That’s a wrap: IF is on holiday hiatus, and will return to bringing you the latest screen news January 9.
What a year! Do you feel tired? We certainly do; it’s felt like the industry has spent 2022 at full throttle. Cap that off with a post-award season hangover, and I think we all need (and deserve!) a break.
The reason we all might feel tired is the production boom shows no signs of slowing down. While the industry lacks comprehensive data on the full scope of production that takes place in Australia – something we’d argue really should be measured by a federal body – when it comes to scripted, there has never been more spent on it in this country.
Screen Australia puts drama expenditure in 2021-22 at a record $2.3 billion, with a whopping $1.5 billion of that spent on Australian projects. To put that into perspective, that expenditure on Australian drama is almost double the previous record.
So, a big question: Can current levels of local production be maintained into the future, as a baseline, knowing that international production will always be subject to the whims of the dollar and incentives?
A huge swathe of the industry would argue one way to help that would be to regulate the streaming services to make local content. The new Labor government has brought promises on that front, but as the year draws to a close, we are no closer to knowing exactly what that will look like.
And while top line figures are strong, we also can’t ignore some genres are under strain.
Aimed at pre-schoolers, ABC/Ludo’s Bluey is the country’s most successful show, both home and abroad. And sure, there are Emmys, BAFTAs, AACTAs and Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parades, but I for one am simply impressed it’s taught American children what “dunny” means. If there was one example to speak to the potential of Australian content to travel in this “golden age of content”, Bluey would be it.
Yet many production companies that have traditionally focused on children’s have had to take the step to pivot their businesses. With the sub-quotas gone on FTA, there are fewer doors to knock on; the ABC financed eight out of 11 children’s titles to enter production in 2021-22.
How companies can sustainably make content that reaches kids where they are actually watching remains an ongoing puzzle. There’s the oft-made argument that kids content is where we first learn we are Australian, in that it helps to build a shared language and culture. Besides the schoolyard, it’s surely the most likely place we’d pick up the word “dunny” – in my case, I’m almost certain I learnt it from Round the Twist.
Where older audiences are watching content is changing too. Only a handful of Australian films cracked the $1 million mark at the box office this year; Elvis, Wog Boys Forever, How to Please a Woman, The Drover’s Wife the Legend of Molly Johnson, Three Thousand Years of Longing and UK co-production Falling for Figaro. How Australian films can cut through theatrically in the streaming age was the focus of May’s Australian Feature Film Summit and remains ongoing work across various taskforces, comprising screen agencies, distributors, exhibitors and producers.
Of course, when discussing Australian content, it seems timely to ask: What is an “Australian production” in 2022? Our most popular and decorated film of the year, Elvis, looks on the surface, nothing like an Australian film. It is, in Baz’s own words, “an American opera”. But that American opera is a testament to Australian talent, shot entirely in Queensland and post-produced across Australia. On screen alongside Austin Butler and Tom Hanks you’ll find Aussies Olivia DeJonge, Helen Thomson and Richard Roxburgh, with support from David Wenham, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Dacre Montgomery, Luke Bracey and many more. BTS are some of our leading HODs, like Catherine Martin and Mandy Walker, recently the first woman to win the AACTA for cinematography.
It is to the industry’s benefit that our biggest directors, like Luhrmann and George Miller, continue to bring their projects home. For one, Miller’s Furiosa has recently seen VFX giant DNEG open a Sydney studio, set to employ some 500 artists.
By industry and government standards, the US studio-backed Elvis and Furiosa are Australian films; both are financed with the Producer Offset. But whether the Australian audience feels these films are Australian – that they represent them – is potentially a different question.
One of the most popular pieces we published this year was a provocative extract from veteran screen journalist Sandy George’s New Platform Paper, where she broadly posed that if there is nothing recognisably Australian on screen – within a project’s look and feel – it doesn’t carry much cultural value. And cultural value is the main reason taxpayer funding underpins local drama production.
That said, there is an argument that an Australian film should simply be one that comes from an Australian mind, made by Australians; that filmmakers, as artists, should be free to tell whatever story they wish.
Of course, there remains undeniable magic in seeing Australian accents on screen; where to strike the balance of the local in an era of the global is an interesting argument I’m keen to see the industry continue to have. To move beyond “dunny” (sorry), Netflix’s Heartbreak High has taken “root”, “real dog”, “eshay” and “mazz” to the world – that’s something to behold.
The key other issue to arise with current levels of production are ongoing skills and capacity gaps in certain crew roles. Australia is not alone here; there are shortages in crew the UK, Canada, Central European countries like the Czech Republic and Hungary, and in one of the US’s busiest production hubs, Georgia.
There is lots of work underway to address this. Within that work, our screen bodies would be well placed to consider how to make the industry not only more attractive to new entrants, but also how to talented people from leaving it altogether. There is international precedent to this idea; addressing working practices, accessibility of the industry and retention are among the top recommendations from the BFI’s Skills Review in the UK.
The results of ACS’s landmark A Wider Lens report should be sobering not just for those working in the camera department, but the entire industry. It found bullying and discrimination on the job and in hiring commonplace, and sexual harassment ‘routine’. This, alongside workplace conditions, were leading to significant mental health consequences, which the researchers argue are to the point of threatening the industry’s long-term sustainability and growth.
No doubt, screen production is a ‘dream’ career. But it comes with many difficult realities. It’s competitive, high-pressure and has long hours. It’s hardly the easiest industry to raise kids in. It’s difficult to crack into, and employment is, for many, inconsistent. For people from backgrounds that have traditionally been under-represented, it can seem an industry that is completely out of reach or even actively exclusionary.
How to address the structures of the industry that give rise to these conditions will require coordination and significant thought.
For the most part, there is lots to celebrate (and fabulous things to watch!). There’s also lots to debate and consider. We hope to be along the ride for all of it.
To our readers, advertisers and contributors – I say this every year, but I always truly mean it – thank you. We’re a small team trying to work miracles to bring you not just daily news, but a bi-monthly digital/print magazine and a directory. Without your ongoing support and engagement, we wouldn’t be here. IF has been going for 25 years now (!), and we hope to continue on for many more.
Have a restful break and we can’t wait to talk again next year.
Jackie Keast, Sean Slatter, Daniel Shipley, Hannah McMahon and Mark Kuban.