Evolution & Challenges of Australian Film Industry: Production, Distribution & Exhibition, Summaries of Business

Download Evolution & Challenges of Australian Film Industry: Production, Distribution & Exhibition and more Summaries Business in PDF only on Docsity! Final Report: Hunter Creative Industries Film The University of Newcastle I April 2019, ARC Grant LP 130100348 Associate Professor Phillip McIntyre Professor Mark Balnaves Associate Professor Susan Kerrigan Evelyn King Claire Williams TH[ UNIVERSITY or NEWCASTLE AUSTRALIA fMlii& N1wcasll1 Now ...... :��n! 390 13. FILM 13.1 Introduction The Australian film industry, its history, structure, business models, operational methods and important personnel are detailed below, followed by a closer look at these components in the Hunter Region. By locating the Hunter’s film industry within an Australian film history and in relation to the US industries, this scaled approach provides a global perspective on national and local activities. For example, the Australian film industry is as volatile as all importing and exporting industries are. The industry tends to be vibrant when the Australian dollar is low, as it is economically attractive to foreign producers to use Australian crews and facilities. This foreign income is of course beneficial to the Australian economy but it also helps filmmakers to be internationally recognised and keeps them globally connected. Structurally the film industry they work in is comprised of three major and related sectors, i.e. Australian film production, foreign film production, and distribution and exhibition. The last of these three has the primary function of generating box office revenues. Associated with each of these major industrial structures are training institutions, hire companies, funding agencies, legal firms, regulators and affiliated media. There are various business models used within the sectors while operational methods are both formal (e.g. use of contracts, government funding) and informal (e.g. sharing of labour and equipment within a gift economy). The film industry’s production personnel include screenwriters, producers, directors, cinematographers, art directors, editors, colour graders, VFX supervisors, actors, musicians, sound designers and many others. These people are in many ways dependent on the work of the distributors who play a significant role in the success of a film at the box office. Audiences who judge, support and appreciate the work of the filmmakers, are also vitally important in relation to the business of filmmaking. 13.2 A Brief History of Film in Australia. The first screening of films began in Australia in Melbourne in 1896. The first feature film ever made, The Story of the Kelly Gang, was made in 1906 in Australia. It was then exhibited in the UK and was a commercially successful enterprise. A boom in Australian cinema then began with over 150 local films being made in the short period leading to WWI and the Depression. The First World War and its consumption of material and resources negatively affected the production of Australian films. After the process of distribution was consolidated into what was effectively a single company, the way lay open for a takeover by foreign interests. In those early days, American distributors, who were better financed than the Australians, made the most of this opportunity by buying the extant Australian distribution businesses. As a result, by 1923 the industry was crippled as there were only a few locally produced films being screened in Australian cinemas. The American owned distributors now preferenced US films over Australin releases. By 1939 Australian film critics had recognised the harsh reality that Hollywood film producers needed to pick winners that appealed to audiences (Weaving 2016) and by 1945 newspaper articles written for the Sydney Morning Herald confirmed the overwhelming box office successes of American musicals and murder films (Weaving 2016). The takeover by US interests seemed complete. At the same time production companies such as Frank Thring’s Efftee Studios in Melbourne succeeded for a short period, but succumbed once they realised the government would not put a quota on American films which had already recovered their costs in the USA before being exhibited here. The local industry, again, simply could not compete. There were other successes however. Ken G. Hall was the main driver behind Cinesound Productions and they made 17 feature films, most of which were produced by Hall. Cinesound, based very clearly on the Hollywood model, demonstrated that commercial success was possible for Australian 393 Figure 26 Screen Industry Generalised Structure Other structural components of the industry include financial and insurance services as well as the support and input from educational institutions such as AFTRS. In terms of methods for earning income, there are several models in operation enabling several revenue streams to be operative. 13.4 Current Business Models in the Film Sector 1) The Film Production sector functions traditionally with a business to business (B2B) model or a marketplace where exchanges are brokered between film producers and those offering their services either through SMEs with many operating as sole traders. The B2B model functions on a contractual or sub-contractual basis. Many sole traders are increasingly operating as freelance workers and may be represented through talent and booking agents. The booking agents are constantly in touch with their networks about potential upcoming productions and opportunities to be had there. These agents act as intermediaries or gatekeepers helping to organise their clients onto productions and helping to negotiate fees for service. They work on a commission basis. 2) Government support is provided through multiple agencies and schemes offered through the national and state screen agencies. The types of government funding often 394 reflect the stages of production and these are broken into development, production, distribution, and festivals, marketing and awards categories. One of the schemes available is the producer offset which is a refundable tax offset, where feature films currently receive a 40% offset. Documentaries are also eligible, but the rates are based on overall production budgets. The eligibility criteria for these funds are quite strict and often require existing screen credits to be eligible for funding. There is one specialist Australian category, Indigenous, where films made by and for indigenous Australians are exempt from the requirement to have pre-existing film credits. 3) Film distributors also operate with the brokerage model. They bring businesses to consumers, and this model is known as the B2C model. Cinema owners generally operate as franchisees and they are supplied with a slate of films by the franchise, which usually makes the decisions around what films will be available for screening in their multiplex cinemas and the prices to be charged. Box office receipts are crucial forms of income. 