Whisky country. Speyside has the highest density of working distilleries in the world — global drinks brands shoot their flagship campaigns here regularly. Coastal towns (Findhorn, Cullen) provide preserved fishing community visuals. RAF Lossiemouth is a working Typhoon base — limited but possible for aviation work.
Whisky and military country in north-east Scotland. Moray Council Comms for general enquiries. Distillery filming via individual distilleries (Speyside is the dense whisky region).
Access to private estates, NTS properties, HES sites, and NatureScot-designated areas runs on separate processes from the council. We handle the multi-party coordination as part of any production service brief.
Most of the cinematic locations in Moray are privately owned heritage estates, NTS properties, or HES castles. Each has its own filming process. We run all of them in parallel so a multi-location week still ships.
For TVC and short-form brand work, we deliver as service producer. For HETV and feature work, we work alongside your UK production company as the Scottish unit.
For most filming on council-managed land in Moray, yes. The Moray Council is the consent authority for council-owned streets, parks, and public spaces. Filming on private estates, NTS properties, HES heritage sites, or NatureScot-designated areas requires separate permissions from those bodies in addition to (or instead of) the council. Stills photography below a small crew threshold often doesn't need a council permit, but verifying for your specific brief is a 24-hour turnaround on our end.
Fee band for Moray: low to mid-tier on council land. distillery fees vary widely.. Distillery brand filming often requires global brand-team sign-off, lengthening lead times significantly. Council permit fees are charged separately from any heritage body fees (HES, NTS, NatureScot) or private estate location fees. We quote a single combined number against the brief so you're not chasing five invoices.
2-3 weeks council land. Distilleries: 4+ weeks (most are owned by global drinks companies with brand approval chains). These are realistic lead times for cleanly-submitted applications. We've found council Comms teams in Moray respond faster to producers who turn up with the application complete than to ones who send three rounds of questions first. That's the value we add at the start of a brief.
Council-owned land in Moray: The Moray Council (via communications@moray.gov.uk). Heritage castles and state-owned ruins: Historic Environment Scotland (HES). NTS properties: the relevant property manager via NTS Edinburgh. Designated natural sites (SSSIs, NNRs): NatureScot. Road closures: Police Scotland and the council Roads team jointly. Forest tracks on national forest estate: Forestry and Land Scotland (FLS). Drone work over restricted areas: CAA plus local landowner.
Producers shooting Moray most often come for Speyside Distillery cluster — Glenfiddich, The Macallan, Glenlivet, Aberlour and 50+ others. It's not the only option — we maintain notes on 6 key filmable locations in this council area and can scout to brief. Most of our work in Moray doesn't end up at the single tourist-poster location anyway. It ends up at the second or third one.
Send a brief — production type, dates, locations of interest, approximate budget. Costed approach back within 24-72 hours.
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