about pretty places: while shooting Sky Atlantic drama Patrick Melrose at the famed Barras in Glasgow, it was necessary for the place to look grittier than usual as it was transformed into a New York meat market.

"Big racks of meat and carcasses were brought in and we had to make the place look dreadful with piles of rubbish everywhere," says Dunn. "There was so much rubbish that the clear up afterwards took us an entire day as we put everything back to normal."

There can be adrenalin-inducing moments. Such as when filming for the BBC paranormal drama, Sea of Souls, was due to take place at Culzean Castle in Ayrshire and one of the lead actors became ill and unable to shoot.

Dunn was dispatched to begin preparations for other scenes that the actor wasn't in. "We had planned to film at a wind farm near Peebles. I was driving around the Borders, looking for a unit base, knowing the entire crew were standing in a car park in Glasgow awaiting my phone call.

"Thankfully Dawyck Botanic Garden said: 'Come ahead, we are quite happy for your trucks to start rolling into our car park.' I've never been in that situation before or since."

Preparation is key, yet serendipity always helps. "Life is all about timing," she says. "On Doctor Finlay we shot at Birdston Hospital outside Kirkintilloch, then the next day it was knocked down."

More recently Dunn has worked on forthcoming Netflix comedy Eurovision, the much-anticipated Our Ladies and TV thriller, The Nest, which continues on BBC One this evening.

"Every job is different and I'm always learning," she says. "Usually, I'm one of the first on a production. I read the script and make a list of what's required, then sit down with the director and designer to talk about how they see the location.

"Often I need to go off and do research. If we are using a house, it may need a particular layout; for example, being able to open the front door and see straight into the kitchen, or having a staircase that splits when it reaches the landing and goes off in two directions.

"Most directors are very open, although some – and this doesn't happen very often, I'm glad to say – have already directed it in their heads before you have found the location and that can make things difficult because the director is looking for something so specific."

Dunn, originally from Oban and now based near Glasgow, says Scotland is extremely versatile – be it striking cityscapes or rural landscapes – and lends itself well to a starring role in films and TV shows.

"The size of the country too," she says. "You can be out of Glasgow in a very short amount of time and you've got height and water. From a production perspective, that means you can be based in the city and, in some cases, film close to a city without having to put your crew up in hotels.

"Scottish people are very welcoming. There is an incredible can-do attitude from the public and that is part of the reason I still love the job. People are enthusiastic and interested. They seem to understand that what they see on the screen has to start somewhere."

Although her job is not without its challenges. "You could find a fantastic house but if the street outside is very narrow, or on a route to a school, or heavily parked on, that would keep me away from there," she says.

"These factors are important because we do bring vans with us, there's actors being dropped off in cars, the crew will arrive in a minibus much of the time."

Dunn is always keeping an eye out for interesting locations. What have been some of her latest finds? "The new University of the West of Scotland Lanarkshire campus in Blantyre," she says. "That is the most beautiful building and lends itself to lots of different possibilities.

"I first considered it as an airport concourse for a film I was doing last year. It is filled with colour, scale and has a range of different styles inside the building with classrooms, open plan offices, cafes and seating areas, a library and spaces that could double as a hospital.

"The staff are incredibly welcoming. I was considering it for a Netflix production called Eurovision starring Will Ferrell. In the end, we actually shot at Glasgow Airport who were fantastic. That's part of the joy. Everywhere I find is stored away for the next production."

One of her all-time favourite spots is Drummond Estate in Perthshire. "The factor is incredibly film friendly and the estate is huge with lochs, mountains, glens, moorland, a castle and cottages – it is a wonderful place to film and feels like another world. It's just up the A9, making it very accessible.

"I was there recently for a film called Boyz in the Wood. At the start of my career, all these years ago, we used to film Doctor Finlay up there. I know Taggart has filmed there and it is a big favourite of Outlander. It is gorgeous and so many productions have shot there."

Here Dunn shares some of her adventures working as a location manager around Scotland.

Doctor Finlay (1993-1996)

"I began working on that in 1992 and did all four series. That was my first location manager job at the start of my career, and I was working alongside two more experienced location managers who were fantastic because they guided and supported me.

"It was a tough one but rewarding because it was 'period' – a historical drama – and I enjoyed looking for stuff from the 1940s. We were rarely in the city which is why I know Drummond Estate and much of Stirlingshire and Perthshire well.

"Auchtermuchty in Fife was our town. We would basically take over the whole place. We would change the streetlights, paint the outside of people's houses and make sure there wasn't a modern car to be seen.

"I remember one day we had a crane shot to do. The town, for the most part, sits high on a hill. The crane shot was at the church on the hill. I was down at the garage and over the walkie talkies all I could hear was: "Lloret, get that petrol tanker out of there!"

"I replied: "They are filling the petrol pumps, they're not going anywhere soon …" We had all the period cars and actors primed to go for this swooping crane shot but had to wait until the petrol tanker was gone. I'm very fond of Auchtermuchty and the surrounding area because everyone was so good to us."

The Jacket (2005)

"This film used the former Bangour Village Hospital site near Dechmont, West Lothian. It was a remarkable set of coincidences that Bangour's closure date [in 2004] married perfectly with our shoot dates. We were able to set up our whole production and film in many of the buildings.

"We laid linoleum and transformed some of the buildings into parts of an American psychiatric hospital. There was also a lot of snow work to be done. We had to create a graveyard with fake snow. We built a set in the recreation hall.

"Bangour was our main location in Scotland and they did much of the rest in Canada. It was a huge production and the biggest thing I had worked on at that time with all these famous actors: Daniel Craig, Kris Kristofferson, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Adrien Brody and Keira Knightley."