4) Film subscription models have emerged over the last few years. Previously film producers would have used sales of DVDs to extend their reach into the domestic film market but now they can sell their films to services such as Netflix or Stan so that subscribers can view their content online via a streaming service for which they are remunerated through royalty payments. Some producers release their films through iTunes, a new digital model which has been described as the pay-per-click model. 13.5 Operational Methods and Processes in the Film Sector Filmmaking is a broad term applied to a range of methods used to make screen content produced as feature films, short film, documentaries and television shows. The operational methods of production are commonly seen in the various stages of production; project development, pre- production, production, post-production and distribution (Cohen et al. 2009). The production of feature films frequently follows this linear process, while other types of productions such as documentary making may take a non-linear route. The filmmaking stages are impacted by a range of variables that include financial, technological, procedural, editorial, aesthetics and creative practices (Kerrigan 2013, Kerrigan and McIntyre 2010). All films are made using a number of highly-standardised filmmaking practices which are based on the type of film to be made, its genre, the script, and the size and scope of the production as determined through the production budget. The budget allows for the selection of personnel such as the cast and crew and the allocation of post-production facilities. Generally, a film’s production is organised to maximise efficiencies by focusing on logistics and casting availability. Frequently post-production, in particular editing, occurs in tandem with the production and is the stage where the best filmed sequences are selected and re-ordered to create the film’s narrative. The distribution phase is the final component of filmmaking where the film, as a product, is delivered to its audience. The film may be marketed and distributed to cinematic audiences, film festivals or via online means such as Netflix or iTunes. Feature films use standard filmmaking approaches based around shooting methods and cinematic continuity (Brown 2012). This allows sequences to be filmed out of script order, according to location and other variables like day/night or cast/crew preferences (Cybulski 2014). Documentaries use an approach called cinema verite (Rabigar 1998) that accommodates material being shot in a range of locations. 395 The structures that support the functioning of the industry in Australia at the national and regional levels are reflected in the challenges faced by the global film industry. Lee and Gillen present some business practices that can help to reduce the risk of making feature films by instituting three separate entities within the production house. One is for production operations, a second is for development operations and the third is a single picture producing company. ‘Though these operations are accounted separately, typically each production company’s group of operations exists in the same offices and are operated by the same people’ (Lee and Gillen 2011, p. 158). The critical component here is that the single picture producing company will only ever produce one feature film and that ‘isolates both the pictures accounting and its liability from the producer’s other pictures’ (Lee and Gillen 2011, p. 158) as well as from the producer’s development and production operations. This strategy is one of a number that can be used to manage the financial risk or failure, should the picture not do well which, given the ROI statistics, is likely. Australia is named, along with seven other countries, in the 2012 report on Building Sustainable Film Businesses: The Challenge for Industry and Government as having ‘interesting policy and business tendencies’ (Olsberg SPI 2012, p. 8). In the past there has been an emphasis on supporting specific film projects but now there is a move to support the development of film companies themselves. Screen Australia has had an Enterprise Development Program since 2009, set up to do this. On several levels government policies have been designed to support and facilitate film production of Australian and foreign content. But there are some operational problems. Australia is considered economically viable and attractive to off-shore production companies when the Australian dollar is trading around 70 cents in the US dollar. Combining a low dollar with any government incentive used to lure foreign productions to Australia, means that blockbuster productions can offer longer-term employment opportunities for filmmaking specialists, as opposed to an Australian feature film, operating on lower budgets and filming a feature in a matter of weeks. Add to this situation the fact that film producers are keen to deliver a high ROI film, it is more common for films to fail rather than recoup their production costs based on box office returns. ROI is the ratio of cost to profitable income. In this regard The Producer’s Business Handbook written by Lee and Gillen, lays out the three objectives for a film producer. 1) Creation. To powerfully reveal the producer’s vision of the story 2) Audience. To ply the picture to as extensive an audience as possible. 3) Profits. To recoup production costs and receive a fair participation in the future earnings (2011, p. 11). The balanced producer is one who understands and can sustain a steady equilibrium between these three objectives. Working Title Films in the UK is an example of a company that takes this balanced producer approach. The other type of producer is the creative protectionist producer. They are generally ‘not skilled business people, well exercised in planning and execution’ (Lee and Gillen 2011, p. 10). Lee and Gillen argue that the creative protectionist producer keeps the distributors at arm’s length and that a commercial success of a picture ‘appears to represent a threat to the artistic integrity of their pictures and are commonly blamed if their pictures financially underperforms’ (2011, p. 10). The risk of a film failing is very high. As Velikovsky (2016) argues: Movie performance research reveals that 70% of movies do not ‘break even’ or recoup their production budget in cinema release (Vogel 1990, 2014) and that 98% of screenplays presented to producers go unmade (Macdonald 2004, 2013). Successful (thus, creative) screenplays and movies are rare (2016, p. xv). 