Newsquest Scotland has launched its first online daily video broadcasts with a special service from the Edinburgh Festival.

Film stars Sir Sean Connery and Sigourney Weaver have been among the celebrities featured in red carpet interviews as part of a video diary updated each weekday afternoon on websites for The Herald, Sunday Herald and Evening Times.

Between three and four minutes each, the diaries also include previews and reviews of performances and gossip from the International, Film, Fringe, Book and TV festivals currently taking place in the capital.

The service is the result of a collaboration between the digital media team at Newsquest in Glasgow and Press Association’s multimedia division.

Two of PA’s broadcast journalists, Melanie Watson and Isabelle Potts, are being assisted for the three-week assignment by Herald reporter James Morgan, a recent graduate of Newsquest’s video training course in Bradford.

New videos are filed daily Monday to Friday and the service has meant long hours for all the team in Edinburgh, shooting clips throughout the day and evening, editing and transmitting to London for final production and delivery next day as Flash video files.

Archives of all broadcasts are available online.

Head of media development at Newsquest (Herald & Times) Tom Thomson said: “This kicks off an ambitious programme to offer the most compelling features of the web to our growing digital audience.

“Within the next few days the Evening Times will pilot podcasts and the Sunday Herald lively blogs ahead of rolling these enhancements out to all the Scottish titles.”

This year’s Festival runs from August 13 to September 3.