World War Z (2013)

"I worked on World War Z in 2011. We filmed scenes at George Square in Glasgow which was doubling as Philadelphia. Our location office was on Cochrane Street in the basement of a cafe.

"Of course, there was lots of people who wanted to catch a glimpse of Brad Pitt. We were blessed on World War Z because Brad had several doubles. I think there were six of them.

"Someone would come into the office and say: 'I've just seen him!' and then we'd think: 'Wait, but was it really him?'. One of the doubles was slightly taller, one was slightly shorter, one was a little bit fatter and so on, but there was one guy, who was his absolute double. We had great fun with that.

"We also filmed in Grangemouth. That location was chosen because the production company needed somewhere that worked as a US-style highway. We wanted an incredibly visual backdrop.

"Grangemouth oil refinery lends itself well to that. We were able to easily divert the traffic without bringing the town or all the business and residences to a standstill.

"Even today, it still remains the obvious contender. There is nothing that has presented itself in subsequent years that would have given us what Grangemouth did with the roundabouts, straight roads and a real American feel with nothing overtly Scottish.

"Don't get me wrong, it was tricky because you are dealing with restricted areas and we couldn't fly a drone over the refinery. You are dealing with industry and regulations about bringing cameras in. Thankfully, we received a positive reception from the companies involved that allowed it to work."

Badults (2013)

"One of the locations we need to find was 'a biblical place'. I remember bouncing ideas around and thinking: 'What on earth does that mean? Is it a cave?' and so on.

"I had previously used Blackness Castle on the film Doomsday and approached the conservators at Historic Environment Scotland about using the crypt at Glasgow Cathedral.

"The building opened at 6am, we had to start filming at 7am and finish by 10am when the daily service began upstairs. We weren't allowed to touch the crypt floors or put anything down on them.

"Our team went in as soon as the cathedral closed the night before to put down protective flooring. Once the crew arrived for filming, we had eyes on everything, saying: 'You can't put that metal box on that flagstone'.

Your heart is in your mouth. And that's for a comedy. Production values must remain high, regardless of the budget."

T2 Trainspotting (2017)

The first Trainspotting film, while set in Edinburgh, was shot largely in Glasgow. The sequel to Danny Boyle's 1996 hit was shot between the two cities and was based in Bathgate, West Lothian, where a sound stage at the Pyramids Business Park was used for interiors and the production offices.

"Because the first film was so well-loved, doors flew open," says Dunn. "We didn't have a studio with us and that allowed artistic control to remain with the production.

"We were a low-budget film. People wanted to be part of it, and it was important to the production to film locally to give something back.

"We did some filming in the Bathgate area as well as Glasgow, Edinburgh, Bellshill, the Borders, Clydebank and at Corrour railway station. It was a challenging production because we ran over a lot. We filmed a lot of footage every day and had a main unit and a second unit.

"If you overrun, it means you need to go back and are often re-arranging road closures, taking out parking and notifying entire residential areas again, as well as moving around a large number of people and vehicles.

"It was a phenomenally challenging but incredibly rewarding job to work on."

Outlaw King (2018)

The big-budget Netflix biopic about Robert the Bruce, starring Chris Pine as the eponymous hero, was shot across Scotland. Its cast, including 400 extras, converged on Mugdock Country Park near Milngavie to film the 1307 Battle of Loudoun Hill.

Linlithgow Palace, St Michael's Parish Church and Blackness Castle in West Lothian, Borthwick Castle, Doune Castle, Craigmillar Castle, Dunfermline Abbey, Glasgow Cathedral and Muiravonside Country Park near Falkirk are among the locations used.

Others include Skye – the Coral Beach, Talisker and Quiraing – as well as Glencoe, Aviemore, Loch Lomond, the village of Gargunnock near Stirling, Seacliff Beach in East Lothian and the University of Glasgow.

"I did some preliminary work because the actual shoot came hot on the heels of T2 Trainspotting which was a year of my life," says Dunn. "I started Outlaw King – or 'Medieval Mystery' as it was then known – in 2012. I would do a few months here and there while they tried to get more funding.

"I worked on and off on it for five years and did a phenomenal amount of research, travelling across much of Scotland to find locations.

"I was asked to compile a document with three location options for every single location in the script.

"For the big battle scenes, Mugdock Country Park was one of the locations I put forward. It is a place I know well because I had filmed there previously with Doctor Finlay, Only An Excuse and Gary: Tank Commander."

Our Ladies (2019)

"This was filmed in Glasgow, Edinburgh, Port Glasgow, Fort William and Loch Lomond. I did preliminary work and was thrilled when I saw the production, not least because I went to school in Oban with Alan Warner, who wrote the book [The Sopranos] it is based on.

"It was a joy to work with the director Michael Caton-Jones. He's had the script for more than 20 years. We were doing non-stop recces. As we drove, he was playing the soundtrack to the film. That was fantastic.

"The scripts were all in, so we were able to be frank about content when it came to locations. Script content is really important when approaching people about using their homes and businesses.

"With Our Ladies I would say: 'Well, there's a lesbian scene in this property', 'there's sex happening outside here' and 'the girls are looking out the window and when the production is shown, it will appear that there are people having sex on your property'.

"It is the same if there are scenes with violence. You need to be honest and upfront from the get-go. I ask: 'Do you have reservations about this?'

"If people do, it can be hard because you want that location, but sometimes you have to move on.

"Michael is amazing. He cast unknowns and got it spot on. The performances he got out of these women was impressive. The books came alive, the script was faithful to the books and the locations were fantastic if I may say so."