WHEN lockdown hit us all back in March, Scots filmmaker Robert Sproul-Cran had to put on ice a project to bring to the silver screen James Hogg’s The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner.

So, he turned to using movie-style computer-generated imagery (CGI) to create images of the birthplace of the Scots poet and writer at Ettrick, in the Scottish Borders.

That stimulated his grey matter and he began to explore the wider uses of CGI in bringing the past to life.

“Living in the Borders I know that there are stunning locations never used on the big screen, with the bonus that these are the real settings Hogg features in his novel,” Sproul-Cran told The National.

“There are some aspects of the 1700s which would need large built sets, or some other way of bringing that world to life. So I wondered if developments in computer graphics might help to make these achievable.”

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Sproul-Cran found an open-source program called Blender, which enabled him to create 3D virtual models, his first being part of Edinburgh’s Old Town overlooking the Nor Loch: “I used contour maps of the city to get the topography right, then took hundreds of reference photos of existing buildings, architectural features and textures ... The beauty then is that you can place the virtual camera where you like, add mist, change time of day, lighting, move through spaces.”

He said the only downside was the process is “horribly complicated”, but the upside is the “astonishing” results.

Sproul-Cran is now an enthusiastic proponent of CGI and has not given up on a film of Hogg’s life: “I relish the idea of technology allowing a creative project like Justified Sinner to find new expression.

“Poor Robert Wringhim, the sinner of the title, was possessed by an idea, but was deluded and quite mad. As a Scottish filmmaker I know the feeling.”