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:
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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