IT ALREADY boasts a stellar line-up of Scottish acting talent and is tipped to follow the success of Braveheart in drawing in film tourist pounds. Now Brave, the forthcoming 3D animated adventure story set in ancient Scotland and made by the team behind hits such as Toy Story and The Incredibles, has lured one of the country's leading film composers to craft its soundtrack.

Patrick Doyle, the award-winning writer of soundtracks from Henry V to Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, will compose the score for the Pixar animation company's foray into the Highlands, The Scotsman has learned. It adds to a formidable array of Scottish talent already involved in the production.

IT IS billed as a potential lifeline for the Scottish tourism industry in the face of the global economic downturn – with the promise of being “bigger than Braveheart”. Now it has emerged £7 million is to be spent to try to ensure the nation capitalises on the release of Brave, an eagerly awaited 3D animated film set in ancient Scotland.

VisitScotland and the Scottish Government are joining forces with Disney for the biggest ever campaign to lure visitors to the country on the back of a feature film which is hoped will eclipse the impact of the likes of Local Hero, Braveheart, Rob Roy and The Da Vinci Code. The first fairytale from Pixar – the maker of Toy Story, Up and Finding Nemo – is set entirely in the Scottish Highlands. It is said to tap into “Scotland’s rich history of epic battles and mystical legends”.

A SCOTTISH singer is set to become a global Gaelic sensation through her star role in the new Pixar children’s movie Brave. Julie Fowlis, from North Uist in the Western Isles, sings the theme tune for the animated Hollywood blockbuster – to be released in the summer – which tells the story of a fictional Highland princess.

Snatches of Fowlis’s haunting gaelic melody – Tha Mo Ghaol Air Àird A’ Chuain (My Love Is On The High Seas) – were played to audiences of the Academy Awards ceremnony in the US last weekend. After the 30-second clip was aired, drawing huge internet interest, Fowlis said: “I’ll be singing this for the rest of my life. It’s gone wild. I’m thrilled. The song features on our [her and her musician husband Eamon Doorley’s first album] Mar A Tha Mo Chridhe (As My Heart Is).”

THE new Disney Pixar blockbuster Brave is to receive its European premiere when it closes the Edinburgh International Film Festival this summer, it was revealed today. The animated tale, by the creators of Toy Story and Finding Nemo, will be shown on June 30 in the Capital.

Set in a mythical Scotland, it features the voices of stars including Billy Connolly, Emma Thompson, Robbie Coltrane and Kelly Macdonald. Stars and film-makers are expected on the red carpet at the Edinburgh Festival Theatre for the closing night of the event.

THEY have been an enduringly mysterious fixture of the windswept landscape of the Isle of Lewis for around 5,000 years. Now the standing stones of Callanish, near Stornoway, are expected to become the main attraction of a nationwide tourism boom after it emerged they inspired a pivotal plot line in Brave, the Disney-Pixar animated film set in Scotland.

The makers of the film visited the ancient monuments as part of their research. Trailers for the film, seen by more than ten million people on YouTube, feature a stone circle which appears integral to the tale of a rebellious princess who triggers havoc in her kingdom by flouting long-standing traditions.

THE film is set for release. The talent has been lined up. Now all that’s needed is millions of bums on seats. Up to 100 film critics and journalists from around the world will be flown into Scotland at the end of May for a lavish, four-day “junket”to promote the new Disney-Pixar animation Brave. All expenses are being paid for the trip where the critics will be put up at one of the city’s top hotels, the Balmoral, and treated to archery classes, clan fighting events, a trip to Edinburgh Castle and a lavish private dinner at five-star Prestonfield House. In return, they will be expected to interview stars of the film and give glowing reports about the upcoming movie, set in a mythical Scotland.

Disney’s last film, John Carter, a science fiction action movie based on the character created by Edgar Rice Burroughs with a budget of $250 million (£164m), on a par with Avatar, was a box office flop in America, and is believed to have generated a big overall loss for the studio after splits with cinema owners and marketing executives. Brave, made by Pixar Animation Studios, which was bought by Disney in 2006, is therefore being viewed as a hugely-important movie for the world-famous company. An industry insider said: “This is a really important film for Disney. John Carter flopped and was a massive disappointment, so they’re throwing everything they have at this. Meanwhile, Pixar really need a hit as their last movie, Cars 2, didn’t do great business. Brave is a huge deal as a Disney-Pixar film.”

IT IS the film from the makers of Toy Story and Finding Nemo Scottish tourism bosses are pinning their hopes on to become a worldwide smash. But American censors have dealt cinema giants Disney and Pixar a blow after slapping a PG rating on their eagerly-awaited fantasy set in the Highlands Brave.

Scenes of kilted characters lifting up the traditional Scottish garb are thought to have earned the film the rating, with the first official ruling from the Motion Picture Association of America on Brave warning that the film contains “rude humour”. The light-hearted scenes have been featured in several of the trailers and the kilted characters in the film have even been given their own “viral teaser” which is a spoof of fashion industry ads.

CINEMA giants Disney have unveiled their first ever tailor-made holiday to Scotland - costing $5000-a-head. The nine-day trips, which have just gone on sale, have been created to capitalise on the new Disney-Pixar film Brave which is being released in the US next month. Geared for small family groups, they will have their own two dedicated guides, VIP access to leading attractions and historic sites and the chance to try out activities featured in and inspired by the film.

