91Èȱ¬

No huge surprise that Toy Story 3 won the Best Animation Oscar. But the Scottish animation industry has every reason to feel proud of itself today.

The Illusionist, made and set in Scotland, may not have won an Oscar but its mere nomination did throw a very large spotlight on the film, and the hundreds of animators in Edinburgh, Dundee, London and Paris, who toiled away on it.

The animation industry is easy to overlook - no giant studios, no location work with thousands of extras.

Many animators work from home, often on projects on the other side of the world.

Case in point is Tom Bryant, lead digital artist on The Lost Thing, which won the Oscar for Best Short Animation.

Although the bulk of the film - based on the book by Shaun Tan - was made in Australia, Tom completed most of his work in his studio in Edinburgh, e-mailing it to lead animator Leo Baker in Melbourne, and only needing to be there in person for the final compositing checks.

He was there in person at the Oscars, though, where the whole international team behind the animation are no doubt celebrating their win.

Torrential rain

Meanwhile, more pats on the back for the Glasgow Film Festival, which came to a close last night with the European premiere of The Eagle, the latest offering from another Oscar winning Scot, Kevin MacDonald.

Based on the book, Eagle of the Ninth, by Rosemary Sutcliff, it tells the tale of a Roman Centurion's search for his father's lost legion in Northern Britain.

The scenery is terrific - even if the pace lags at times, and the tone veers from darkly violent to upbeat without warning.

Producer Duncan Kenworthy, who introduced last night's screening admitted torrential rain during their shoot in the Highlands in 2009 made for difficult conditions but it certainly adds to the atmosphere of peril in lawless Scotland, where terrifying tribes roam.

While RP (received pronunciation) has been the standard voice of the film Roman till now, in this version, they speak with American accents, while the Northern Britons speak a mixture of Scots Gaelic and Irish Gaelic - and cause much confusion in the process.

And while the only heather being set alight was on the big screen, it was still a well-received end to a very successful festival.

Worth watching

On track to sell over 33,000 tickets - with guests over the last 10 days including Mark Millar, Alan McGee, Richard Ayoade, Ken Loach and Anthony Lapaglia (who hung around for the closing premiere after attending his own film Balibo on Friday) - it's definitely established itself as a film festival worth watching.

Much has been made of comparisons with the Edinburgh International Film Festival - which seems to be going through something of an unsettling transition period - but the Scottish film industry is small, and doesn't divide that easily.

Most people have a foot firmly in both camps - and rightly so.

Scotland is surely a big enough country to host at least two major film festivals.

GFF's growing success shouldn't be seen as competition for Edinburgh, but inspiration - a reminder that the key to any good film festival is the films and the fans, not the number of stars on the red carpet.

Five years ago, I stood by a tower block on the outskirts of Glasgow, watching aerial artists descend from the building, while acted encounters inside the flats were broadcast on giant video screens to the audience outside.

91Èȱ¬: Glasgow, one of 10 productions around the country, set out the National Theatre of Scotland's stall.

This was an organisation who intended to take work around the country and perform it in any space, regardless of whether it was a theatre.

The 10 shows were rich and varied, involved a wide range of people from the existing theatre community and had mixed reviews from audiences - a fair summary in fact of the five years which followed.

Their building-less model clearly works and has inspired others to follow suit (Last spring, Wales launched its own national theatre company based on Scotland's roaming model).

But what of the work? 137 shows over the past five years - everything from children's theatre (Wolves in the Walls) to dark cabaret (Something Wicked This Way Comes), reworked classics (Peer Gynt) to Greek tragedy, with a musical twist (The Bacchae).

It isn't a science and this isn't an extension of the arts council so there were inevitably less successful works.

Tutti Frutti, for example, while a crowdpleaser on paper, didn't set the heather alight.

Neither did David Greig's adaptation of Peter Pan.

And then there was Caledonia - the ill-fated festival show about the ill fated Darien project.

