Cannes Film Festival 2015 - Internship with Odin's Eye Entertainment

I recently attended the 2015 Cannes Film Festival undertaking an internship with Odin's Eye Entertainment and as part of my internship, produced the following report on my experiences.

A good read for anyone considering attending the marketing the future:

Working with Odin’s Eye Entertainment at the Cannes Film Festival is a fantastic opportunity for any emerging producer who wants to gain a more in-depth knowledge of the international film market. Odin's Eye Entertainment is a vertically integrated media company encompassing international film and television sales, production, distribution and marketing. For the first time this year, they were attending the market both as a sales company and a production company, representing their debut feature film, The Legend of Ben Hall.

Having attended the Cannes Film Festival Market in 2013, I had a thorough understanding of the complicated and chaotic environment. I was able to perform my duties with Odin’s Eye more confidently and take advantage of my visit to develop new relationships with key stakeholders in the industry and attend networking events.

My role at the market was to assist in the day-to-day operations of the stall including coordinating the schedules of the Odin’s Eye team; liaising with the screening department; and providing support to the team.

One of my key responsibilities was analysing producers’ pitches before allocating them a meeting with one of our team. Having a sound understanding of Odin’s Eye’s slate, I learned quickly how to evaluate whether a project would be suitable for the company or not. I evaluated based on its financial and/or development status; the creative team attached and their filmmaking experience; and how strong the script was. I learnt how important it is for producers to understand where their film fits in to the wider market before approaching sales companies or distributors: you cannot just pitch your film to a sales agent to tick boxes. You need to do your research and make sure your film fits that company’s profile.

By completing the internship, I now have a solid understanding of what films sell both nationally and internationally; what phase of development/production they need to be in to be considered by a sales company; the dos and don’ts of pitching to prospective buyers; the importance of film festivals and the effect they can have on a film’s success commercially and critically; and what options there are for producers whose film doesn’t fit the typical commercial distribution model.

Odin’s Eye Founder Michael Favelle said:

ScreenWest has consistently put forward high quality emerging producers for our Cannes internship program and this year was no exception. Maya was an invaluable addition to our 2015 Cannes team and I'm sure we equally benefited from the experience. Maya will no doubt become a formidable producer in years to come and we hope to have the chance to bring her projects to the world as their sales agent and or distributor.

ScreenWest supported Maya to attend 2015 Cannes through the Travel Assistance - Skills Development & Exposure Fund.

Emergence 2015: Ross Siegel, Stories Behind The Story: Reaching Your Audience in a Multi-platform Age

Ross Siegel, Director of Development at Maker Studios, provided an extensive introduction to Multi Channel Merchants, companies like Maker Studios that assist up and coming YouTube stars with their brand and assist major brands understand the heavily saturated landscape that is YouTube.

Ross started out by defining that every song, video clip, short film, and 30 second cat video has a defined outlet and an audience. He explained YouTube was a virgin platform in which thousands of creators around the world produced millions of content each day from their bedrooms and living rooms at the time he came to work for FullScreen. 300 hours of content was uploaded every minute. And he was set to find opportunities for YouTube in the brand marketplace, and assist other brands in navigating the world of YouTube. His early days at YouTube, found him immersed watching thousands of YouTube videos, learning about YouTube's best practices, how to reach an audience through collaboration, and how data tells a story about how an audience behaves to teach creators about reaching their audience and working out what content they like. 

Working in this new digital media became about working with the authenticity of the creator. He devoured a tonne of YouTube videos to work out what makes videos viral, then several months into his new job, there came the Harlem Shake. Thousands of Harlem Shake videos were being made and shared via YouTube every day. Hundreds of YouTube channels were creating hundreds of these videos every day during this phase. Their clients delivered funny, odd and hilarious takes of this new format. His company helped brands to get on the trend and make their own versions of the Harlem Shake. Pretty soon, celebrities started to get on this too. They had weird and interesting takes on this cult that started going all over the world. At the time, he flipped for the contagious virality of this movement and how the song and its format was inspiring creativity in groups both large and small - he started thinking - what if this Harlem Shake was a plot point that could be used to promote a series, or a new movie. The thought process had began. 

At this point, his job was to link up some of the top YouTube creators of the world known as "influencers", with major entertainment brands. Huge conglomerates were now turning to major content creators to help reach audiences they couldn't reach themselves. He began to see the influence these digital YouTube creators were having in drawing loyal audience members. These people are huge stars across a variety of channels including Vine, Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. The Janoskians, for example, a Melbourne group of 6 pranksters, were mobbed in LA and landed a movie deal with Lionsgate - this is the potential of being a YouTube star.

Whilst at Fullscreen Inc, Ross teamed up with AT&T to produce "Summer Break", a new type of reality show taking place entirely on YouTube, Twitter, Instagram and Tumblr. 9 southern Californians were picked to chronicle their last summer before going off to college. The drama happened in real time, the storytelling structure embraced the normal social habits of these kids, and capitalised on the rapid ingestion of information by their audience. The only produced aspect was the 60 second daily wrap ups of the show. At the time, it was inventive storytelling that garnered 18m views. It generated millions of mentions on social media, gained a second season commitment, and clinched the belief for Ross that millennial stories could be reach beyond the millennial core base with the right creative structure.

Maker Studios help their creators find outlets for their content outside of YouTube. They're looking closer at these platforms to determine where the best fit is for different content created by their clients. Learning how Facebook video behaves different to YouTube. Channelling SnapChat and Vine to reach an audience in a different way to releasing a video on YouTube. MCMs are much like a talent agency for YouTube stars. They reach out for them and ask them to be a part of their network. In exchange, they'll give the stars the tools and technologies to help them grow and monetize their videos. The MCM model works by giving a % of this revenue based on the time and energy that goes into supporting that star. These days, technology makes it easy to get your content online. The flipside is its getting harder and harder to find this content. Today's audiences don't really care what the platform is but they will and always care about the content on them. Its more important than ever for storytellers to thin about what stories they want to tell but how they want them to be seen and where they are seen. Its is better to release your film in a costly theatrical release or a niche release to a targeted audience? What would a potentially viral video promoting your TV or film look like? 

More and more TV executives now ask how shows will be marketed. How they will break through. As storytellers, we all need to adapt and be aware of new content distribution methods. Coming from a traditional Hollywood background, it wasn't easy for Ross to understand the revolution. But Hollywood is catching up. This year's Oscar winner, Birdman, in a lot of ways is about this sea change. In the movie, it featured a relationship between Michael Caton and Emma Stone where she is obsessed in the digital world and he is a traditional film actor. It is a combative relationship and one of the film's peak emotional moments she says "he is irrelevant" and he replies that the play he is putting on "is important to me". She stately replies "you don't matter. You're not important. Get used to it." This directly outlines the change between the traditional and digital worlds. 

Ross concluded by sharing a quote from Kevin Spacey who said "our stories become richer and are becoming far more interesting when they go against the subtle order of things to achieve the unexpected". New mediums are emerging - we need to break out beyond what's comfortable for us to get our stories to reach our audiences. Somewhere there is a writer out there figuring out how to tell a story via Instagram. Ross finished in saying he hopes everyone finds power in embracing these technologies to tell their story as the opportunities are endless.

Emergence 2015: Glenn Urquhart, Evolve Your Transmedia

Glenn Urquhart, GROUP CREATIVE DIRECTOR, LIFESTYLE CHANNELS - FOXTEL. Keynote: "Evolve your Transmedia"

While rather a difficult keynote to follow (Mr Urquhart you could win the award for most words spoken in a single minute), I did manage to write down a few key messages about producing transmedia campaigns.

Glenn promoted the simple rule of understanding the traditional conventions of literature, art, and filmmaking, so you can turn them on their head and subvert them through juxtaposition. When you understand art, you understand us, people.