398 Figure 28 Feature Film Personnel Organisational Structure The crew’s daily logistics are organised by a team of assistant directors (led by the first AD) who manage the daily call sheet and prepare all the logistical details for the filming schedule. The post-production team’s crew roles have been expanding and becoming more important as technology has allowed more procedural manipulation to occur. There are now also visual effects supervisors, VFX and teams of Computer Generated Imagery (CGI) crews who, through their work in the digital realm, enhance and affect real worlds as shot by the production crew. The FX team can also build virtual worlds to help realise the film’s narrative. The role of colour grading has emerged as a creative opportunity to give a film a completely unique aesthetic. Then there is the musician composing the score, the Foley artists laying in audio effects and ADR producers attending to re-recording the dialogue. The editor, in collaboration with the director and the audio mix editor, brings all this together in post-production. These personnel complete the production team. 13.7 Background to the Current Film Industry As a global industry, the main economic imperative of the film industry is measured around a film’s box office success. The delicate relationship between the financial risks borne by film producers and a film’s anticipated success at the box office continues to be influential. While ROI and box office success can sometimes be measured in cultural terms too. For example, the highest grossing Australian film is Crocodile Dundee (1986) which earned over $47.7 million, compared with foreign and domestic titles. It placed eighth on the highest feature film earner of all time list but was partially intsrumental in carrying mainstream values overseas. Other notable income earners were Australia (2008) with $37.5 million and Babe (1995) with $36.7 million (Screen Australia). These films were created by Australians and filmed in Australia whereas some films made in Australia could be classified as foreign productions. For example, The Lego Movie was produced by Americans, but it was made at Animal Logic in Sydney and consequently received Screen Australia funding. Australia boasts excellent filmmaking studios and facilities with Fox Studios in Sydney and the Gold Coast movie studios. These facilities have successfully accommodated many Hollywood productions and they are part of what has become known as ‘local Hollywood’ (Goldsmith, 399 Ward and O’Regan, 2010). This ‘local Hollywood’ dynamic provides work for Australian film industry specialists, that is key creatives and crew, as well as Australian casts. This concept of the ‘local Hollywood’ is not a new phenomenon as Australia has in fact played host to Hollywood productions since 1938 (Weaving 2013). Hollywood titles from the last 30 years include Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985), Babe (1995), Oscar and Lucinda (1997), Dark City (1998), Moulin Rouge (2001), Australia (2008), The Great Gatsby (2013), The Lego Movie (2014), Unbroken (2014) and Hacksaw Ridge (2016). The production of each of these films has helped sustain Australia’s film industry and given it a global cache and currency. However, there is some concern about dwindling Australian budgets as was discussed in his paper Embracing Innovation: A New Methodology for Feature Film Production in Australia (Connelly 2009). Connelly’s main concern is that ‘the film production methodology and distribution system jointly compromise Australian films because the decision-making processes prevent the films from reaching their audiences at the box office’ (Maher et al. 2015 p. 13). Essentially film distributors are the service providers who make feature films visible to consumers by ‘taking products to a mass-audience’ (Davies and Sigthorsson 2013, p. 132-3) and the film distributors, controlled by foreign interests, have considerable leverage as they are keen to have their cinemas full and box office profits maintained. This situation frequently means Australian filmmakers are the ones asked to take most of the financial risk which leaves them at the mercy of the film distributors who may remove a film from the cinema if audiences and therefore returns are not immediately forthcoming, thus preventing audiences building by word of mouth as they once did. The film distributor and film producer relationship has not changed markedly for 70 years and the onus remains with the film producer to select the most marketable genre and narrative in the hope that the risk producers take will result in adequate box office returns. Film studies scholar Deb Verhoeven believes that the domestic production industry could ‘benefit from adopting a more global outlook in its analyses of Australian cinema rather than treating it solely as an outcome of local dynamics’ (Verhoeven et al. 2015, p. 18). This may be reasonable advice but making an Australian film requires expertise and talent and with the small budgets on offer there is frequently little left over to market a film to a global audience. One strategy used by Australian film producers to raise the profile of their films is to take a film to the film festival circuit, to build an audience and create that much-needed word of mouth so that broader audiences will anticipate the arrival of the film and attend its cinema screening. This strategy means that Australian producers must be willing to absorb the marketing risks by managing films on very small marketing budgets. In the digital age there are now opportunities for producers to share in downstream revenues created by successful content. By diversifying revenue streams across several activities, the risk/return parameters are reduced (Olsberg SPI 2012). Taking an Australian example, Alex and Eve (Andrikidis 2015) had a limited release in Australian cinemas and it has also screened on Foxtel. It is available on Stan and iTunes and in July 2017 it secured an American cinema release after winning the audience award at an American film festival in 2016. In this case understanding the structure of the Australian film industry is key to unlocking the right industrial choices that are faced by film producers as they continue to move into what has been described as an increasingly digitally-disrupted age. While Australia has built a reputation as a reliable place to create Hollywood films, it has not been able to do the same for its own local industry with the production of Australian films operating in a holding pattern for the last decade (Maher et al. 2015). It can be claimed that the Australian film industry currently operates as a cottage industry ‘caught between the competing logics of a subsidized cultural activity and commercial enterprise’ (Maher et al. 2015, p. 2). The film production sector operates on two-speeds, the cottage industry model where feature films are made on modest and subsidised budgets of $3 