Graeme
Mason
Chief
Executive
Screen
Australia
Level 7, 45 Jones St
Ultimo 2007
11th Nov
2013
Dear Graeme
In May 2012 Ruth Harley
recommended to the Board that I be banned from making applications to Screen
Australia or speaking with members of staff. The reason given was that I had
intimidated and placed at risk members of Screen Australia’s staff. The Board altered
SA’s Terms of Trade in order to make such a ban possible.
For 18 months I have
been asking Ruth Harley and the Board to provide me with evidence that I have intimidated
and placed at risk members of Screen Australia staff. My requests have been
ignored.
I had hoped it would
not be necessary to involve you in this dispute. It is unfair that both Ruth Harley
and the Board have left me with no option, now that you are Chief Executive, but
to ask you to either provide me with evidence of my crimes or lift the ban.
I have enclosed a copy
of the screenplay for one of my feature film projects (THURSDAY’S CHILD) to highlight how absurd and
counter-productive the Screen Australia ban is. According to the terms of the
ban, neither yourself nor any member of your staff would be able to read
THURSDAY’S CHILD without being placed at risk. At risk of what, I have often
asked this past 18 months. My question has gone unanswered.
Screen Australia is
the major investor in THURSDAY’S CHILD (via the Australian Film Commission) and
yet I am not allowed to even speak with a member of your staff about new
developments with the project. Does this make any sense at all?
Whilst HONEY (another
of my feature projects in which SA is the major investor) can be made, if
necessary, without SA participation, and SHIPS IN THE NIGHT (set almost
entirely inside a taxi) for close to zero budget, THURSDAY’S CHILD can be developed
no further whilst the Screen Australia ban is in place as there are legal
matters (contractual) that need to be resolved with Screen Australia and other
investors. The ‘freeze’; on THURSDAY’S CHILD especially unfortunate right now
as there is an international star whom I would like to formally offer the lead
role of Bea Miles. I cannot do so if, at the same time, (leaving the legal and
contractual matters aside) I would be obliged to tell her (as I must) that
Australia’s peak funding body has banned me; that I am not even allowed to
speak on the telephone with a member of the staff. She would, not unreasonably,
ask me why. I would be at a loss to give her an answer that did not acknowledge
that I have been banned for intimidating and placing at risk members of Screen
Australia’s staff. Even if, despite my being, apparently, a dangerous and
unhinged individual, she was nonetheless keen to play the role, I imagine that neither
she or her agent would be keen to attach her name to a project that could not secure
any support from Screen Australia.
I would like you to
read the screenplay or get someone within the organization to read it. If
Screen Australia believes THURSDAY’S CHILD to be a project that is not worthy
of support anyway (not even a conversation), maintaining the status quo is not
problematic and the ban on me can run its course to May 2014 – on the 10th
day of which, it seems, I will cease to be a danger to Screen Australia staff!
If THURSDAY’S CHILD is
the kind of project that Screen Australia would like to support and see
produced, the ban on me has the potential to kill it as a potential film to be
made in the next 2 years. As you know, timing is very important and it may be
that my access to this particular star will not be available to me in six
months.
If you believe that
you or any member of your staff is likely to be placed at risk by reading THURDAY’S
CHILD I would love to know how. Given that the ball is now in your court, I
would much appreciated it if you could identify one letter, one email, one
paragraph, one sentence or even one phrase in any of my correspondence in which
I have intimidated or placed at risk any member of Screen Australia’s staff.
If none of the
suggestions I have made to resolve this matter appeal to you (one being: http://jamesricketson.blogspot.com.au/2012/05/simple-solution.html), there is one more I
would like to make. It is that you and I and Fiona Cameron meet to discuss
whatever evidence Screen Australia believes it has in support of the ban. If
Fiona can point to anywhere in my correspondence where I suggested or even
implied that I believed CHANTI’S WORLD had been greenlit and if either of you
can point to even one phrase in my correspondence that places the intended recipient
at risk or which is intimidating, I will accept my ban and say no more.
If, on the other hand,
Fiona cannot identify where in my correspondence I expressed my belief that
CHANTI’S WORLD had been greenlit and if neither of you can identify anything in
my correspondence that is intimidating etc. the ban should be lifted. This
could be done with a minimum of fuss and could be announced by SA along the
lines of: “The dispute between James Ricketson and Screen Australia has been
amicably resolved and the ban on him has been lifted.” We could agree that
neither I nor Screen Australia will
comment further. That will be the end of the matter and I can get back to
simply making films and stop fighting for the right to be able to make them
unencumbered by the Screen Australia ban.
In the interests of
constructive dialogue and debate I have enclosed here also some pages I have
written regarding a radical re-thinking of the script development process. Regardless
of the proliferation of broadcast platforms and low cost cameras and editing
systems we still fall down badly in the script department. The reasons for this
are many but one of the important ones is that the process by which Screen
Australia assesses and delivers financial support to screenwriters is inefficient
in its allocation of human and financial resources and actively works against
the development of ‘dangerous’ screenplays that have the potential to elicit
the ‘wow’ response in our audiences – be they in an Imax theatre or engaging in
one of our stories on their mobile phone.
I wish you well in
your new job and hope that you will usher in an era of transparency and
accountability within Screen Australia and put an end to the nepotism that has
been rampant for some years now.
best wishes
James Ricketson
PS Another of my
suggested dispute solutions it to be found at:
And some thoughts of
mine regarding screenwriting and Screen Australia at:
http://jamesricketson.blogspot.com.au/2013/11/screenwriting-random-thoughts.html
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