As storytellers, we're writers so we should take the writers approach. Its important to experience sub cultures beyond what you normally do, live through other people, read, watch, and listen to as much as you possibly can. The ridiculous and sublime is happening everywhere around you. Inspiration is everywhere. By understanding the conventions of art, you'll understand us. When you subvert the traditional conventions, you'll produce more emotional responses.

The Grand Daddy of transmedia campaigns - the Dark Knight campaign - illustrates the power of these productions. 10 million people from over 75 countries participated in a mass alternative reality game where The Joker left his mark in public places to produce an army of followers around the world. Phone calls, emails, user generated photos, public protests for the fictional mayor Harvey Dent, interactive games, video - all were used to produce the biggest hype about the film leading up to the premiere in 2008. Glenn noted that by giving people the power to make stories with your brand, you can make it bigger success than if you had tried it yourself. This is what transmedia storytelling is about.

TVNZ produced a similar campaign for Shortland Street, a New Zealand series that normally attracts a 30% share each night. On a smaller scale, the producers had to deliver fans online content for 5 weeks during the summer break. A transmedia clue hunt was born in which content was released via social, text messages, videos, anagrams, voice calls, emails, and traditional media. 60,000 people visited the site on one day alone and 17,000 was averaged per day. When the new season launched after 5 weeks, they pulled a 53% share for first episode, an unprecedented event.

Transmedia campaigns with a dense rich story with a large fan base are generally successful. If you don't have that fan service, you need to speak to your niche. This guarantees you will get that shareability - if you can't, go for the emotional uppercut. Don't be afraid to commit, you must commit 500%. Creativity can be brought down just to being bold.

At Foxtel, Glenn discussed transmedia campaigns made for the Lifestyle Channel and Embarrassing Bodies Downunder. To launch the new show, they personified 6 ailments into The Unspeakables using music, videos, a content-rich website, toys, and other online content marketing the general principles of the show. The result was a higher than expected share for the launch of the new show when it released. As well as this, Foxtel are working on a transmedia project as part of H100 called Life in the Trenches a where a trench is built outside the opera house and participants try to find out which soldier whilst travelling from one end of the trench to the other, eventually finding out if they survived the trenches or died on the battlefield.

Glenn's speech highlighted the key important fact that when it comes to transmedia, there is no limit other than your willingness to commit to an idea and deliver the project. Budgets can be large or small. Audiences can be mass collected or niche. Either way, everyone has the opportunity to produce something unique through transmedia storytelling.

Emergence 2015: Lee Hunter, Marketing Innovation @ Google

Lee Hunter, Head of Marketing and Innovation at Google Asia Pacific, just delivered his keynote speech "Innovation at Google", an inspiring talk about the technological discoveries and projects that Google has produced in the past few years and the reasoning behind why they produced those projects.

Lee defined an important question - what is marketing innovation? Marketing innovation is thinking of ideas we can bring to our users that also support us. With Google being such a massive company, they have a relative level of conservatism they have to maintain. To assist them in this, they have an excellent attitude towards problem solving that is encouraged from the most senior of employees to their newest recruits.

YouTube and Google means different things to different people. Lee set himself a challenge to come up with a big idea and try get it off the ground in a few months from when he started at Google. He was working around adwords at the time and thought - what if you get students to upskill themselves? What if you gave student teams a couple of hundred dollars in an adwords voucher and they create a campaign for a client that/s never been on Google before? He set this idea to my superiors, they said yes and it turned into the Google Online Marketing Challenge.

Google has the attitude of "don't do it small, if you're going to do it go global as soon as you can". He spoke with professors all over the world and happily and its now gone out to about 80,000 students. All from an idea 3 months in because of the culture of innovation they have there. Google CEO and founder Larry Page was quoted in saying "If you're not doing some things that are crazy, then you are doing the wrong things." For Lee, he said its very helpful if he is being overly ambitious that he can show his employers this quote when attempting something extremely ambitious and they'll say, ok off you go.

Lee focused on 4 key areas during his speech: looking for inspiration anywhere; focusing on one real user; making it matter; and not being afraid to fail but if you do, fail fast.

Look for inspiration everywhere:
Lee discussed a very successful project created by YouTube and Google a few years ago called "Life in A Day, an idea brought to him by Tim Partridge using user generated content to produce a true reflection of life in the day on YouTube. They asked users to upload a snapshot of their day which would then be turned into a full length feature film directed by Ridley Scott. They ended up getting 5000 hours of footage to use which they then had to edit down into a 90 minute film that ended up premiering at Sundance online to millions of viewers.

An important comment Lee made was "letting others speak for you says more about us". Lee worked on a project inspired by John Butterill, a nature photographer who shared a video of him showing a bedridden woman his view as a photographer. The video inspired other photographers to do the same. and very quickly the idea took off, all without any involvement from Google. Lee said "if you tried to do that yourself, it wouldn't work. We let the story tell itself."

Focus on one real user:
Because you're dealing with a scale of billions and 100s of millions of people, you have to try to figure out the art vs science. Lee mentioned how Google try to figure out the right story to tell. The way they think about it is through the users' and magic (what the product can do and how it affects their users' lives). They want to personalise these products. Search is a hard product to market - everyone uses Google search but how do you get to those human stories. A simple advert they created for search was through a video which showed the searches one man makes during a small period in his life from going on a gap year to Paris, to meeting his girlfriend, to marrying her, to having their first child. It was an emotive product that only used content found through Google Search online.

Make It Matter:
A lot of markeitng you do wants to have a point. Lee said that at Google, they are at their most innovative when they have a big responsibility to come up with creative solutions to problems, using technology for good. GoogleX is where they push the boat out as far as possible - soon to be created breakthroughs - where they come up with a totally radical solution for difficult problem. Examples include:

1. The self-driving car
2. Project Loon - getting the internet to people who don't currently have it, flying balloons up to space which creates a network for people who have no other way of getting to a network
3. Project Wing - tries to tackle the problem of delivery in places where the infrastructure isn't really there. 

Don't be afraid to fail, if you do fail fast:

Its all about iteration. Seeing how people react to it, seeing if we can attract more talent. Failure is only a true failure if it takes too long and you don't learn anything from it. You need to recognise, and declare your failure, figure out your mistakes and move on.

Google Glasses - people say this was released too early. Our attitude is we have learnt a lot from it. We don't think there was no set model for how you introduce this to the world. Bringing it out to the public was just another step in that iteration process. We failed but we believe we failed and learnt a lot. 

The Culture of Innovation in Australia:

Lee commented that we have really favourable conditions for entrepreneurship in this country but we have a significant feeling of fear of failure. There is a lot of great talent within Australia. As people, we are behind this idea of freedom and openness. We love technology - we are early adopters. We are behind tech entrepreneurship. There are 1500 startups across the country. But, we have a problem with tall poppies. Relatively speaking to other countries,  we don't celebrate entrepreneurs. We really don't have a high tolerance for failure and we don't demand enough choice - we're very happy to accept low amount of competition. We don't support those who can't compete.

What do we do?

Having the right culture is fundamental to innovation. The Google ideal is really powerful and can be demonstrated through a number of their projects. Its important to build culture of openness and contribution. Building communities that can participate in technological innvoation. We need to celebrate entrepreneurship and failure or at least don't have a go at those that do fail. To cap it off, Lee summarised this perfectly in saying "getting together like we are at the emergence festival is a great start." 

Why the Australian government won't win the war on online piracy and copyright infringement.

Recent reports came out today speculating on the impact that Attorney General George Brandis' latest anti-piracy proposal will have on the Australian public who were recently deemed by Mumbrella to be "at the top of the world piracy ladder." Online articles today claim the proposal will "force ISPs to take steps to prevent Australians from infringing copyright", "allowing rights holders to pursue legal action to force ISPs to censor websites", and directly from the report itself, "provide an incentive for market participants to work together to address online copyright infringement."

Effectively, the Australian Governments' only resolution to the major issue of Australia's online piracy obsession, is to place a great, big, fat bandage over the whole thing. Here are my reasons why the proposal, and subsequent proposals to fight those who elicit online piracy, will fail.