million (AUD) and a model where foreign films are made in Australia, frequently by US corporates, with budgets of more than 400 US$S20 million. Blockbuster examples from 2015 include Hacksaw Ridge, filmed in New South Wales with a production budget of US$40 million. While Sydney, the Gold Coast and Melbourne have film production precincts that can accommodate blockbuster productions, the state-based film agencies will frequently compete with Vancouver in Canada or Dublin in Ireland to lure blockbuster productions to Australia. In 2014 Pirates of the Caribbean was filmed in the Gold Coast Movie Studios and the Queensland government provided a $20 million incentive to attract the production to the state (Lewis 2104). The film’s budget was US$350 million and a spend on that scale in a regional area is a major injection into a local economy through the economic multiplier effect. An economic multiplier, which is the ratio of impacts of increased economic activity to the initial spend on film production, measures the increase in income from the injection of funds into a local economy. In the case of foreign productions working locally this effect accounts for the money spent on hiring crew, equipment and vehicles, accommodation, catering etc. and how this money then flows directly or indirectly to have an impact on others in the economy, such as retailers, manufacturers and various service industries - money which would otherwise not have come into the country. Most film industry economic multipliers sit inside a range of between 2 and 3 and in 2011 Australia’s was 2.67, NZ was 2.55 and the UK was 2 (Olsberg SPI 2012, p. 15). The economic multiplier effect is one reason why national and state governments are willing to currently offer subsidies to blockbuster productions. Such subsidies are negotiated with film producers and are often deal-clinchers or deal-breakers. Similar subsidies occur at the local and regional levels to encourage Australian film producers to film in the regions using stage government tax breaks as incentives. A number of locally-made films are produced outside of the cities in regional areas, using available tax breaks and through regional film agencies. For example, Screenworks is a regional film agency operating from the Northern Rivers of News South Wales (Henkel 2006, 2010). It connects film producers with regional filmmakers, hence making it more viable for producers to move their films into production in a regional area. The Hunter region has Screen Hunter, previously called Screen Hunter Central Coast, which has been operational since 2004. 13.8 The Hunter Region Film Sector 13.8.1 Film Distributors, Societies and Festivals. Cultural Collections at the University of Newcastle which is housed in the ‘Auchmuty Library holds records relating to the history of theatre and cinema in the Hunter Region’ (Records NSW 2018, online). While this history is significant in demonstrating industry activity in the past there are a number of distribution outlets for film still currently active in the Hunter. These include mainstream cinema distributors, film societies, film festivals, summertime ‘Cinema under the Stars’ and independent cinemas. Hoyts and Readings Cinema, both located in Charlestown, cater to the general consumer looking to view the latest Hollywood blockbuster. Similarly, Event Cinemas are located at the rooftop complex of Garden Square in Westfield Kotara. Tower Cinema in Newcastle’s CBD, now part of the Event Cinemas chain has found a lucrative niche by ‘showcasing diversity in cinema - from blockbusters to foreign and independent movies’ (Flicks 2018, online). Readings Cinemas in Maitland have ‘4 wall to wall cinema screens featuring the highest quality crystal clear Dolby digital sound’ (Readings 2018, online). The Heddon Greta Drive-In ‘is the only drive in theatre in the Hunter Valley servicing Newcastle, Lake Macquarie, Cessnock and Heddon Greta’ (HGDI 2018, online). Raymond Terrace is catered to by Scotty's Cinema Centre while the Great Lakes Cinema 3, a family run business since 1999, screens a mix of blockbuster films with a varied ‘selection of specialized and arthouse titles’ (GLC 2018, online). A number of Australian productions are noted among 403 organisations. Its deficit occurs because some of the work done to attract film production to the region is done in lieu of a booking and payment only comes when the production group confirms it will film here. Productions that do film in the region include a combination of feature films, television shows, commercial advertisements and video clips. These have included Tomorrow when the War Began (2010), Air Rescue, Baggage Handlers, My Kitchen Rules (Channel 7) and Farmer Wants a Wife (Channel 9). Locations in the region are many and varied ranging from ‘spectacular sand dunes, beaches, harbours and rivers to picturesque vineyards and mountain ranges [as well as] sweeping plains, horse-studs, open-cut mines and historic architecture’ (Screen Hunter 2018, online). The Stockton sand dunes, for example, are a prime location for filmmakers because of the dunes’ characteristic desert appeal and proximity to major facilities. Many national and international film and television productions have scouted the Hunter’s filming locations, and many have chosen to shoot here. These have included Wolverine, Matrix Reloaded, Superman Returns, Top Gear, Home and Away, Suburban Mayhem, Lockout and many others. Several video clips have been shot here as well, including Beyonce’s Mine and Daniel Johns’ Aerial Love. Sri Laxmi Productions and Template Productions from India have also used Hunter locations for their Bollywood titles. Screen Hunter pitches on big budget productions to lure them to the region and offers a production directory that promotes Newcastle’s skilled filmmaking professionals. Some US productions that have scouted here but chosen other locations include Angelina Jolie’s Unbroken (2015), Mel Gibson’s Hacksaw Ridge (2016) and the US sitcom Modern Family (2015). When a producer decides to film elsewhere, the hours Screen Hunter has spent with them and their location scouts go unpaid. Annette Hubber is optimistic about the jobs that go elsewhere to film though. ‘We might have lost the job this time around. However, they did recce several locations in the region so there is always the potential they’ll come back’ (Hubber i/v Aug 2015). In 2014 Screen Hunter processed 360 filming permits. Each filming permit has different variables depending on the production. The processing of film permits represents more than 80% of the administrative work done by the office and every filming permit has a different set of parameters. For example, the Channel 7 Reality TV show My Kitchen Rules might film for a week in the region and A Farmer Wants a Wife might film for several weeks, whereas a feature film