There is "increasing confidence" that a national film studio will become a reality, the boss of Scotland's creative industries body has told MSPs.
Janet Archer, chief executive of Creative Scotland, said the studio was "absolutely fundamental" to developing the screen sector but she refused to give assurances it will be up and running in three years' time.
Ms Archer was challenged on the progress of the project during an appearance at Holyrood's Education Committee.
She told MSPs that "pop-up" studio space was available to producers who wanted to film in Scotland and claimed the recent announcement of a £1.75 million production growth fund was helping to "increase the appetite of producers not just in Scotland, but beyond Scotland, to want to come and work here".
However, she was pressed on the creation of a permanent studio by SNP MSP Chic Brodie, who asked if one would be in place within three years.
"We are talking about the progressive future for the film industry in Scotland," Mr Brodie said.
"I think you know I am as driven and passionate about the need to develop a film studio in Scotland as you are," Ms Archer said.
"In fact, at this very moment there is a meeting taking place with Scottish Government colleagues and Scottish Enterprise to discuss the film studio.
"I think we are all aware there is a commercial proposition on the table, it looks very exciting, all the players involved are feeling increasingly confident in respect of the film studio coming into realisation.
"We just have to wait until the processes that need to be gone through are delivered before that can be made public."
Ms Archer's comments come after Culture Secretary Fiona Hyslop was forced to address criticism over a lack of progress earlier this month.
Ms Hyslop told the Scottish Parliament that talks were continuing but she was unable to provide details of "who, where and when".
Earlier this year, she told a Holyrood inquiry that a proposition from a private-sector developer was close to being agreed.
Scottish Enterprise said at the time that it "was working towards completing due diligence and agreeing heads of terms with the developer within eight weeks".
Ms Hylsop says the Scottish Government cannot build a public-sector studio space because such a move would breach European state aid rules.
The film studio is still subject to negotiation with the private partner, she added.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here