1.) Its too easy to pirate.
We may not be up there as the most tech-driven countries in the world, but we sure know how to get around ISP blocks, slow download speeds, and blocked access to content. VPN'ing, using proxies, fake accounts, false IP's, are just some of the ways Australians are getting around that whole risk of being caught downloading illegally. Its "virtually" (pun intended) impossible to track a user's identity online these days if they don't want to be found, hence why our Attorney General has not attempted to prosecute the individuals who are responsible for online piracy and instead, go after the ISPs.

2.) There is no alternative and therefore, no incentive for individuals to stop pirating.
The biggest flaw in the proposal from Brandis is the line "provide an incentive for market participants to work together to address online copyright infringement." This should have been the only focus of the proposal and is clearly something the Australian Government has not even considered at this point, despite all the committee meetings and tax-payer funded Premium Skype calls with Hollywood. The following infographic highlights the exact reasons why individuals download illegally and should have been what the proposal responded to:

http://resources0.news.com.au/images/2010/05/07/1225863/666012-news-com-au-illegal-downloads-survey-results.gif

As you can see, cost and adequate access to content are the main reasons behind why people download illegally.

Here is how we square up currently against these statements:

Image courtesy of:http://reckoner.com.au/2014/07/watching-tv-in-australia-the-australian-delay-under-the-microscope/

AVERAGE COST OF MOVIE TICKETS

Image courtesy of:http://www.screenaustralia.gov.au/research/statistics/wcboprices.aspx

Image courtesy of:http://reckoner.com.au/2014/07/watching-tv-in-australia-the-australian-delay-under-the-microscope/

The following infographics should also be considered in this regard as evidence of the fact that Australians are not abject to paying for their content. Rather, they just want it to be a fair playing ground and not be forced to accept the lacklustre standards the Australian media and government enforce.

Image courtesy of:http://www.news.com.au/technology/internet-pirates-say-theyd-pay-for-legal-downloads/story-e6frfro0-1225863187697

There is clearly a disconnect between what the Australian Government has proposed and what the actual purpose of an online piracy overhaul should be. Rather than trying to reserve a few million each year for the major studios, the government should be focusing on major initiatives that fulfill long term revenue raising for these companies, not short term gain. To be honest, these are the only two points that need to be considered right now. The Australian government Hollywood studios cannot expect that Australia is suddenly going to find its moral compass and magically stop downloading illegally. Nor should they expect that targeting their ISPs or those who facilitate online piracy will work either. There will always be a work around. There will always be a reason to download illegally unless, we find an alternative. I call upon Attorney General George Brandis to consider this statement and really think about what could be done to resolve this issue in the long run, not just for the term of his position in Parliament.

MAKING FILMS AND BABIES - How our female film and TV professionals are juggling two of life’s greatest milestones.

A recent WA Women In Film and TV (WIFT)/ Film and Television Institute (FTI) seminar sparked a number of important discussions, mainly the representation of women in the film and television industry and the causes behind the dire statistics. As a background, here are just a few of the important stats you need to be aware of as a female (and male) film and television professional:

• Only four women have ever been nominated for Best Director: Lina Wertmüller for Seven Beauties (1976), Jane Campion for The Piano (1993), Sofia Coppola for Lost in Translation (2003), and Kathryn Bigelowfor The Hurt Locker (2009). Bigelow was the first, and to date the only, female director to win the Academy Award for Best Director.
• 16% of the behind-the-scenes roles (such as directing, producing, writing, editing, cinematography, etc.) for 2013’s Top 250 Films were held by female practitioners.
• A historical comparison of women’s employment on the top 250 films in 2013 and 1998 reveals that the percentages of women directors, writers, executive producers, editors, and cinematographers have declined.
• Women comprised 6% of all directors working on the top 250 films of 2013.

The statistics raise an important question: why? What are the compounding factors on our female filmmakers and why are they impacting their influence within the industry? The answer lies in the one activity that only women are capable of doing: making babies.

We all know the story of the birds and the bees and how babies are made and it is definitely not the right time and place to discuss this process here. Neither is it to comment on current political correctness when it comes to RAISING a child (that is not the point in question). Taking 9 months out of your year to produce a gorgeous, beautiful, specimen to be enjoyed by the world for the rest of its life is a full-time, energy-sapping, mind-blowing experience. As is making a film.

To do both at the same time is just not easy. According to Director Beeban Kidron (Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason) “motherhood has affected her ­career ‘more than gender” and that “the question of who brings up the kids has a material ­effect on all women's careers." Angelina Jolie was famously photographed in December last year juggling her directing on Unbroken whilst taking care of her 6 children whilst Brad Pitt was overseas filming another feature. Assistants and nannies aside, any mother knows how difficult it is to manage the demands of your children with the demands of a filmset.

Luckily, the tides are changing and support for female directors who want to make a family, are in the middle of the process, or have succeeded in doing so, is becoming stronger. Sue Taylor commented on the production of her feature film, The Tree, in 2010 on which a crèche was set up not just for the children in the film, but also for the children of her director and other members of the crew, allowing them to spend time with their children whilst at work. This kind of support is incredibly rewarding for female filmmakers and its hoped that in the future, Hollywood and other large film industries will start to acknowledge the benefits of supporting are great film and baby makers with the necessary resources. 

Look who got published!

Just found a neat little article I wrote for an assignment last year on the ACMI website. Check it out:
http://www.acmi.net.au/somi/index.php?v=story&story=10502

Top Films Of...April

I have decided each month to post the top 5 films for the month that I believe are worth watching. These could be anything from the latest Hollywood blockbuster to a new release DVD that's just hit Civic Video. Here's what I'm looking forward to for April:

1. Wish You Were Here
ABSOLUTELY THE MOST EXCITING FILM OF THE YEAR!!!!! With the Blue-Tongue Films guys behind almost every aspect of this production plus the wonderful mind of Angie Fielder from Aquarius Films, this one is set to be a stunner.

2. The Hunger Games
After all the hype (and box-office success) one almost has to go watch this film purely so that you know what the difference is between a "tribute" and a "victor". Or at least so that you can look cool in front of your kids sister (come on, we all know that was the only reason you watched Twilight. Right?)

3. The Pirates! Band of Misfits
It's not everyday that you get to witness some of the best stop-motion animation this world has ever made. That's why (despite its kooky story and subject matter) I am planning to make this movie a must see on my list for April. With the makers of Chicken Run and Wallace and Gromit behind this extravanganza, what more could you want?

4. Salmon Fishing In The Yemen
Emily Blunt. Ewan MacGregor. What more needs to be said? Other than title which I believe, speaks for itself.

5. 21 Jump Street
Absolutely one of THE best movies I have seen so far this year. The editing, soundtrack, concept and acting were all brilliantly executed to entertain my fledgling 22 year old brain, which has a concentration problem bigger than Venus and a habit of resorting to one's iPhone if things get a bit boring. None of that ensued in the screening I attended of this film. Everyone from miles around could be heard laughing their asses off to the brilliant one-liners and hilarious gags on screen. GO SEE IT!

Hot Off The Press...Crownies

Ok, its not exactly hot potato hot but damn is this Aussie series good! 


Having heard about the production a while back now, I had made a mental note to keep tabs on the show and make an effort to watch the series premiere in early July. That was of course in the middle of all my crazy filmmaking/MIFF volunteering days and TV by then had become a blip of my radar; the reason why I missed the premiere. It was purely by chance today that stumbled across a free episode hosted by iTunes on the store that I made the decision to watch the first episode and boy was I glad I did. 


The series is based on the Department of Public Prosecutions and the people that run it. Janet King is the Senior Crown Prosecutor, the matriarch of the entire office and the firm bullet amongst the chaos of her much younger, irresponsible colleagues. The series premieres at an interesting time period, Christmas in Australia, where emotions (and hormones) raise with the mercury. We are introduced not only to the crosshatched collection of lawyers who work alongside King but also the standard of cases that regularly march through the DPP; everything from apparent inherited aggressive tendencies leading to assault, to diabolical cases of sexual abuse from the Attorney-General. The show is no holds barred and is swift and  exciting in its delivery of the convuluted facts (associated with the cases), as well as throwing you into the deep end with its clever assortment of DPP staff.


