SCREEN AUUSTRALIA DRAFT GUIDELINES
CONCERNS & CRITIQUE
My area of concern is Feature Film. There are aspects of the draft guidelines that
are problematic and I would urge their revision. The areas I point to are “Production
Funding” and “Development” which, inevitably, leads to observations on Screen
Australia’s strategy/ philosophy in the development/ financing and production of
Australian films.
PRODUCTION FUNDING:
1. Under these Guidelines there is no ‘Evaluation Door’ issuing “Letters of Intent” at
a relatively early stage of financing (upon lesser level of market commitment, in what
was a two stage process with FFC Evaluation), and this forfeits the incredibly
invaluable leverage a ‘Letter of Intent’ (from blue chip finance source) provides for a
Producer trying to stitch together a film finance deal.
As anyone who has tried to raise money for a film knows, the first money is the
hardest money to attract.
The new Guidelines elimination of the FFC “Letter of Intent” moves Screen
Australia from first Investor to the last.
For those cloudy on the previous details, one could apply to FFC Evaluation with a
“letter of interest” (interest being the key word here, not a deal memo/ agreement/
pre-sale or other iron clad commitment). Should the project have appealed to
Evaluation Managers, a Producer would be issued with a “Letter of Intent” from FFC
agreeing to finance up to 62% of the film, with the Producer being given one year to
put the deal together.
This was a very enlightened, pro-active financing policy that used the muscle and
finance of a government body to make films happen. It was also, as I understand it,
born of necessity, meaning that without the FFC willing to step up into first investor
position, deals were simply not happening.
2. The absolute Requirement under these guidelines for an Australian distribution
Pre- Sale in order to APPLY for funding, is fraught with difficulties.
It firstly should be noted that the requirement in the Guidelines is set very
significantly higher than the Producer Offset’s requirement for Australian distribution,
which is met by “intention to distribute”. The point is that this absolute requirement
for pre-sale (or equivalent) can not be palmed off on the requirements of the Offset.
Second, reality must be faced and its consequences understood. All distributors are
reluctant to make pre-sales if they want to stay in business. This particularly applies
to adventurous, original, innovative, risky, daring projects, which, from the
perspective of a distributor outlaying cash sight unseen, must be treated with great
caution, no matter how exciting they may appear to the Buyer.
In Australia, the big boys – Hoyts/ Village Roadshow – are fed by international
output deals and make few, if any, local acquisitions.
Other distributors are almost exclusively upper tier Art house seeking the same
market sector – self-described by one as: “the over 40 safe crowd”.
The Art house distributors have reduced capacity (though some take the role very
seriously) and tenuous commercial incentive to create the infrastructure to evaluate
projects and make the significant investment required to effectively underpin “a
diverse range” of Australian film production.
The Australian distribution pre-sale requirement is an intended “market attachment”
in which the market has been greatly reduced by the time we get there, what’s left is
ill-equipped to cope with the demands, and is necessarily slanted to the perceived
standards of ‘safety’ (when, to my mind, the big pay offs – commercial, cultural and
aesthetic – lie in applying the opposite criteria).
An Australian distribution requirement is problematic. To make a pre-sale an
absolute requirement in ADVANCE of actually applying, vastly exacerbates this
problem.
I would also like to suggest that as a fixed policy, it serves no one’s ends –
distributors, film-makers, audience – except covering the butt of the bureaucracy
who can say that ‘the market made the decision’.
Would anyone really suggest that if the advance requirement for Australian
distribution (let alone pre-sale) was loosened or dropped, that this would result in a
lesser domestic audience for Australian film? I doubt it.
The FFC and now Screen Australia have relied on this so-called “market
attachment” (Screen Aust ratcheting up the requirement before you can even apply)
and domestic audience numbers for Australian films have actually declined. Say no
more.
It is my view that Required Market attachment criteria must be made broader and
less absolute: one of, or a combination of, international territory theatrical (including
Australia), sales agent, and / or other market attachments. ie. TV, Video, DVD. If
Screen Australia are to “assess”, then the scope should exist for them to make
decisions for which they and their officers are clearly accountable. If Screen Aust
are to be “market driven” then actually let the market work on them too (you make
bad decisions, you’re fired, just as in the rest of the real film world).
In the interim, if advance Australian distribution is to be the key performance
indicator of the worth of Australian film production (and its key trigger), then the
distribution sector needs to be subsidized in the manner European distributors (for
local product) are.. One might also ask, have the Australian distributors agreed to
perform this critical function (of evaluation and investment) on behalf of the
Australian film industry?
3. Elimination of the FFC “Market Door” entirely is to centralise power into the hands
of Screen Australia to a too greater extent.
(Under the “Market Door”, a Producer who’d obtained 55% of their finance from
market sources, was able to apply to FFC for the remaining 45%, and the FFC’s
decision was based entirely on commercial maters, not any creative assessment.)
