The ‘Arts and Culture section of news
and commentary website, ‘The Conversation’, has been funded to the tune of
$50,000 by Screen Australia. Is this new platform for discussion, dialogue and
debate about Australian film and TV a step in the right direction?
Georgie McClean, Screen Australia’s
manager of strategy, research and communications explains:
“Screen Australia has sponsored The
Conversation’s new arts, culture and creative industries section (with $50K) as
a platform for new research and public debate on the Australian screen sector.
Screen Australia’s remit includes support for Australian screen culture, in
which discussion, debate and research play important roles.”
My problem with ‘The Conversation’ is
that practicing filmmakers cannot initiate discussion, dialogue and debate, as
I discovered when I offered to write an article.
The Conversation:
“The Conversation only publishes articles written by
academics with current teaching or research affiliations with universities.
Before we go any further I thought I'd check to see whether you are attached to
a university?”
James:
“No, not attached to a university. Am a BA with honours,
finished half a masters degree, did post graduate work at New York University,
graduated from the Australian Film and TV School but, no, do not work in a
university. I have been a practicing filmmaker for 42 years…”
The Conversation
“You've clearly got a lot of expert knowledge about film
and I agree it's a shame we can't make space for it on the website - but as a
university funded website, it's our policy only to publish academics.”
There is
nothing wrong with ‘The Conversation’ wishing to limit contributors to those
who work in universities, but why has Screen Australia chosen to sponsor an online magazine that the vast
majority of filmmakers cannot write for? How many practicing filmmakers also
teach in universities?
‘The Conversation’ is a high quality
online magazine. I check out the ‘Arts
and Culture’ section every day in hopes of intellectual stimulation. I feel
amply rewarded. The recent article “Soft power: how TV shows like Borgen put Denmark on
the map” by Helen Vatsikopoulos is
essential reading for all Australian film and TV screenwriters as we ponder how best to tell stories that
will appeal to local and international audiences. And Lauren
Caroll Harris’ “The Horror at the
Heart of Australian Cinema” is a an important contribution to the
debate that filmmakers, film funding bodies and distributors need to have if
Australian stories, told by Australians, are to find a place in the globalized
digital market we must compete in.
The comments
following these articles are intelligent and insightful and, because ‘The
Conversation’ does not allow for anonymous comment, free of the vitriolic
anonymous comment that often blights online dialogue within the film community –
the angry and frustrated venting their spleen, as a rule, on film funding
bodies.
I would love to write a piece for
‘The Conversation.” This piece, for instance. Am I qualified to do so. Well,
yes because I have sufficient experience as a filmmaker to express opinions
that might stimulate discussion and dialogue of the kind that ‘The
Conversation’ wishes to encourage. But, no I cannot be a contributing because I am not an
academic! The quality of my writing is irrelevant. I need to be able to tick
the ‘academic’ box!
.
Before becoming a filmmaker I was
well on my way to becoming an academic – my Masters degree being drama. After
five years of university study I was less than a year short of being qualified
to become an academic but chose, instead, to go to the Australian Film and
Television School and become a filmmaker. If I was now teaching in a university I would
be eligible to write scholarly articles about film for ‘The Conversation’ –
even if I had never made a film or worked in any capacity in film or TV!
Of course, my academic qualifications
have no bearing at all on my ability to make good films. Nor does my filmmaking
experience necessarily have any bearing on my ability to write insightfully, thought-provokingly,
challengingly, about Australian film. The
same applies to all filmmakers who have to work in the real, the actual world
of filmmaking – juggling their artistic and story-telling ambitions with the
harsh realities of, amongst other things, dealing with the film bureaucracies
without which it is very difficult for us practice either our art of our craft.
The notion that only academics can
write about Australia film and TV culture in such a way as to stimulate
discussion, dialogue and debate is questionable.
‘The Conversation’ argues that it is
an academic magazine and, presumably, wishes to maintain a certain academic
standard. Fair enough, but why is Screen Australia in the business of
supporting academic writing about our sector of Australian ‘Arts and Culture in
such a way as to preclude most practicing filmmakers as contributing writers?
Might this sponsorship money have
been better spent contributing to an established film and TV online magazine
that is open to contributions from filmmakers – Encore, IF, the Hub? This is a
question that one would hope would be discussed at a Board meeting. It appears
not. There was no Board meeting. No discussion. This raises the question: Did ‘The
Conversation’ approach Screen Australia or did Screen Australia approach ‘The
Conversation’?
To quote from Tim Burrows’ recent
Encore article:
“The benefits of Screen
Australia’s sponsorship arrangement with The Conversation, agreed to by Georgie
McClean, Screen Australia’s Manager of Strategy, Research and Communications,
include providing a platform to
disseminate the agency’s research outcomes, detailed tracking information
and logo and name recognition. Does that sound like a typical sponsorship deal
to you? It doesn’t to me.”
It doesn’t to me either.
I have no reason to question the
integrity of ‘The Conversation’ but I do wonder if the ‘Arts and Culture’
section would willingly publish an article critical of Screen Australia and
place at risk its $50,000 sponsorship deal? Or, to put it another way, would
Screen Australia provide another $50,000 of sponsorship money to ‘The
Conversation’ next year if articles published by the magazine raised the sorts
of questions about Screen Australia that the organization does not wish to
answer or address?
As any reader of Encore online will
know, as all filmmakers who have had dealing with Screen Australia know, there
are many aspects of the organization’s modus operandi that are open to
criticism. This is as it should be. Just as criticism of our films (which can
be savage and painful) is an integral part of being a filmmaker and learning
from our mistakes, so too should criticism of Screen Australia (savage and
painful though it might be) be an integral part of the film bureaucrats job.
I eagerly await a university
academic’s article in ‘The Conversation’ that is critical, in a constructive
sense, of Screen Australia policy, of the way in which Screen Australia relates
to filmmakers and, most importantly, critical of the kinds of films and TV the
organization believes it should be supporting to satisfy the dual expectations
of Australian and international audiences. Why is it, an observant academic
might ask, that for certain filmmakers, repeated failure at the box office is
no impediment to their receiving Screen Australia money for their next film?
And the one after that?
In hopes of some feedback from Screen
Australia before publishing this piece I wrote to Georgie McLean.
“In the ‘arts, culture and creative industries section”
in which we filmmakers work (producers, directors, screenwriters etc) can there
be genuine ‘discussion, debate’ if the only people able to generate discussion
and debates are academics who are not practicing filmmakers? Would Screen
Australia’s $50,000 be better spent on a website on which the thoughts of
practicing filmmakers were also welcome? Surely, the initiation of
‘discussion, debate’ should not be limited to either academics or practicing
filmmakers but should be open, in a free market of ideas, to anyone with good,
confronting, insightful and perhaps
‘dangerous’ ideas.”
