Screen Australia has abandoned its seven-round feature film funding application process after the government organisation spent its entire annual drama production budget in six months.
The national screen agency allocated its entire $42 million film and TV drama production budget last December. (Another feature film, Backtrack, was funded in February, however that allocation was planned in December – the money came from another Screen Australia lapsed project.) It is understood that there was robust disucussion at the Screen Australia December board meeting about the merits of committing its entire budget so quickly.
Screen Australia will now hold five board meetings to allocate its 2013-14 funding (including the first on June 25).
In April 2012, when the national agency announced it would hold up to eight board meetings a year to help reduce "the need for producers to submit a project before it’s ready just to make a deadline", it also pledged that the annual feature film allocation would be "spread across the year in quarterly budgets to be applied to the board meetings that fall into that quarter".
That did not occur because, as head of production Ross Matthews said, it "proved impossible to quarantine sufficient funds for the latter half of the cycle when so many finance ready and quality productions are coming through the door.” (A full list of drama productions it funded can be found here.)
The screen industry now holds concerns that there will be a sharp fall in production in the second half of this year. One veteran producer has told IF that one of their productions would be underway if Screen Australia had funding.
The June 25 Screen Australia board meeting will consider feature film production funding, letter of interest applications, and TV drama production funding. The total TV drama production allocation for the 2013-14 financial year is $19 million. Screen Australia will cap the amount it will allocate at that first meeting to a maximum of $10-11 million ($4-7 million for adult TV drama and $4-7 million for children’s TV).
Screen Australia has $23 million to invest in feature film production in 2013-2014 but warned that "each round is expected to be highly competitive".
Development funding is from a separate pool and can be applied for at any time.
Contact this reporter at bswift@www.if.com.au or on Twitter at @bcswift.
FEATURES: Letters of Interest and Production Investment
| Application deadline | Board meeting |
| 8 April 2013 | 25 June 2013 |
| 31 May 2013 | 7 August 2013 |
| 29 July 2013 | 18 Oct 2013 |
| 30 Sept 2013 | 4 Dec 2013 |
| TBC | March/April 2014 |
TELEVISION: Adult Drama and Children’s Application deadline
| Application deadline | Board meeting |
| 19 April 2013 | 25 June 2013 |
| 14 October 2013 | 4 Dec 2013 |