There's Lina, the slightly straighter-than-your-average-ruler do-gooder of the group; Erin, the ferocious-firecracker with hair color to boot; Ben, your typical eye candy who makes you feel sexy just by being on-screen; Richard, the disastrously awkward nerd of the clan; Tracey, a god-fearing, jealous old-b*#$h who's great at her Briefing and HR Manager role; David, the top-cat with the big title as Director of Public Prosecutions; and finally, Tatum, the little office intern who puts all of the above through their paces despite her age. I think of them all so far, I like Tatum the most. She looks like your average bimbo and I commiserate with her on the attitudes that this can get you from others around but luckily for her, Tatum has brains as well as boobs which makes her character all that more interesting. Layers, my friends, like an onion, aren't complicating. Just challenging. 


And it is the many layers of this new show that should have Australian audiences glued to their seats. Unfortunately however, due to its broadcast on the ABC (the only rightful destination for it really), the show has not had that great a reception. Not only that but competing with Ten's Law and Order:SVU, Seven's Masterchef, and Channel 9's AFL Footy Show, it was hard pressed to reach the much needed audience it deserves. I urge you strongly to consider this as your port of call when you're next in the mood for a little bit of great Aussie drama because Crownies really does surpass all the other reality rubbish (Yes, I do mean you Masterchef, Gap Year, Renovators and The Block) in terms of talent and story. 

Production Managing. AKA: How to function on 2 hours sleep a night.

It came to my attention recently that I promised you all recently that I would inform you of my role on the recently produced VCA third year short film "I've Been Here So Long", and how successful the overall production was. In a nutshell, "good" and "good" are two words that can be attributed to those comments. However, I know you are not merely interested in a one-word response so I thought I would give you a bit more insight into how I worked during the production.

I came to be involved on the shoot when I met the producer, Joshua Smith, at the St Kilda Film Festival earlier this year. Josh was acting as the Front of House manager for the festival whilst I was volunteering for IF and at one shift, we discovered that each one of us had a connection to the short film - me being extremely interested after hearing about it at the VCA Pitch Night, and Josh being the producer. When I explained to Josh that I had wanted to approach Rudolf (the film's writer and director) to offer my services as a crew member, Josh offered me the role of producer's assistant. Right there and then. Needless to say, I was floored. Then my mind went into overdrive - Could I do the job? Was I qualified? Did I need to be qualified? Do I have the time? etc, etc. It turned out that over time, a lot of my insecurities about my capabilities for the role were easily quashed but I'll get to that in a second.

The next step was convincing Rudy (Rudolf) that I was going to be a benefit, rather than a hinderance, to the project which involved possibly the longest interview I have ever had for a job at the VCA cafe. Rudy "interrogated" me beyond belief but in a weird way I appreciated the cross-examination as it may me face a lot of the hard questions I would need to answer over time such as, what skills could I provide for the role? and how would I be able to benefit the production? I managed to calm both Rudy and Josh's qualms by explaining that whilst I may not have any formal qualifications, I had the right attitude and if faced with an unknown task, would not stop until I had worked out how to complete it correctly. That approach worked wonders and within 2 hours of the interview, I had received a message from Josh informing me I had the job.

Over the next 2 weeks, I felt slightly useless getting into the swing of things. Coming into a production mid-way through pre-prod is possibly the worst timing because a lot has already happened without you which means you feel pretty dispensable. Luckily for me, Rudy noticed my floundering and gave me a list of jobs to complete during my time with him and Josh. A little more about the film itself at this point may give you a better indication of the scale of this project and the impact one small failure could have on the entire production.

"I've Been Here So Long" is a short film about a young man who's irresponsible lifestyle of partying and general antics is about to come to an abrupt end as he discovers the dynamics within his family are about to change for good. It is an epically majestical production shot not only in Melbourne's outer suburbs but also the beautiful alpine landscape of Lake Mountain, one of Victoria's most breathtaking unknown skiing resorts. The film was to involve many logistical complications from a large crew of around 18 - 20 average; to transporting said crew plus equipment, catering, cast and personal belongings from Melbourne to Lake Mountain for 4 days in the freezing mountain atmosphere. As well as this, the film was being shot on 35mm, an epic ambition in itself which came with its own dilemmas and production issues (i.e requiring a 3 - man camera crew at all times for loading, clapping, and general assisting)

My job within all of this foray eventually became to maintain the online profile of the film through the Facebook, Twitter, and blog set up before production. I found this to be an extremely easy aspect of my job as those online tools have become second hand to me now thanks in part to my experience at RMIT. Related to this however, were a number of other tasks which I was to complete to assist the film financially. This included finding and approaching potential sponsors for the film who would be interested in donating funds towards the film's completion. Despite my efforts, I had no success in this department and felt completely wounded and useless until I had a small win gaining a sponsorship from Lake Mountain Resort in the form of them lending us an entire snow gear range for our 22-man crew up in the snow. After that, a few other successes occurred leading up to the film so that my insecurities about how irrelevant my role was became less impacting.

The shoot itself was an amazing, inspiring experience which brought me right back to 2008 when I worked in Perth. The thrill of being on set for 12 hours a day, working till all hours of the night to prepare for the next day's shoot sounds like a nightmare to some but to me, it's the biggest adrenaline rush. Nothing makes me happier than physically seeing a film being made in front of my eyes. I don't know whether this is because I have not yet reached a point where this experience has become old hat but for now, I still revel at the idea of waking up at 5am after going to bed at 3am to work for 14 hours. Call me weird but I can't helpt it. For the 7 days we filmed, I worked on a variety of tasks ranging from wrangling extras on set, to setting up unit on location, staying on top of paperwork, attempting to source 1990's Nokia mobile phones, finding equipment vans for the snow, and keeping everything in general order amongst the chaos. And believe me, there was chaos. But that I have learnt is to be expected on film sets.

After completing the shoot, I haven't had that much to do with the film as Rudy and Josh have nestled themselves in snuggly amongst the editing suites at the VCA. I have yet to arrange with Rudy's mum and PR guru, AnneMaree Fitzgerald, a handover meeting where I will explain the processes and procedures I implemented for the running of the online profile but as far as I can see for the near future, this will just have to wait until I've completed my short film for RMIT. I'm extremely excited about seeing the final product however and from the rushes I brought back to set during filming, it is going to be look amazing. All in all, it was an amazing experience for which I will forever be indebted to Josh and Rudy for giving me and I hope that I'll be able to work with every one of the amazing crew members on that set sometime soon.

Everyone's Talking About ... Offspring

Found this great article through my old media teacher on all the cinematographic specs of the amazing Aussie series, Offspring. Finding this information about a television series that is still on the air (and has been recently picked up for a third season) is rare to say the least so it's really awesome to have this info whilst watching the show, trying to piece together the behind-the-scenes with the front-of-camera stuff. Anyway, have a read of it. I didn't understand half of what was said in regards to the camera tech stuff but I'm going to ask the DOP on the film I'm working on at the moment to explain a few things for me next time I see him:

Everyone's Talking About...The Australian Film Industry Part 2

Having woken (barely) from my exhausted state after work last night, my numb mind drifted towards the Film Vic website to see if anything exciting had been recently posted. Accidentally, my mouse hovered over the Audiences link which lead me to view the Resources page. It was here I uncovered a treasure trove of information related to the relationship between Australian audiences and Australian film. Clicking on the first link, I discovered the results of a recent survey conducted in 2010 "AUSTRALIAN FEATURE FILMS, FICTIONAL TELEVISION AND DOCUMENTARIES: The results from our
Roy Morgan Research."