like Tomorrow when the War Began filmed for 32 days in 2009 across various regional towns including Dungog, Raymond Terrace and Maitland. That was considered to be one filming permit. Even with this range of productions coming to the region, Screen Hunter has struggled to turn a profit and in 2014 they produced a deficit of $3K that was absorbed by the overall finances of the organisational group. Ongoing support from the Councils is critical to the sustainability of Screen Hunter as a regional film office. In 2015 the ‘fee for service’ model was introduced which means Councils annually pay a fee for the services Screen Hunter provides to their area. One key cost that affects a film’s budget is the location fees. In 2009 the NSW State Government decided to cut red tape when it comes to filming in NSW and to create a more film-friendly state. This was a sensible decision as it kept the blockbuster films in Sydney at a time when Melbourne was attracting them because there were no location fees charged to film in that city. Essentially, Sydney had been overcharging for the use of the city as a location for some time. However, the policy that removed NSW location fees also removed the main source of income for regional offices and essentially crippled these regional film offices who had relied on the paltry sums they were getting to keep their offices viable. This action resulted in only two of the seven regional offices surviving. These are Screen Works in the North Rivers Region of NSW and Screen Hunter. This decision has also had ongoing impacts for the film industry with many producers and production companies being forced to individually manage 404 government stakeholders like Councils or National Parks to gauge what out-of-pocket expenses there will be, based on number of filming days, vehicles, size and impact of crew. Screen Hunter has a great reputation in the industry, with its manager, Annette Hubber, working to ensure they provide a consistent service. Managing the brand well is crucial for sustainability. Screen Hunter assists many local filmmakers through film industry forums and by supporting locally-produced projects like the ABC broadcast documentary Honeymoon in Kabul made by Limelight Creative Media and the independent feature film Mikey’s Extreme Romance created by Jamie Lewis. It is a fact that the production of local content would slow down if Screen Hunter wasn't operating. At a film industry event in 2015, Screen NSW identified Screen Hunter as a great model for a regional film office but the irony is that it is struggling for funding. It has proved an ongoing task to find funding and investors to back this ‘great model’. 13.8.3 Film Production Companies The Hunter has several film and television production houses, all of which are ‘small to medium enterprises’ (SME). These SMEs have managed to build a reputation nationally and sustain themselves while remaining in Newcastle. While a lot of work for them comes from the local community, they frequently solicit work from outside the region. These standout film production houses are Limelight Films, Storyhaus, Good Eye Deer and Final Post. These SMEs are owned and run by multi-skilled, highly talented individuals who have been able to multi- task and create diverse media content. These businesses undertake a range of film work including television documentaries, advertising and television series. The film production companies in the Hunter produce high quality screen productions which receive awards from the Australian Cinematographers Society (ACS), Australian Teachers of Media (ATOM) and Australian Video Producers Association as well as a number of Film Festival awards. While the main source of income is generated through advertising and corporate film work, they do nurture pet projects with Storyhaus making Barinia (2015), a TV series filmed in 4K, about a couple who sail the Mediterranean and make beautiful seafood dishes. Limelight Creative Media shot a documentary in Afghanistan entitled Honeymoon in Kabul (2009). A community funded documentary Face of Birth (2013) about pregnancy, childbirth and the power of choice (Face of Birth, online), was co-created by Kate Gorman and Gavin Banks from Good Eye Deer. Released globally in 2013 and translated into 12 languages this compelling documentary was created to advocate for changes to Australia’s maternity policy. These SMEs are primarily independent creative content producers (Davies and Sigthorsson 2013, p. 128-30) as they create their own intellectual property, generate production revenues from private and government investment and they work on a project-by-project basis. Karl Brandstater, for example, owns a production company in the Hunter called Storyhaus. Brandstater was born in Sydney, lived in Europe and the US for a period and moved to Newcastle in 2000. He was introduced to the industry by his father who was a multi-cam director for TV. He completed a Science degree but could not ‘fight [the] desire to capture imagery and tell those stories’ (Brandstater i/v Oct 2016). He started in documentary, working in Tahiti and USA and has since worked extensively overseas including 14 trips to Russia. Brandstater has worked with Universal Music, Disney, Village Roadshow and Sony Music primarily on music video clips and for six years he was at Warner Brothers on contract cutting movie trailers for cinema and TV. He was there when they launched home entertainment and is now pleased to be located in Newcastle: Newcastle brings that wonderful balance of authentic art and creativity and processes and I think the future of taking good IP and ideas and craft needs to then extend to other markets … our ideas must be considered when we think of other 405 territories whether it is Asia or the Americas. We’ve got to have the courage to think that way … we came to Newcastle and it was the best decision we made in every respect. It’s easy to live here. It’s still got that village feel. As an independent practitioner you fly. You shoot for a few weeks overseas, you come back here for months and edit. It’s not difficult to work internationally and live in Newcastle (Brandstater i/v Oct 2016). For example, as a film and TV writer and director Brandstater and his company Storyhaus, completed an 8-part documentary series Barinia in 2015. The series, filmed on a yacht, sailed the Italian, Greek, Turkish and French coastlines and shared local recipes with Narelle, the chef, and Patrick, the skipper, hosting the show (Barinia 2016, online). The TV series has been screened in France, Italy, Poland, Russia and Brazil. Brandstater worked with an all-Newcastle team including the design agency Headjam who did the charts, Tim McPhee who composed, played and recorded all the music, Mike Preston who provided creative support and helped write the accompanying book, and Rob Preston who