In defence of the elimination of this clear market driven entrepreneurial option,
officers of Screen Australia are quoted as suggesting that the Offset has covered
this potential. That is a quite disingenuous claim. For the Offset, which can be
expected to return approx 30% of Budget (after QAPE and financing costs), IS NOT
equal to 45% of Budget available under the “Market Door”. (The Offset alone will,
very likely, only allow marquee driven films to prosper, for the vast majority of film
made in this country it is simply insufficient).
The Guidelines envisage that all Australian film (with limited exception of Offset
alone) will be subject to “assessment”, with the other independent options cut away.
This has a vaguely totalitarian ring to it.
DEVELOPMENT & SCREEN AUSTRALIA PHILOSOPHT/ STRATEGY
There is an intention, embedded within the Guidelines, to selectively apply outdated,
text-book market dogma to the film industry, seemingly regardless of actual
conditions on the ground, or that film is actually a creative medium which positively
requires innovation and creativity, not economies of scale. There is an attempt here
to establish a few ‘super companies’ through which most development and
production is churned. The assumption being that big is good. It’s an industrial
model that’s applied (not altogether successfully and perhaps soon to unravel) in
areas like agribusiness, or manufacturing and seems, in the reality of the Australian
film industry, some distance off mark.
It’s centerpiece is the ‘Enterprise Initiative” in which some “credentialed” (undefined)
producers will collect half a mill a year for three years to “expand their businesses”
(and their lunch tabs!). This initiative will take immediately 40% of the total
development budget, expanding quickly to 50% and beyond. These super
companies will then, supposably, contract all manner of un-credited (exciting, new
and original) talent.
While I don’t think it’s necessarily a bad idea (may even be a good one) to up the
ante and create some bigger production companies, there are very few Australian
producers working on this turnover model, which is what this tries to stimulate. (Most
work on one or two projects at once, each dear to them, as they must to do them
any justice). To try and create super production companies out of thin air in a hasty
manner (an act akin to Russia’s disastrous “shock therapy”), in order to hang the
majority of development and production in this country off them, is very problematic.
The Guidelines plot that all development funds and production ventures can only be
accessed (or mounted), through the offices of the “experienced” producer, or the
“credentialed” producer and their super companies.
The absoluteness of this prescription, with a very notable lack of other courses (and
lack of elements of flair or imagination), within the Guidelines, has the very real
potential of stifling innovation, both in terms of the fresh blood of new people, and of
the life blood of daring and bold projects.
In the manner of Mr Lowenstein in this regard, I provide two examples from my
experience, which illustrate the problems inherent.
I produced the feature “Ghosts of the Civil Dead”. I did so on precisely no feature
experience at all (I had not even produced a short – music video were my calling
card – so god bless 10BA). The film was delivered on time, on budget, delivering
very high production values, going on to sell in all major western territories,
garnering high critical praise wherever and whenever it played. Twenty years later,
the film continues to sell. I spent this past winter talking with the high end of DVD
production. The BFI would like to produce and release a DVD of the film (along with
a book) in their “Modern Classics” series, and have made introductions with akin
quality distributors in France, Germany, Britain, and including Criterion in the USA.
To think that this film could have attracted an “experienced” producer is laughable.
The industry, without exception, ran from this audacious, criminal endeavour and
only embraced it when it won accolades internationally. (Likewise, to think the film
would ever have gained an Australian distributor pre-sale, or attached a sales agent,
is even more preposterous.)
Yet here it is, twenty years later, and it is still (even more so?) relevant and the
turnstiles still click over. And the careers generated/ accelerated by this unsupported
folly? John Hillcoat, Chris Kennedy (Byron Kennedy award), Paul Goldman to name
a few, but for all of whom it was their first feature. In addition, I think it appropriate to
say that the film significantly contributed to a broader international respect and
appreciation of what Australian films were capable of. It also, I can swear from
countless testimony, gave fellow Australian film-makers a much needed jolt of
inspiration, in that they had the right to be thematically ambitious.
Fast forward a couple of decades; I returned from Europe and have spent (off and
on) the past 18 months contacting “experienced” producers for a potential
involvement in a likewise daring and exciting film, with a singular lack of success.
Many of these “experienced” producers do not return calls, most of them tell you
straight up that they are fully committed to the projects they have on their plate.
What hope for a kid with a big, bold idea?
To think that all of development of new cinema and all of its production ventures,
can be hung on this structure - “experienced” and “credentialed” producers from the
‘super companies’ - is absolutely pie in the sky. It has no basis in reality.
It is sadder to think that the new vehicle for film production in this country, Screen
Australia, will never be able to contribute to the making of anything as audacious
and daring and as rewarding as Ghosts of the Civil Dead. The guidelines do not
allow for such things.
CUE MUSIC
There is much to be concerned about and discuss in the plans for the Australian film
industry, outlined in the draft Guidelines. It is a very serious issue that there is no
time to debate them. The guidelines were late. The time between their arrival and
their final acceptance by the Board (Nov 24) is very limited. The Commander in
Chief is nowhere to be seen. Stranger than fiction.
Evan English. Nov 2008.