Scanning through the document, there were a number of key statistics which I found not just interesting, but also slightly worrying. The first positive sign was that it does seem that Australians are watching traditional formats of television and film, with the report stating that of the 660 participants within the survey, "66% of people stated that they watched feature films at least monthly and fictional television at least weekly." When weighted for the size of the Australian population, this number becomes inflated to 11,838,000 Australians. WOW. So there's a potential there for the Australian film industry to prosper at least (compared to previous thought where the belief was that there just was no audience at all for film and TV and we would instead have to appeal to a different online audience)

Not surprisingly, the report states that "about a fifth of regular viewers do not watch any Australian television programmes or Australian documentaries (20% and 18% respectively), yet only 8% of regular viewers do not watch any Australian feature films." Whilst these figures aren't tremendously worrying, we do need to take into account that that figure represents approximately 2,500,000 Australians, Australians who go to the movies. Add on the remainder of the population who DON'T go to the movies or watching television regularly and you have a much bigger proportion of the population who are not engaging with our Australian content than those who are.

The final interesting point of the survey, and something I have been harping on about recently, was found in the observations part of the document. Here, the writers state how "The results of Roy Morgan’s research also bring into question the importance of content origin to viewing choices. It appears that Australian audiences may have less knowledge of, or be less concerned with, content origin. Also, Australian audiences seem to have a far broader definition of what is “Australian” content than the screen industry itself."

I'm finding more and more these days that a move for the industry towards more co-productions between Australian and other international filming industries is the only way our industry is going to survive. The bottom line is Australia is just in capable of returning the investments placed into film and as a result of this, the stigma surrounding Australian film production is constricting the practice before its even begun. Australian's have just never been big movie fans. America defined this term and it's use in popular culture I believe is what drives their industry. Australians lack this "fandom" associated with film. We are far more interested in other hobbies and it is these activities that we place more of our energies into. Therefore, if more Australian productions teamed up with American or English investors, and lost the Australian label, I feel that whilst this would be a sad omission of origin, the Australian film industry would ultimately discover more success.

Everyone's Talking About...The Australian Film Industry

I've had a few opportunities this week to ask people this question:

"What is wrong with the Australian film industry?"

Now, don't roll your eyes at me because I've already placed the idea in that person's head that there's something "wrong" with the way we make films. This is indisputable. In an industry that thrives on NOT making money, there is going to come a time in the very near future where funnily enough, losing money to make money is going to be revealed as a really bad way to make films. We need to shake things up a little.

As I'm only just starting out in the industry, I've been seeking the advice of some more seasoned players amongst the field, asking for their advice on what it is our filmmakers can change to achieve a more harmonious environment for our craft. At a short film shoot I did on Tuesday this week, I managed to have a little chat with the DOP about what his thoughts were. When I suggested that all Australian films are merely extended short films (see my next post) he agreed 100%, saying it is extremely difficult for films to sustain their momentum after the first 10 minutes. Interesting note #1.

At work on Wednesday night, one of the the owners (an up and coming screenwriter graduate from the LA Film School funnily enough) again chastised the demented processes Screen Australia enforces for potential filmmakers. His comments about the guidelines being drawn up each year were that they are too focused on producing content which reflects "Australian" values and lifestyles rather than viable, commercial projects. As a result, filmmakers cannot get the funding they need merely because it doesn't feature a thousand and one stampeding cows heading towards an Aboriginal boy on a cliff. As well as this, my friend pinpointed the problem down to the fact that we have an exceptionally small fraction of talent which rests in the layers amongst Cate Blanchett, David Michod etc, and yet an extremely large percentage of crap wannabes, who follow the guidelines set out by Screen Australia, get funding for their crappy little film, which funnily enough, is never watched by anyone and they never make another film in their lives. He said that we need to start harvesting talent properly, and he attributed this observation to his leaving the VCA after just one year, realizing it would never be able to teach him the essential tools he needed to succeed.

Interestingly enough, tonight I spoke about the issue with the director and producer of the short film I am currently PM'ing on. The director (a young yet extremely talented film student at the VCA) had many things to say about the industry but the main one falls in line with my friend from work in that, put simple; we just need to stop making crap films. There is a great pool of talent resting within this industry but the gems are finding it hard to shine amongst all the false stones due to the sheer number. As a result, they pack up and move to LA where the industry does not tolerate crapness and anyone of a mediocre demeanor is immediately sent home packing.

In a nutshell (and these are very broad statements I will be expanding on so don't start squabbling yet):

1. Australia can only make short films
2. The guidelines for funding are too ridiculous for words
3. We have the talent. We just need to cut out the crap. 

Read on for more insights into the industry. 

Hot Off The Press...Aussie Box Office

In line again with the new direction I am taking for this blog, I have created another category called "Hot Off The Press." Literally it is just me replicating articles I have seen online in other sites which I either do not have the time to reflect upon (As I do in my 'Everyone's Talking About' category) or discuss. Instead, here is the article verbatim with the necessary references:

Aus films fail to keep pace with inflation-adjusted total box office - Inside Film Online.

[Fri 03/06/2011 11:10:34]

By Brendan Swift

The performance of Australian films has failed to keep pace with the spectacular rise in inflation-adjusted box office returns over the past three decades, according to new research.

While local films’ total box office returns have more than doubled from $24.2 million in 1981 to $54.8 million in 2009, the total box office has grown at an even faster rate (see graph below).

“The exponential growth has been nothing short of extraordinary given the period has spanned the rise of home entertainment, from VHS to DVD to online distribution,” Convergen managing director Anton Andreacchio, who conducted the research, said.

“It does though paint a fairly bleak picture of the competitiveness of Australian product at the box office, which has failed to capitalize on the soaring overall demand.”

Local films' proportion of total box office peaked in 1986 with 23.5 per cent (due to Crocodile Dundee) and recorded a low of 1.3 per cent in 2004. In the past decade, Australian films take of the total box office has exceeded five per cent just twice (in 2001 with 7.8 per cent and 2010 with five per cent).

Andreacchio said the inflation-adjusted domestic box office, compared to the total box office, is almost completely flat, suggesting issues with distribution.

“It could be argued that we should have seen strong volatility in the domestic component over the past few decades given the level of volatility in the total box office, which should also have been compounded by the changes in tax incentives, funding sources, government intervention, etc.

"The absence of this and stability of domestic box office turnover clearly suggests that there are constraints on the demand-side (distribution) that are not affected by all the supply-side (production) manoeuvring."

Convergen’s technology services include feature film visual effects and architectural and urban planning applications. It is based in South Australia in the same offices as AMPCO Films, which recently produced Australian-Chinese co-production The Dragon Pearl.

The Screen Producers Association of Australia is lobbying the government to introduce a $60 million Producer Distributor Film Fund (PDFF), which it hopes will increase the number of locally-made mid-budget, commercial films.

The PDFF is aimed at producing more mid-budget films in the $7 - $30 million budget range, potentially doubling the Australian share of the $1 billion local box office to about 10 per cent, while creating about 900 jobs.



A five year moving average and area graph have been used to aggregate the short term fluctuations in both the domestic share and total box office.Source: Convergen.

The New All Media Fund and what it means for future jobs

On the 3rd of May (yes I realize that this was a while ago), Screen Australia announced it would be soon launching a new initiative within its organization known as the All Media Fund. According to the new guidelines

"The objective is to support narrative content in both linear and non-linear forms that pushes the envelope of creative storytelling, and to provide practitioners with opportunities to take risks, extend their skills and explore new storytelling tools and platforms."

Sounds great doesn't it? So why do I have a problem with this new set up?

Whilst Screen Australia and the Federal government have taken many steps towards the safeguarding of our industry (such as introducing the producer's offset then reducing it from $1m to $500,000; increasing the location offset and PDV offsets; and abolishing the thieving Division 10B/10A incentives), there are still many hurdles across which filmmakers and television producers must clamber over before receiving a cent for their productions. Over the past 3 weeks, I have been attending many seminars and talks with various filmmakers and even Heather MacFarlane herself (Project Manager for Screen Australia), all of which have outlined to me the frustration Australian filmmakers are experiencing when it comes to getting well-needed funds for their films. The reason why the industry is struggling is due mainly to the fact that it is so difficult to achieve the requirements Screen Aus outlines its funding guidelines before they even settle an agreement with the funding body.

