A wooden bench overlooking the North Sea is not the sort of place you expect to see one of the UK’s most talented film directors.
But it is exactly where you can currently find Jon S. Baird, whose film adaptation of Irvine Welsh’s Filth is currently in the top five of the UK movie charts.
And the movie professional has revealed his next work could be set in the windswept landscape of his home turf, in the north-east.
“I love to get back up here as often as I can,” said Peterhead-born Baird.
“But Filth has taken almost five years from buying the rights to release so it hasn’t been easy to get back.
“I love the north-east, though, and I’d love to make a film up here.
“In fact I’ve already written a comedy script called Discovering Carlos which is set in Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire, but I need to take a look at it again and see if it is any good.”
Filth, which follows the twisted tale of corrupt Edinburgh police officer Bruce Robertson, is the latest work from the former Peterhead Academy pupil.
After working as an associate producer on the 2005 film Green Street, he made his directorial debut with Cass, about reformed football thug Cass Pennant.
The Aberdeen University graduate moved to London in the mid-1990s to follow his dream of a career in the film industry.
He got his first step on the ladder as a researcher for the BBC, about the time Filth the novel was released. He said: “I studied politics and marketing at Aberdeen and, to be honest, I just scraped through to get a degree. I never really was that into it.
“The day after I graduated I flew to London and started working in telesales.
“I did that for two years and it was the most mind-numbing work, but then I got a job with the BBC and worked my way up from there.”
Despite now living in Surrey, Baird says the north-east is still home and he credits the area for helping mould him as a director.
“There are a lot of very talented, creative people from the north-east of Scotland,” he said.
“I sometimes think that people here come across as quite reserved.
“But we are good listeners and I think that is what makes us so great, we listen rather than talk.”
Filth remains the second most-watched movie in the UK at the moment and has just passed the £2.5million mark at the box office.
However, Baird puts much of the film’s success down to the support it has received from locals.
He said: “I really have to thank the people of the north-east for all their support. It has been incredible. All the cinemas in Aberdeen have been packed with people coming to see it.
“I also have to thank my family, because without them none of this would have been possible.”