Graeme
Mason
Chief
Executive
Screen
Australia
Level
7, 45 Jones St
Ultimo 2007
28th July 2014
Dear Graeme
I have received no response to my
letters of 11th June, 18th July or 24th July.
It seems from your lack even of
an acknowledgement of their receipt, that you are determined to continue with
the fatwa put in place by Ruth Harley.
C’est la vie!
I will go through the process of
complaining to the Ombudsman, yet again, asking reasons for my lifetime ban, but
that is not the purpose of this letter.
I
read the following, online:
'Graeme
Mason, Screen Australia’s chief executive, recalls that when he worked in film
distribution, lower budget Australian films could add screens and season
lengths as reputation built among audiences. “Word-of-mouth just does not
happen now,” says Mason. “If you haven’t worked over the first weekend, you’re
pulled.”
'Ticket
prices have also swayed audience cinema tastes towards blockbusters, argues
Mason. “The expectation they will go to see an intimate drama at $17 or $20 is
now a challenge. If you’re real busy and you come home, you might want to watch
a great drama – but do you also want to pack up, go out, take your date and pay
for parking?”
'Supply is key. Cinemas and distributors are now “gun shy” of
Australian films, becoming more conservative with programming choices, says
film producer Brian Rosen, formerly chief of the Film Finance Corporation. All
the way to the ticket booth, marketing machines guide which movie opens your
wallet or purse....'
What you are referring to has
been discussed online for a long time now and, of course, you are right.
The latest discussion about this
topic is to be found online at:
https://www.facebook.com/lyndenbarber?fref=nf
Lynden Barber is often the
initiator of such discussions and if you are not a ‘friend’ of his on Facebook,
perhaps you should be. You will find that there is lots of lively discussion
taking place about how Screen Australia and the state funding bodies could
position themselves to take advantage of the new production and broadcast
landscape we are confronted by.
The
question is:
“How will Screen Australia
respond to the challenges confronting us all as ‘filmmakers’ wishing both to
tell distinctively Australian stories that are accessible (and saleable) to an
international market?”
The production of low budget
feature films has been a passion of mine for 35 years now. I have appended a
copy of an article I wrote in 1978 entitled “Towards a Poor Cinema.”
Unfortunately, filmmaking of the
kind that I have been advocating since then has,
until the advent of the
remarkable new generations of digital cameras, ben difficult for both budgetary
and technical reasons. Now, high quality images can be captured pretty well
anywhere in the world, at any time of day, under most conditions, without even
the necessity of additional lighting.
Just last night I did a test on
the streets of Phnom Penh with a Sony RX 100 (small enough to
fit in a pocket, flip-out screen) and found that the images would be quite
acceptable for the gritty thriller series I am currently writing entitled
ANGKOR. With the use of radio microphones it will be possible to shoot
multi-cam on the street of Phnom Penh with no-one even being aware that filming
is taking place.
And
no doubt, in the next 12 months, there will be yet another new digital camera
on the market that is even better than the RX100.
From
a technical point of view, all that is required now to shoot a low budget
feature film is a camera that can fit in your pocket and some cleverly
concealed radio mikes. And, of course, a good screenplay. Whether a film costs
$100 million or $100 a good screenplay is required but even here the rules of
the game have changed dramatically in this new age of social media, You Tube
and….GAME OF THRONES.
No
longer is there any requirement that there be an overarching narrative of the
kind that has informed drama since Greek tragedy. An engrossing filmic
entertainment today does not require a story with a beginning, a middle and an
end. As the enormous success of GAME OF THENONES makes clear, what is required
is a story in which a lot of things happen. In the case of THRONES, these ‘lot
of things’ happen on a grand scale, with superlative costuming, sets and so on.
Throw in a beheading or two, some attractive ladies taking their clothes off,
at least one betrayal and battle each episode, and you have your audience
hooked.
My
point:
Pretty well all of the rules of
filmmaking have been rendered irrelevant. Only one remains:
Induce
in your audience a ‘wow’ response.
If audience members, regardless
of the screen on which they experience their digital entertainment, respond
with ‘wow’, they will forward the link to their friends, who will forward it to
their friends and so on. Word of mouth will, again (if it has not already)
become the primary means whereby audiences hear about great movies, great TV
series, great shorts etc.
I believe that the way forward
for Screen Australia is not to tinker with its guidelines but to throw them out
the window and start from scratch, building from the ground up. Starting with
the new broadcast realities we are all confronted by, take each guideline,
policy, and ask this question of it:
“Is this policy, this guideline,
in sync with the production and broadcast realities of 2015?”
If the answer is no, replace it
with a guideline or policy initiative that is.
I have made one suggestion, to be
found at:
Given that filmmakers – young,
old and in between – are already working with and adjusting to these new
realities and will have exciting ideas to contribute, they should be invited to
participate in the process whereby Screen Australia formulates new policies and
guidelines.
best
wishes
James
Ricketson
‘POOR
CINEMA’
and the
Australian Film Industry
James Ricketson
1978
Filmmaking is an expensive business. A major problem facing
all feature filmmakers in Australia is how to recoup the money invested in one
film and make sufficient profit to produce the next. It would be foolish to
presume that the Government funding will continue indefinitely and there can be
no doubt that the industry, as it is presently structured, would die if funding
were to cease.