Here are a few of the guidelines and why they are a problem for Aussie films:

1. "Screen Australia generally requires the commitment of an experienced producer as part of the team, and that the application should come from the producer."
Sounds simple enough but here's the problem. First of all, Screen Australia's definition of an "experienced" producer reads as follows: "An ‘experienced producer’ is defined as having at least one credit as producer on:

* a feature film or theatrical feature documentary that has been released on a minimum of five commercial screens in one territory, OR
* a primetime broadcast drama miniseries or telemovie.
Why is this an issue? First of all, in 2009, only 12% of movies screened across Australia's 1,989 theater screens were Australian. This accounts for just 238 screens and with theater numbers dropping each year (Numbers dropped from 525 to 492 between 2004-2009), this number is expected to decrease over the years.

So 238 screens, for the WHOLE year, to screen 37 Australian made films. At best, these films could manage to get on to 6 screens if they we

"You're Terrible Muriel" - The Problem With Australia's Film Industry: Part 1

Whilst Screen Australia and the Federal government have taken many steps towards the safeguarding of our industry (such as introducing the producer's offset then reducing it from $1m to $500,000; increasing the location offset and PDV offsets; and abolishing the thieving Division 10B/10A incentives), there are still many hurdles across which filmmakers and television producers must clamber over before receiving a cent for their productions. Over the past 3 weeks, I have been attending many seminars and talks with various filmmakers and even Heather MacFarlane herself (Project Manager for Screen Australia), all of which have outlined to me the frustration Australian filmmakers are experiencing when it comes to getting well-needed funds for their films. The reason why the industry is struggling is due mainly to the fact that it is so difficult to achieve the requirements Screen Aus outlines in its funding guidelines for their Features Development Funding Scheme.

This is issue #1 (more to be explored later):

1. "Screen Australia generally requires the commitment of an experienced producer as part of the team, and that the application should come from the producer."
Sounds simple enough but here's the problem. First of all, Screen Australia's definition of an "experienced" producer reads as follows:

An ‘experienced producer’ is defined as having at least one credit as producer on:

* a feature film or theatrical feature documentary that has been released on a minimum of five commercial screens in one territory, OR
* a primetime broadcast drama miniseries or telemovie.

Why is this an issue? First of all, in 2009, only 12% of movies screened across Australia's 1,989 theater screens were Australian. This accounts for just 238 screens and with theater numbers dropping each year (Numbers dropped from 525 to 492 between 2004-2009), this number is expected to decrease over the years.

So 238 screens, for the WHOLE year, to screen 37 Australian made films. At best, these films could manage to get on to 6 screens if they were in equal competition with eachother. However, factoring in the number of prints for each of these films, we soon realize that is not possible. The number of "prints" made by production companies each year is a particular strategy adopted to offset of stock processing and distribution. According to the Screen Australia report titled Analysis of Release Strategies and Box Office Performance 2009, "Around 82% of Australian feature films over this period were given either a limited release (less than 20 prints) or specialty release (20–99 prints)." The figures from this report show that all in all, 38 films were released on 0-19 prints, 42 were released on 20-99, 12 were released on 100-199 prints and just 5 made it into the "wide" and "blockbuster" ranges of over 200 prints (total of 97 films released on 0 - 400+ prints.)

But wait! I hear you say. You said that only 37 films were screened on Australian cinemas last year... What happened to the other 60?!

During my research, I wasn't able to come across these figures (all of these numbers by the way have been collated from the Screen Australia website.) And trying to provide an estimate as to the number of prints made from all 97 films would be foolish. We can say for certain however that a good number of them did not make their way into Australian cinemas. Popular guesses as to the current location of these rejects are that they have now been converted into draft extinguishers, footstools and stubby holders.

So how the hell can we work out then which films and their producers made it only more than 5 screens?! And more importantly, how many of these producers are still accessibly to small, independent directors/writers/production companies. Let's have a look at the top 5 highest grossing Australian films of 2009 and their associated producers:
1. Mao's Last Dancer. Executive Producer: Sue Mackay (Australian)
2. Australia. Producer: G. Mac Brown (American)
3. Knowing. Executive Producer: David Alper (American)
4. Charlie and Boots. Executive Producer: Thomas Augsberger (German)
5. Samson and Delilah. Producer: Kath Shelper (Australian)

So out of the top 5 grossing Australian films of 2009, 3 of the 5 E.P's and Producers were not Australian. And Mao's Last Dancer wasn't entirely Australian either (it was co-produced with Geng Ling from China.)

I hope you can see where I am going with all these statistics and facts. It is hard enough trying to find an idea, develop it, turn it into a script, find people who want to make it into a film, make the damn thing, and then try and convince a dwindling Australian audience to go out and watch it. How, in all of that, are Australian filmmakers expected to get an "experienced" producer attached to the project as well?

This is my argument against the very first guideline posed by Screen Australian for their Features Development Funding Scheme. Yes, there is a potential guarantee of success for the film if they are attached to an "experienced" producer. But this should be a sweetener for Screen Australia, the cherry on top. The rest should be made based on other factors relating to the concept of the film's narrative itself. Anyway, I hope this has been enlightening for you. I know I am exhausted trying to get all those numbers around my head but be warned, there are more to come, as I endeavor to expose our industry's main problems and pose solutions to them too.

(Its interesting to note that Samson and Delilah, the list's only truly Australian production, were not financed through the Features Development Funding Scheme.)

Why It Pays To Be Awesome

So you already that I was only planning to be at yesterday's industry day for an hour. Then only for another half an hour to see the stall holders. Then only 2 and a half hours to speak with them all. What I wasn't planning was staying until 4:30 to help out with the top 100 session being held at 3:00pm, a session I had not been asked to volunteer at and one I hadn't signed up for to do my assignment.

So what happened? Just as I was about to escape the Astor's ensnaring jaws, one of the girls from St Kilda pulled me aside and asked me if I knew that no one from Inside Film had arrived for the day's sessions. I was immediately stunned. Frantically checking the volunteer schedule, I realized the girl who was supposed to be doing Saturday afternoon was the same girl who bailed on the first session for the festival on Wednesday night and what ever her reasons were for not rocking up 4 days ago were obviously still impeding her.

The poor St Kilda girls had valiantly tried to do our job for us but obviously were struggling to do their own as well as hand out and collect our ratings slips in between. Without thinking about it, I immediately checked the schedule for the next day, knowing that the same girl was scheduled for Sunday as well, and called up one of the other volunteers to see if he could come in instead. Success. He was available and willing and promised me that he would be there for the afternoon.

I then grabbed the forms for the session currently screening and luckily had half an hour to organize everything for the collections before the audience emerged. It was an easy session and I quickly collected all the ratings and then prepared for my next mission - get home and back again in an hour with everything I needed for work. It was a challenge but I managed it in roughly that time frame and was back at the Astor before the next top 100 session.

Why am I telling you this? Because I am going to beat you, drown you, and smother you with this idea until it becomes second nature. You. Are. Not. Going. To. Get. Anywhere. In. This. Industry. If. You. Are. Not. Superwoman(man)

I may sound like I am being an arrogant b@#*h but if you know me well, you'll know that I don't speak that highly of myself. Ever! So why now? Because I know that my efforts to help out on Saturday were above and beyond what was expected of me and because of this, were significantly acknowledged. Both the organizers of The Inside Film awards and SKFF applauded me for my efforts and I know I will remain on their radar as someone who knows not only how to get the job done, but how to do it well.

You have to be amazing to stand out. You can not go through your life making mediocre films, writing mediocre scripts, or only just passing in your degree. P's may get degrees but they don't get jobs. Take note people: the film and TV industry does not take kindly to slackers and I am using my experience above to highlight this to you today. I hope this has been eye-opening for you.