did the sound mixes. Limelight Creative Media is a boutique communication studio which has been operating in Newcastle for 15 years. Limelight offers a fully integrated communication service including film production, writing, photography, time lapse and design. Company Directors Dr. Anna Kelly and Ian Hamilton have a shared passion for producing content that makes a positive difference in the community with a strong focus on health and education. Limelight wins national tenders to produce educational, health, corporate and training videos as well as producing broadcast documentary projects. Ian Hamilton explains that their competitors are really in Sydney and the other capital cities (Hamilton i/v May 2015). They work from creative concept to completion across a number of areas. We offer a range of creative services including filmmaking, web-design, still photography and instructional design. Most of our work, our bread and butter, is in large national initiatives into health and education so often those involve a whole strategy and a whole campaign, so it's everything from copyrighting, instructional design, filmmaking and design so that the work that we like to do is integrated. So, you’re not just making a film, you’re actually just creating a whole experience for the audience, which is what we have come to do (Hamilton i/v May 2015). Their past television work includes making four broadcast documentaries for the ABC Series Australian Story. An extreme adventure documentary made by Limelight, Honeymoon in Kabul (2009), was also nationally broadcast on the ABC. This feature length documentary won the People's Choice Award at the Zero Film Festival in both New York and Los Angeles. In terms of health and education they undertake ground breaking work. Their Pain Management Network films won a national ATOM award in 2014 for Best Instructions/Training Resource. Anna Kelly explains ‘a lot of our commercial work is about making a difference to people's lives, so we really enjoy doing that type of work’ (Kelly i/v Sept 2015). To create their award-winning work, Limelight employs six full-time staff who work as an ensemble team. Ian believes that not only must his team be multi-skilled but being a filmmaker requires a certain knowledge about the subject matter ‘because I want the so-called technicians to be actual storyteller-filmmakers and we’re all collaborating together because I know, in the best of worlds, that happens with specialists as well’ (Hamilton i/v Sept 2015). This attitude reflects the position put by Dawson and Holmes where they assert in their book Working in the Global Film and Television Industries: Creativity, Systems, Space, Patronage (2012), that ‘the practice of drawing sharp distinctions between above-the-line and below-the-line workers needs to be interrogated’ (2012, p. 14). They suggest that there are ‘other ways to understand creativity in an industry with a complex social division of labour involving large numbers of 408 many national and international clients coming direct. They run a full complement of AVID suites, two audio suites using Fairlight and Pro Tools and a ‘graphic arts department that specialises in 2D and 3D design’ (one80 2018, online). They run an outside broadcast (OB) unit that can be set up for ‘analogue, standard definition, high definition or direct web streaming’ (ibid). Final Post, another creative service provider operating out of Newcastle, is run by Shane Burrell (Kerrigan and Hutchinson 2016). Established by Burrell in 2012, Final Post offers a high-end film finishing service that uses DaVinci Resolve to colour grade and complete the look of a film. Final Post has graded a number of Australian features including Love is Now (2014). Burrell feels that Newcastle is an accessible location and is ‘coupled with lower regional overheads to provide clients with cost-effective, high-quality films, television series and commercials’ (Kerrigan and Hutchinson 2016, p. 7). Final Post is located inside a shared working space called Innx, which is one of several communal working locations that accommodate creative production houses across Newcastle. Currently many film production houses have humble beginnings in bedrooms, living rooms and home offices. These working arrangements are possible because of the domestication of professional film equipment, editing software and hardware. This situation enables new career trajectories to start in bedrooms as amateurs and hobbyists film weddings and dance concerts. As the tasks become larger in scale many feel it is not professional to invite clients to meetings in the bedroom or the living room. Cheap shared working spaces offer these professional places as well as opportunities for aspiring filmmakers to turn nascent skills into a business. There are others providing these services. Roost, a Renew Newcastle initiative, offers bedroom filmmakers, amongst other creatives such as designers and app developers, an opportunity to hire a desk or use a meeting space. Good Eye Deer once inhabited a desk at The Roost and they have since expanded and created their own professional space called The Production Hub where likeminded digital production companies can rent professional spaces for ‘creatives’ (The Production Hub 2016, online). Taking desk rental to another level is Innx, a company offering rooms for businesses to hire. Innx is home to twenty businesses including Mezzanine, Headjam, Final Post and Fisheye Creative. It also offers the hire of co-working hot desks, co-working permanent desks, meeting spaces or private studios (Innx 2016, online). This is not a complete list of co-working spaces. There are more offered throughout the region and their use shows that filmmaking communities desire to be perceived as professional and to have the opportunity to network with likeminded people. Some filmmakers in the region travel to Sydney to work and are managed by an agent, which is another approach for local filmmakers who are employed as sole traders. 13.8.5 Independent Filmmakers and Freelancers Vanessa Alexander works as a freelance film and television writer, director and producer. Originally from New Zealand she has lived in the US and now resides in Newcastle, Australia. She works as a story-liner for a variety of programs and as a mother of six she has a special interest in work for and about women. She also brings a unique perspective to her screen writing because she has been a director of television: I'm currently mostly working as a writer because I did some work as a director last year after having a baby and it was just so incredibly difficult to do from Newcastle. I thought that I really just have to try and cope with writing, which I can kind of at least half do at home (Alexander i/v Aug 2015). 