On safeguard against the possible demise of an over-inflated
industry would be the development of a POOR CINEMA, one in which filmmakers
work to low budgets with small crews, small casts, low shooting ratios and
short shooting schedules, concentrating on content rather than technical
excellence.
I use the term POOR CINEMA cautiously: like all labels it
should be viewed with suspicion. It refers not only to films made on $50,000 to
$200,000 budgets but also to an attitude or approach to filmmaking that is
concerned with the content of films and not merely with the economics of film
production and distribution.
It is my contention that the encouragement of a POOR CINEMA
would:
(1) Make the Australian Film Industry more economically
viable.
(2) Give rise to a greater diversity in the films being
produced.
(3) Develop more discerning and sophisticated audiences
(4) Develop the art (and not merely the industry) of film in
Australia.
Working to low budgets has one distinctive advantage for
filmmakers, in that it allows them freedom from artistic constraints that come
with bigger budgets, enabling them to take risks without fear of making
mistakes or of failing at the box office.
Every film faces the risk of box-office failure, especially
those in which new ground is being explored. Attempts can be made to avoid the
possibility by treading safe and well-trodden paths, doing what has already
been done, copying and adhering to formulas. And I believe that most feature
films being made in Australia fall into this category. Hence the Hollywood
style product that is flooding the market.
It is not my intention to denigrate these films but to point
out that because the film industry is a big business films HAVE to make money
at the box office and hence become products geared to a known and predicted
market. This films-as-a-marketable-product orientation is more often than not an
albatross around the filmmaker’s neck: it limits the types of films produced
and the way in which they are made.
We cannot, of course, ignore the economic realities of film
production. But given the amount of money being poured into the industry by the
Australian Film Commission and the new State Film Corporations, it is
distressing that so few adventurous, innovative and outrageous films are being
made.
With the exception of the Experimental and Creative
Development branches of the Australian Film Commission, we are not using our
resources to explore the medium’s possibilities. This results from alack of
nerve in filmmakers and an over-cautiousness and conservatism on the part of
the various funding bodies, all of which could be modified by a movement towards
a POOR CINEMA.
Film audiences have diverse tastes. At one end of the
spectrum is a large audience that wants to be thrilled, held in suspense, made
to laugh, cry, be entertained: to have their attention diverted from their
everyday lives. I have no argument with these films, except that most of them
have as their basis a very superficial conception of the range of possible
human emotions and experiences: they rely on clichés and formulas that belie
life’s complexities. A steady diet of such films in cinemas and on TV is
probably as damaging to psychic health as a steady diet of junk food is to
bodily health.
At the other end of the spectrum there are films made by
Ingmar Bergman, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Werner Hertzog, Peter Watkins, Eric
Rohmer and many others that explore aspects of human experiences on an
emotional as well as an intellectual level. These films appeal to minority
audiences and are rarely huge box-office successes.
As with other art forms the primary reason for their creation
is only marginally related to their commercial value. They are made for
audiences who believe that the unexamined life is not worth living and should
not, cannot, be evaluated in terms of box-office receipts alone. Films of this
kind are not being made in Australia. I am not referring to ‘art’ or ‘elitist’
films but to those that deal with NOW – with what it means or feels like to be
alive in Australia.
Many films have been (and are being) made based on stories
taken from our history but few that deal with the 70’s, that examine the
structure and fabric of Australian society, that explore unionism,
unemployment, migrants, media monopolies, cultural isolation, latent (nod not
so latent) fascism – the list is endless – and the way in which these affect
Australian society and the individuals who make it up.
Audiences prefer to see films about the past – it is safe,
in has happened and it cannot be changed. The present is dangerous because any
film that deals with it must, if only by implication, raise questions about
issues of a social and personal nature. The present is too close to home. We
are so fed illusions by film and television that actuality takes on the
appearance of illusion and vice versa.
Yet film is a social medium – one that has the capacity not
only to entertain but also to stimulate and generate social awareness; to be
part of society’s analysis and growth.
In a country with a population as small as Australia’s,
films such as these could only be made on low budgets, with the filmmakers
recognizing the limited and diverse audiences they would appeal to. Until the gap
between experimental and extremely low budget films (funded by the Experimental
and Creative Development funds) and big budget Hollywood films (partly funded
by the AFC) is filled, it is unlikely that a POOR CINEMA will come into
existence.
It is important to develop a more discerning, sophisticated
and diverse audience that will want to see the sort of innovative and relevant
films normally screened only at Film Festivals or briefly at art cinemas. The
fact that such films are rarely distributed here is not a reflection on the
quality of the films but on the size and
degree of sophistication of Australian audiences. Were such films made here
(and some are) they would likewise appeal to minority audiences and would be
economically viable only if made to relatively low budgets.
The double bill of Gill Armstrong’s SNGER AND THE DANCER and
Stephen Wallace’s LOVE LETTERS FROM TERALBA ROAD, among others, has
demonstrated that there is an audience for quality low budget ‘non-commercial’
films. Distribution for these films (and hopefully others that will follow)
remains a problem, but not an insoluble one. Four or five years ago it was
almost impossible to distribute an Australian film within Australia, yet now it
is relatively easy. The same could be true for the lower budget films that make
up the POOR CINEMA.
James Ricketson
1978
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