(Since this post, I have been invited to volunteer at the Sydney Film Festival and am now traveling there on the 12th of June to help out.)

Tertiary Education vs. Work Experience

After the seminar on Saturday, I wandered over to the Astor which was hosting the afternoon sessions as well as all the organizations with their stalls. I had a great chat with my tutor from RMIT about what my plans were for after graduation and I expressed my concerns to her about whether I should apply for a postgrad at the VCA or try my luck with the industry.

Her comments were rational and thought-provoking. She expressed her concern towards me getting into another program which could inevitably prolong my entrance into the industry(something I have been freaking out about for a while now). She did however acknowledge that the course could be another opportunity for me to meet others who have the same passion and engagement with the film and TV industry and who I would most probably work with again later in my career. Her comments reminded me of the conversation I had with Adam Elliott at his talk at RMIT on Monday. During this, I asked Adam what he thought about me going to VCA and he said that for the film and TV course, he would definitely recommend VCA. For the producing course however, he expressed concern over the fact that there had been some complications with the course in the past 5 years but that he was sure these had all been ironed out now. My tutor also mentioned these issues and whilst they weren't something to put me off the VCA Producing Postgrad, they were an important item to consider in my decision (unfortunately, neither person could shed some light for me on WHAT exactly these issues were so I can't elaborate sorry. This is why I didn't consider them a major factor in my thoughts on VCA) Adam did say that the success he was experiencing in his career today was due to his attendance at the VCA. So 1 point to the tertiary education team.

After speaking with my tutor for almost half an hour about this, I wasn't planning on staying at the industry day much longer as I had an assignment to go write but my tutor suggested I go speak with the girls from WIFTVIC, or the Victorian branch of Women in Film and TV. This organization are actually hosting a talk at RMIT on Monday so I thought it would be a good idea to go ask them about it. Realizing the opportunity I had accidentally stumbled upon, I realized I should ask the girls for their opinion on the tertiary education/work experience debate and they provided some useful insights. One of the girls explained that her progression in the industry came out of her internships at a local casting company in the USA and from there she went on to become a casting coordinator and then director. I asked her about whether she had attended any tertiary institutions during her career and other than acting classes, she said she hadn't. 1 point to the work experience team.

After this, I really was planning on leaving the Astor but on my way out, happened upon the VCA table and stopped to have a 'quick chat' with the guys on the chairs. Obviously, when I said I wasn't sure about whether I wanted to go to VCA or not, they had a vested interest in convincing me to go. They did a good job, I'll admit that they were convincing, outlining the many benefits to VCA such as the great resources available, access to some of the industries best filmmakers, and countless opportunities to gain contacts and future collaborators for my career, I was hard pressed to come up with reasons to say no. Another point to tertiary education.

They were all the people I spoke to for the day. So how do the scores tally up. Ok, so there weren't many points involved but VCA did come out on top. So why am I still hesitant to launch straight into applying straight away? The answer is simple. Before I began my career at RMIT, I was on a strong pathway to launching into the industry through the work experience and contacts I had managed to collect in 2008. This was relatively easy to do as Perth, where I was based then, is a small town and the film and TV industry was similarly proportioned. So essentially, it wad easy to get work because everyone knew each other. My time during this year was spread between working voluntarily and being employed with various production companies and as a freelancers for a range of projects. In October 2008, my employer at the time gave me the invitation of a lifetime - to work as his production assistant on his next big film. The only catch? Production had not been financed, scheduled or even planned so the chances of it not happening at all were high. I had already secured my place at RMIT however, during my final year at high school and the idea was I would be moving to Melbourne in 5 months time to commence studies.

I realized what I would be doing if I turned down the job offer so I travelled to Melbourne on my own expense to speak with the head of media at RMIT to ask for another 6 months off in order to remain in Perth and be available for the next film. I was told by his secretary that this wasn't an option and he would be unable to meet with me(after arranging a meeting either him weeks before) I returned to Perth extremely disheartened, scared and confused and spent the next 4 months trying to decide whether to ditch my place at RMIT and take the risky gamble of staying in Perth or, take the even riskier gamble of saying no to the job and moving to Melbourne. Needless to say, we all know which one I chose.

Why is this important to know in my decision for next year? I am still not convinced that the decision I made in 2008 was the right one. Yes, I have been exposed to so many opportunities here in Melbourne just from being immersed in a culture that supports such a large percentage of the film and TV industry but this is severely outweighed by all the other negative experiences I have had to deal with. I can not predict the future anymore than I can turn back time and change that decision I made nearly 3 years ago. Over the next 6 months though, I will be reflecting upon this decision to either commence another degree or to work in the industry and will document my findings here to avoid the mistake I made in 2008.

St Kilda 2011 - Industry Day Seminars

This was DEFINITELY the most inspiring day of the festival so far. For those of you who don't know, the SKFF Industry Day is filled with seminars and lectures on various topics from film funding to film making and also provides an opportunity for the various film groups around Australia to open up shop and talk about their organizations. Some of the people involved included the Australian Writers Guild, Australian Directors Guild, my own university, RMIT, and the VCA. The stalls are set up for people to come and ask questions about the various organizations, there role within the industry, and how they can join. Last year, I realize now I definitely did not take enough advantage of this day. These organizations are here specifically for you and for you to speak with them about all the questions you SHOULD have about them. The day allows for the easy exchange of communication between you and the groups rather than you having to call or email them to ask your questions which in turn, makes you less likely to ask. Here's how the day went for me:

12:30pm - First Seminar: AND NOW... WHAT? NEXT STEPS FOR SHORT FILMMAKERS.
I didn't read into the bio for this session too much before I rocked up and I was worried about being late too so really had no idea what to expect (the best way to go into a seminar) Hosted by Open Channel and moderated by Marc Gracie, the forum was organized to allow 4 key short filmmakers to discuss their pathways into the industry and what the next step is for them as content makers. These filmmakers included Andy Mullins (of Sand Hill Road films, director of the SKFF award winning Minnie Loves Junior); Rebecca Penniston-Bird (of Renegade Films); Glendyn Ivin (of Exit films and Director of Playground); and finally, Thomas Baricevic (of Jackson Black Films and director of Home)
All the panels members were invited to speak of their experiences with the industry and it was surprising to hear how differently everyone started out. Glendyn comes from a design background and worked as a graphic designer for 10 years before undergoing what he called "an early mid life crisis" at the age of 27. From there, he went on to do a postgrad at VCA, a move which he contributes to his success as a filmmaker (Glendyn won the Palme D'or in 2003 for his movie Crackerbag)

Thomas began his career as an engineer, then went on to study at VCA in the sculpture and then film courses. His Croatian background has influenced many of his projects and his films are considered to be highly multicultural works of art. Rebecca's career began when after having made short films for a while, Renegade films chanced upon her showreel and offered her a job. Since then, she has been working for Renegade as a Director/Producer, with the company's focus ranging from TVCs to Television series. Rebecca also studied the Bachelor of Arts at Melbourne University. Finally, Andy Mullins' career neither originated in tertiary education or filmmaking placements on film sets. Rather, his brother and him set up a line of pubs which helped to fund Minnie Loves Junior. Andy attributed his success with the film to the success he had in his hospitality business.

The remainder of the seminar consisted of Gracie guiding the filmmakers to speak about their experiences in the industry focusing on how they developed their own works of art and how they have then progressed to the level they are right now in their careers. Throughout the seminar, each person provided a few interesting tips for filmmaking. From Glendyn, I found out that most DOP's find it difficult to look at a script visually in the same way a director does. This means that for a lot of writers, he has found that many of them have their worked turned down specifically because "they can't see beyond the script." Andy spoke of the importance of having another business or career to support you financially during production. All of the filmmakers in fact mentioned how they had some other form of income separate to their filmmaking and how this was integral to them being able to finance their films.