409 Working in a freelance environment means you have to put yourself forward for work and as a freelancer you are invited to many meetings: I remember working out what the point of the meeting was ‘cause when you first go and have a meeting, you think ‘Well are they going to offer me work?’. Then eventually you realise that the meeting is an interview for some imaginary thing that might happen in the future. It's really just about whether you like each other. And you know because it's such a collaborative industry nobody wants to work with people that they don't have any connection with. And just navigating that is a minefield. If you can become relaxed with that it is easier. Whereas I know people who get very tense in those environments and it might unfairly disadvantage them (Alexander 24th August 2015). To find out what jobs are on offer in the industry she is represented by an agent in Sydney who takes a commission from any work she does secure. Her agent sends examples of Alexander’s work on to film producers or broadcasters for consideration: I mean it's not a guarantee that you're going to get work but that support structure enables it and enables me to live in Newcastle. I think it would be quite hard for me to be here and not have an agent (Alexander i/v Aug 2015). Another local filmmaker had a different route to gaining an income. Jamie Lewis works as a Creative Director at Out of the Square Media (OOTS) in Newcastle. He graduated from the University of Newcastle, Bachelor of Arts (Communication Studies) program some decades ago. During his studies he was a member of the Footlice Theatre Company and he began work at the then Media Communication unit at the University of Newcastle. In 1996 he started in advertising in a junior role as a copywriter/production assistant with a local company: In Newcastle, we often have many hats and I do a lot of copyrighting and direct commercials, corporate videos and different forms of content as well as presenting to clients. That is kind of my role in a nut shell as a creative director, but as a creative practitioner I just call myself a writer and director and I just love creating fantasy stories in terms of anything that has a twist on reality. I love to take something that is quite normal and put a spin on it in some way (Lewis i/v May 2015). Lewis is also an independent filmmaker who has been involved in productions for some time. The problem for me and for the creative projects I do is to actually finish doing them. There is never a shortage of ideas or concepts. It is which one should I do and then, ‘but just fuckin’ finish it!' Don't start it and then go ‘oh I'll move onto another one’ (Lewis i/v May 2015). Lewis completed his full-length feature film Mikey’s Extreme Romance in 2013. He wrote, directed, edited and co-produced this romantic comedy and it is available online through a pay per view US aggregator. 13.8.6 Hunter-Based and Hunter-Shot Films There have been a number of films made in the Hunter with one simply called Newcastle (2008). Hollywood productions have also filmed in the region (McIntyre and Kerrigan 2015) while several Australian films have been partially shot in Newcastle and the hinterland. Tomorrow When the War Began (2010) notably ‘blew up’ the historic Luskintyre bridge. A number of independent productions, both feature films and documentaries, have also been made 410 in the region by local people. These examples show that there is talent in the region and there are compelling stories to be told here. These local film productions have been in general limited but include an exceptional feature called Young Einstein (1988). With Yahoo Serious starring in the film and being the film’s writer, director and producer, this comedy was very loosely based on the life of Albert Einstein and had him splitting the atom with a chisel while inventing rock and roll and surfing. The film, funded by the Australian Film Commission and private investment, was pre-sold to a US company to raise the millions needed to cover the production budget. Eventually the film was on-sold to Roadshow and picked up by Warner Bros eventually grossing $13 million in the Australian box office and $11 million in the US. Yahoo Serious was born and bred in Cardiff in Newcastle. In the beginning he was called Greg Pead and he attended the former Art School in Hunter St which was eventually incorporated into the University of Newcastle. Pead took advantage of his intimate knowledge of the area and located all the scenes in his internationally successful film in the region he grew up in: A derelict pioneer’s cottage on the Wollombi Road just out of Cessnock became the Einstein farm. Fort Scratchley became the mad scientist’s Mental Asylum. The old Newcastle Police Station became the Sydney Patent Office. Newcastle Town Hall became the Science Academy in Paris. And Newcastle Baths, the place where I learned to swim, became the birthplace of The Theory of Relativity (Serious 1997, p. 283). A number of real local stories have also been made into feature films. Blackrock (1997) supposedly re-told the story of the rape and murder of Leigh Leigh from Stockton. The film was based on the theatrical play written by Maitland local Nick Wright. Directed by Steve Vidler it proved to be a controversial film with the local community (Sandner 2009) and grossed $1,300,000 with a limited release around the country. Newcastle (2008), written and directed by American Dan Castle, was the cinematic story of a group of surfers with one aspiring to be a surfing champion. Scenes were shot at the iconic Nobbys Beach and starred Lachlan Buchanan and Xavier Samuel. The film also boasted Shane Jacobson, Barry Otto and Joy Smithers in its cast and ‘Andrew Johns, Layne Beachley and Mark Richards have cameo roles’ (Joyce 2008, online). Icon Film Distribution, co-owned at the time by Mel Gibson, acquired the rights to distribute the film. It had a world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York and was featured at the Seattle International Film Festival and ‘was among 212 films from 25 countries featured in July at Outfest 2008, the 26th Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Film Festival’ (ibid). It began its ‘Australian commercial release with a red-carpet premiere at Greater Union Newcastle on October 29 before opening nationally on November 6’ (ibid) of 2008. It grossed a limited $214,000 at the box office. Another film, this one based on the Newcastle earthquake of 1989, was Aftershocks and like Blackrock it was also originally a play that was turned into a film this time by scriptwriter Paul Brown. Newcastle film researcher, Judith Sander, interviewed Paul Brown about how he structured the film from: A series of first-person dialogues from actors talking to camera … augmented by reconstructions of the storytellers’ points of view, using highly stylized close-ups and extreme detail shots of objects that people [talked] about… [interspersed with] archival video fragments such as news coverage of events at the time (Brown quoted in Sander 2009, p. 165). Aftershock’s producer, Julia Overton, stated that ‘the film was produced for a tiny budget of less than half a million dollars’ (quoted in Sander 2009, p. 166). The funds were raised by the Newcastle Workers Club, SBS Independent and the NSW Film and Television Office (Sander 413 along with an international distribution deal with Universal Pictures (Hall 2014, online). This professional support was especially important as ‘for many of the crew, it was their first feature film experience’ (Herron 2015, online). It premiered at Hoyts Charlestown and went on to win 5 international awards, including ‘Best Film’ across 3 continents. Pop-Up (2015) another PhD film from the University of Newcastle, is a feature-length film based on an original screenplay, written and directed by Stuart McBratney as part of his doctoral studies in Design. The film is set in Newcastle and Romania. The screenplay combines three interweaving stories of an unemployed father, a Romanian immigrant and a sleep-deprived theatre director. The film has been screened at international film festivals and was played at Grauman's Chinese Theatre in Hollywood and it received an Honourable Mention at the 2016 ‘Dances with Films Festival’. McBratney has now picked up a contract in Hollywood to make further films. While these films may not have been financially successful, demonstrating in some cases a lack of experience or expertise in the art of promotion and distribution, they have proven that there are dedicated filmmakers in the region who have the tenacity and dedication to complete large productions in a range of genres. Whereas filmmakers from outside the region come here regularly for a range of filmmaking activities, these examples, described above, demonstrate that feature films and documentaries can be made in the Hunter by locals. 13.8.7 Film Education in the Hunter The University of Newcastle has taught film production courses for thirty years as part of the Bachelor of Communication degree program. The courses include screenwriting, cinematography, documentary, television production and short dramatic films. Courses are offered in 2D Animation through the Visual Communication Design degree and 3D and VR courses are offered through the Information Technology degree. TAFE NSW – Hunter also offers a range of diploma programs in Communication and Media and animation as well as performance and has invested heavily in industry software like Maya (3D Animation) and News Cutter, an editing software for newsrooms. The University has hosted information nights held by Rising Sun Pictures from South Australia, a visual effects company. The University has also hosted talks from Animal Logic, a large animation production house in Sydney. At the secondary level there is the Hunter Valley Performing Arts High School that specialises in acting, dance and music tuition, amongst other creative endeavours. The Department of Education and Training has also supported a creative arts filmmaking program for primary students run in conjunction with the University of Newcastle, Bachelor of Communication program. This program has been operating since 2007. It has attracted year 5 and 6 students and taught them how to make film over 3 days. In 2017 the program was reduced to 2 days and it saw 66 primary school students attend the news filmmaking workshop. 13.9 Conclusion The above material has described in detail how the Australian film industry operates in the Hunter region. This study’s ABS statistics reveal that full-time work in the Hunter film sector is minimal with one of the lowest levels, at 1%, that is, of all people employed in the creative citrng film who declared this as their primary occupation. This is not to say that filmic activity is minimal in the Hunter since the extent of the gift economy and those making films whose primary occupation is in other sectors, describe the larger story and structure of the national 414 industry which is also replicated on a smaller scale in the Hunter region. Structurally all sectors of the film industry are represented in the Hunter, to a greater or lesser degree and all are deeply connected at the industrial level through traditional business relationships described as B2B and B2C models. The B2B model describes the relationships between producers wanting to make films and the businesses and services that are needed to realise these productions. This situation is also encapsulated in foreign producers seeking to locate their film’s production or post-production in Australia. For US productions, locating films in the Hunter, as it is elsewhere in Australia, is much more attractive when the Australian currency is around the 70 cents in the dollar mark. As an industry then, it is at the mercy of the global economy. The type of foreign work, where the Australian film workforce is working at the cutting-edge end of technology and refining their own creative skills, is itself an attractive factor for other producers who are looking for strategic reasons to come all the way to Australia to create or finalise a film. Australian film crews have a reputation of being efficient and effective and because of the decades of association with Hollywood film production, Australian filmmakers are recognised as being at the top of their game. These are attractive factors for any producer. These highly skilled creative crews are also invested in telling their own cultural stories and are willing to take a reduced rate to work on lower budget Australian feature films to do so. And in the Hunter region we can see the same scenarios playing out with the productions of features such as Mikey’s Extreme Romance or Bathing Frankie. This generosity, coupled with a desire to tell local or national cultural stories, is what drives producers to try and make low-budget films and it represents the other extreme of big-budget filmmaking – nano-budget or no-budget filmmaking. In this way filmmaking in the Hunter region represents in large part the gift economy that is endemic to most of the creative industries. One sector is enabled by the other and vice-versa. As long as there are Hollywood blockbusters that produce huge box office revenues for big corporations there will also be the other end of the spectrum, the ‘Mickys’ and the ‘Frankies’ that represent opportunities where Australians want to try and tell their own stories for themselves. What the blockbusters provide is an ROI that permits an investment in the next film. This creative cycle is visible in the film system as it operates nationally and regionally. It is both cultural success and the economic profitability that allows this sector to keep generating new content be that at the global or the regional level.