Under a £7m marketing deal struck with Disney, VisitScotland has helped organise the trips, the first of which will be run next March. by which times millions of cinema-goers are expected to have seen Brave. The stars of the film, including Billy Connolly, Robbie Coltrane and Kelly Macdonald are expected in Edinburgh next week to promote Brave, an animated fantasy set in a fictional part of the Highlands.

IT WAS made in California, but it is laced with Oor Wullie and Doric. Scottish screen stars Kelly Macdonald and Kevin McKidd spoke yesterday about how they got authentic Scots dialect and slang into Hollywood’s animated epic set in a fantasy Scotland. Manky, numpty and hurdies – the Scots word for buttocks, dating back to Burns but a favourite of comedian Billy Connolly, who also appears in the film – were all suggested for the script of Brave, after its Scottish cast began helping make the film “authentic and true” to its setting.

“Jings, crivens, help ma boab,” the feisty Princess Merida, voiced by MacDonald, bursts out at a calamitous moment during the film. A series of Scottish phrases, along with a Doric accent from McKidd so strong it was barely comprehensible, brought pleas from Disney executives for “words everybody could understand”. They were turned down, the Pixar studio’s legendary chief, John Lasseter, said yesterday. “We loved that because we don’t understand it, but we know that they are honest and true.”

WOULD the Pixar Studios be able to hack it with a more conventional narrative like Brave, after the tricks of A Bug’s Life, Toy Stories, Cars, Up, Wall-E, Finding Nemo and Ratatouille? After all, the traditional fairy tale is territory that normally is occupied by Disney alone. Somehow, though, after a shaky start to the production (it began life under a different director and another title), Brave emerges as a feisty foray with a fiercely feminist heroine at its core and its tartan credentials intact.

It’s no surprise that director Mark Andrews spent a considerable time watching such films as Braveheart, Local Hero and even Whisky Galore to imbue himself in the local lore and language. Visits to a Highland games and an odd dram or three also were deemed obligatory for the crew. Best of all, they scored by mustering the almost exclusively Scottish voice cast, among them Craig Ferguson, Robbie Coltrane and Kevin McKidd, who play rival clan chiefs whose sons are competing for the hand of Princess Merida.

PIXAR cartoon Brave has shot to the top of the US box office charts as a plan was hatched for a sequel. The animation about a medieval princess who defies her parents – which uses Scotland as a backdrop – netted $66.7million (£42.7m) in its first week alone, beating Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted into second spot.

Now, just days after the film's red-carpet premiere in Los Angeles, Disney are planning a sequel to the fairy-tale cartoon that could give a further boost to the Scottish tourism market. Elgin-born Kevin McKidd voices father and son Lord MacGuffin and Young MacGuffin in the movie. He said he wanted the follow-up to have a happy ending with a royal wedding. In Brave, Merida refuses to accept her suitors.

ROBBIE Coltrane, Kelly MacDonald and Kevin McKidd will be attending the European premiere of Disney-Pixar film Brave, Edinburgh film festival organisers have confirmed. Other stars expected at the Festival Theatre on Saturday include Ewen Bremner, Kate Dickie, Daniela Nardini and Brian Cox.

A full house of 1900 is expected at two separate screenings, with huge crowds expected to greet the stars for the red carpet arrivals, from 3-4pm onwards. Lanarkshire-born composer Patrick Doyle and Gaelic singer Julie Fowlis, both of whom worked on the film, will also be at Saturday’s premiere.

WHEN Gaelic singing star Julie Fowlis got a call to work on the blockbuster animated fantasy film Brave she was elated – but then spent much of her time worrying about another pending engagement. The 33-year-old singer was eight and a half months pregnant with her second child Niamh when she recorded two songs for the movie’s soundtrack, and another for the trailer.

Speaking ahead of Saturday’s official European premiere in Edinburgh, Julie said: “I was glad the wee one stayed where she was to let me get it all done. “I was lucky that whatever position she was in, she wasn’t interfering with the lungs and allowed me to be able to sing. I found singing at that late stage slightly more difficult with my first child.”

THE FIRST Minister was late, Craig Ferguson seemed to lose patience, and Kelly Macdonald was her usual charming self – despite the torrential rain. The UK premiere of the Disney-Pixar blockbuster Brave, which closed the Edinburgh International Film Festival last night, brought out the best – and just a little of the worst – of the country in which it is set.

On a dreich afternoon, crowds lined the streets outside the city’s Festival Theatre, keen to catch a glimpse of a bona fide movie star and revel in the glamour of a movie premiere. “I’m so excited to see Kelly,” said seven-year-old Chase Reeves, who had come to join the crowd with her family and was clutching a Princess Merida doll, the heroine of the animated movie, voiced by Macdonald. “I like her because she’s brave,” she continued. “I think all little girls should be brave.”

Macdonald herself, who looked demure and nervous in front of a huge bank of photographers vying for her attention, told the press she was a tad overwhelmed by it all. “I had no idea what a big deal it was until recently,” she confessed as her husband, Travis bassist Dougie Payne, looked on protectively in the background. “They keep you pretty separate when you’re making a film like this.”