I'm trying very hard to summarize everything I learned during the seminar but it is very difficult ad these guys just had one useful tidbit after another. In dot form, here are the other pointers the group provided:

- Q. What is a producer?
Glendyn - a producer is the person who finds you an elephant. The amount of money they have will determine how shiny that elephant is but you can bet on it that a great producer will go to great lengths to get you that elephant. "If you team up with a producer and become very tight, it can turn into a scenario where if you're not working, they're not working, and if they're not working, you're not working."
- Producer director roles are complimentary
Adam - Directors have to have an element of producer in them to get stuff done.
Thomas - worked with quite a few producers. At the start, you end up becoming a producer in order to get the ball rolling

- Q. . Career pathways are about material ideas but are also beyond materials as well. How do you find your material?
Glendyn- made a decision earlier this year that when offered a script, doesn't want to know how much money is attached. Asks himself, do I want to spend time making this? You choose to do work that you want to do not that you have to do. That work is going to be better than the work you have to do and better work will attract better work.
Andy - scenes, production going on inside his head. The way I look at the world, I am always asking, are people interested in this, would they pay for it, is it interesting? "Material comes to me in the format of is this commercial, if two people turn up, would they tell others?"(not verbatim)
- 'have to direct that film to make it the best film that anyone has seen for that script, not to further your career'
Gracie - the rigor of script is much greater. For young filmmakers, you have to be aware of how hard it is to get stuff put on screen.
Thomas - over the summer, was fishing for something to do. Spent a whole lot of time digging in the backyard. Found his material through that. Spent last four five months enduring to get this project off the ground.
Rebecca - "everyday is jam-packed with material." Rarely see that reflected in the script. She is a reluctant writer. Enjoys the process but doesn't have the passion to do it. Likes to find people who do have that passion.

Q. How can you progress from making corporate videos to making commercials?
Glendyn- the trick is, regardless of how good your shorts are, it doesn't make any sense to the ad world unless it is 30 seconds long. Cut your short reel down to 30 seconds to show that you can tell a story in 30 seconds. -(THIS IS A GREAT IDEA!!!)
- The industry overall, everybody is looking for the idea that you hopefully respond to on a personal idea, the more original the idea, the more likely people will respond to it
Rebecca - it's not a world of creativity. Ad world tends to ask you not to do anything too creative. They want to sell a toaster, thats all.
Glendyn - didn't make any money from ads for 3-4 years. Juniors at Exit films are freaking out because they can't see a way to make money either. Your bank balance goes down but the work stays there.

Q. When is it worth giving away your work?
Thomas - depends on how desperate you are to make a film. Have to protect your work at some point as well.
Rebecca - "if you're passionate about tennis, is that the best avenue for making a tennis film?" (questioner asked whether she should make film for Australian open film comp)
Gracie - in the real world, you generally don't want to hold on to your work. If you come up to me and say 'I have great idea but I can't tell you about it yet because I haven't worked out how to protect it yet', I'm not going to hang about till you have figured it out.
Glendyn - short films don't make money. It's more about the calling card.
Andy - Do it because the process of doing it is another film made. It's hard to get a seat at the table; scratch and crawl your way up to get that seat. Give your films away to get in.

Q. What is the next step after the short?
Gracie - it depends on how good the last film was. Nash(Edgerton) had to reinvent his career. His feature wasnt so good. He went back to making shorts and now he can go back to making another feature.
Glendyn - "I love making shorts. You either love it or you don't. I would just love to make another short."
Andy - It's easy. do something a little different to the last film you made.
Thomas - you will learn something from making the last film you made.
Gracie - the important thing about shooting film is shooting film.
Glendon- you feel so much better making a mistake on the films you care about then the ones you don't.

Q. Is it good to look forward to making features after shorts?
Glendyn - greatest experience of my life making a feature film. Not necessarily something I want to make again.

Q. Why don't people go see Australian films?
Rebecca - there have been too many disappointments. Once they see one bad film, that taints their experience. We need to be more ambitious
Andy- disagrees with the idea that Australians don't see Australian films. When they hit, they hit hard.
Gracie - making short films or features is about making other worlds. You can do it in ads, shorts, features. It's a way to make more lives. Whether the path to feature films is there or not, it's still a difficult one.
Glendyn- if that's something you really want to do, you have to do it. .

-working with and finding your crew:
Andy - where does the line blur in short films and docos for producer/director? Called up his line producer/editor/cinematographer and kept calling to say that he loved their work and wanted to work with them

So there you have it. A MAJOR summary of the seminar but hopefully you found some of it interesting/useful. And I'm going to say this again but you HAVE to take advantage of this sort of stuff going on in Melbourne. It's not hard to find out about seminars and events like SKFF happening in this great city - the key is just being open to finding it. Sign up to newsletters. Read Inside Film, Encore and ScreenHub to be up to date with the current events. And more than anything, get the website of your favorite director/producer/writer/crew on an RSS feed and know what is happening with the them and what they are doing. Being up to date with them will give you a better chance of communicating with them if you do get the chance to meet them at some point.

I'm going to leave you with a quote from the seminar by the host which I think sums up the main point of the day and I hope you take note:

Marc Gracie - "You make that path. No one ever, ever opens that door for you."

Did you know...

Here are a few interesting ideas/tips/thoughts I have procured during the research I have been conducting for our Mi1 Project:

1. A new trend in television set design is moving away from physical sets to digital. Shows from entertainment to news and sports are using computer graphic backgrounds...
There are two major drawbacks to virtual sets. The first drawback is that they have a tendency to look artificial. Sets that look real with rich textures and light gradients that can move and zoom push current processing speeds to the limit. However, the loss of realism can be a benefit to some programs looking for an alternative to a realistic set.
- Computer Graphics Quarterly, Vol 42, No. 2, The Future of Television Graphics, Edsall, Sam.

2. The most important element of our television is the work that is produced here, by us, about us, reflecting our values, our foibles, our weaknesses, our history. Australian television drama is fundamental to our culture. And it’s a fragile creature. It doesn’t happen because of free market money, it happens because of government regulation and funding support. Those regulations and that funding support are vital. At its best both film and television is inspirational, it reflects the sort of people we would want to be and the people we would not want to be. It is in itself a moral narrative of the times.
- Margaret Pomeranz, Hector Crawford Lecture, SPAA Conference 2011

3. The Australian Content Standard requires the three commercial networks to ensure 55 per cent of the programs screened between 6am and midnight is locally made, with subquotas for adult drama, children's programs and documentaries. The ABC is expected to screen about 14 hours of Australian drama this year, down from a peak of more than 100 hours in the early 1990s.
-Miller, Kylie. "Warning on Future of Australian Drama." The Age [Melbourne] 15 Aug. 2005: 86. Print.

4. As they reconfigure themselves as cross-platform media content providers, public service broadcasters enter new territory with regards to their audience, their content, their relations with producers and their status in the marketplace, invoking more exacting requirements for governance and accountability, and new commercial enemies. As a result of these complexities difgital innovation by public service media is becoming a growing area of study…As a group, they(the BBC, Channel 4, ABC and SBS) also illustrate the wide-ranging new inititves emerging across the digital and online platforms of public broadcasters; cross platform programming: user-generated content (UGC); audience participation; the delivery of linear programming with opportunies to interact on an on-deman basis; and the generation of social networks and communities, connected to resources and activities of other public institutions. (pg 185-186)
-Reinventing Public Service Television for the Digital Future. Mary Debrett. 2011.

5. With so many channels and technologies of distribution and circulation, it has been increasingly impossible for any hit show, no matter how successful, to register the kinds of ratings achievable in earlier phases of television. In turn, several responses to this situation are now evident. One of these is stagnation, if not a drop, in the system’s demand for more expensive forms of prime-time programming.... In other words, in characterizing the present era of New Television as one of abundance, it has to be borne in mind that this tendency only occurs with certain programming genres, indeed occurs at the expense of other types of content. (pg 281 – 297)
-Wasko, Janet. A Companion to Television. Malden, MA: Blackwell Pub., 2005. Print.