Then again, a show seen by 100,000 people, which made 60% more at the box office than anticipated and was the most talked about show at the Edinburgh Festival can't really be deemed a failure.

Big name celebrities - with the notable exception of Alan Cumming, who performed a star turn in The Bacchae - have been thin on the ground but that's been no bad thing in the company's early years, when inviting Hollywood worthies to return to the Scottish stage might seem like something of a snub for those toiling here all year round.

But NTS insist negotiations continue - and given the complicated schedules of Hollywood - may come good in the next few years.

But the real long shadow is cast by the company's biggest hit - Black Watch - which continues to dominate discussion.

But the flipside is that it also raises the profile of the company, here and abroad, opening doors for other shows to tour. (quite literally for Beautiful Burnout, which will be staged in New York shortly - its inspiration directly traceable to a city gym during a previous Black watch tour).

The big challenge for the company in the next five years will be to continue producing work in reduced circumstances.

All the national companies face a 4% budget cut and although NTS has increased sponsorship which will plug the gap this year, it'll have to find new funds or scale back in future years.

And five years on, they'll have to re-evaluate what Scottish theatre is.

Their track record on contemporary work has been exemplary but historic work has been a bit patchier.

The National Theatre in London beat them to a version of Ena Lamont Stewart's tenement drama Men Should Weep (although they'll stage their own take later this season) and others lobby for other forgotten treasures.

NTS plan to address the issue head-on with a series of sessions where writers pick their favourite Scottish plays and a series of public events where theatre goers can discuss them.

But it's a distinction of the Scottish theatre tradition that most published plays are post-18th century, and the bulk post-1945 so the emphasis is always going to be on modern work.

The biggest issue, though, remains wooing audiences.

According to a recent survey, 17% of Scots consider themselves theatre-goers.

The challenge for the National Theatre of Scotland is to persuade the other 83%.

Glasgow museums are rightly defensive about the .

Despite a 21% drop in visitor numbers at Kelvingrove Museum and Art Gallery (largely due to severe weather and industrial action) it remains the leading free visitor attraction in Scotland with 1,070,521 visits last year.

Even with the closure of the Transport Museum last Easter, its combined museum attendance still tops that of the combined forces of the national galleries in Edinburgh.

It's a sore point for Glasgow's galleries, which have long argued their collections deserve equal status to the national collections.

Pulling power

Does it matter? Well yes, the wider picture does matter in reminding authorities in these cash-strapped times of the pulling power and importance of our cultural institutions.

Across the UK, ALVA members said they anticipated an increase in tourism around the royal wedding.

The Scottish institutions are just part of a much wider cultural picture drawing tourists here, and keeping them here.

It's about acknowledging the support of local communities too - and making sure visitor attractions are used all year round by all sorts of people.

And as we prepare to welcome the return of some old treasures - closed for long-overdue refurbishment (the National Museum of Scotland, the National Portrait Gallery and Stirling Castle) it's also a reminder of the wealth of culture we have at our disposal.

And there may be new entries too. Glasgow is confident that next year's numbers will be up - not just because of better weather - but because they'll have a brand new space - the Riverside Museum.

Ironic that on the very week Celtic Connections ends to critical acclaim and a million pounds of tickets sold, the National Centre for Excellence in Traditional Music in Plockton is earmarked for closure.

Clumsy title for an extraordinary facility which over the past 10 years has produced a steady flow of musicians who've gone on to perform, teach or simply promote traditional music around the world.

Director Dougie Pincock said on 91Èȱ¬ Radio's Good Morning Scotland that like any arts organisation, he expected budget cuts, but the notion of closing the whole centre has taken him, and the traditional music community, by surprise.

Of course Highland Council, like all councils, faces some tough decisions this year.

And arts projects remain the soft option.

The task for the wider community is to flag up how vital such resources are and that's where a community of noisy outspoken musicians comes in handy.

The first of several protests is pencilled for Glasgow's George Square on Saturday.

Others will follow.

There's also an online petition. Don't expect them to go quietly.