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Opinion
A night at the unintentionally amusing AACTAs
Encore managing editor Brooke Hemphill attends the inaugural AACTA awards and comes away cringing.
Last night the inaugural Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts awards were held at Sydney’s Opera House as the Australian film and television community gathered to celebrate the achievements of the past 12 months and those who went along for the ride left vaguely amused, with little thanks to the event’s producers. Read more »
Knocking the summer television model of old
This year’s non-ratings period could signal the dawning of a new era. Steve Molk considers the It’s a Knockout model.
Normally the minute the ratings period ends, viewers switch off the television in droves. There’s usually naught on they’ve not already seen, or some extremely poor sitcom from the US. But this year, Ten have been trying a different approach as they revive a retro favourite. Welcome back It’s A Knockout.
Niche versus mass market: big just isn’t better at the cinema
Chris Murray laments the demise of independent cinemas and the rise of generic shopping centre multiplexes with their get ‘em in, bang ‘em out culture.
Punters visit the cinema for an exciting communal experience, not the ease of parking.
As the multiplex struggles to keep the candy bar traffic flowing, automated cogs pump out digital images and the passionate few who strive to make their independent exhibition houses a cultural beacon (The Ritz, The Astor, Chauvel and so on) face impending doom. It’s an education problem, to be honest. Read more »Confessions of a two screening tragic
For today’s TV viewer, one screen isn’t enough. Steve Molk tells us why networks need to take notice of two screening.
My name is Steve Molk and I like to live tweet television shows. A lot. I get a kick from connecting with people who watch the same programs I do and together we discuss, joke, and in the blood sport that is ABC1’s Q&A, compete to see our tweets on screen. Read more »
A sexy funding solution for an age-old problem
Chris Murray proposes an ingenious plan to help fund local screen productions with the naughty dollar.
It has recently come to light that the Hungarian government has some innovative ideas for supporting their local film industry. By introducing three different taxes, our European friends plan to channel funds into local productions and ailing art house cinemas.
The first tax would apply to local porn websites; another, a three per cent tax on multiplex tickets, to funnel into art house exhibition; and finally a general 20 per cent tax break on foreign productions.
According to Variety, the latter has so far generated a US$98 million injection into the local economy via the miniseries World Without End, The Borgias and feature film 47 Ronin starring Keanu Reeves. This is on top of income from Brad Pitt’s US$125m budgeted zombie flick World War Z which is currently shooting in the Hungarian capital, Budapest. Read more »
No dramas, sadly
If there’s a time that Foxtel’s marketing machine outdoes itself, it’s when it comes to reveal its future year’s programming.
Last night Foxtel made the most of having its hands on the Sydney Opera House for the Australia’s Next Top Model final and announced its plans for 2012 too.
It was a glitzy upfront, attended by media agencies and trade journalists, plus plenty of Foxtel personalities.
But comparing it to last year’s affair, the emphasis appears to have shifted away from local drama. Read more »
Want more Swamp People? Then drop the local content quota
The short-sighted idea of dropping TV networks’ local content quota obligations was put back on the agenda today with ad agency CEO Mat Baxter claiming the safety net can now be removed, because we’re all loving local content.
But Australian programs rating well, and the Australian TV industry thriving are completely different.
Despite the high ratings of Packed to the Rafters and The X Factor, what is the likelihood commercial programmers would keep investing in Australian shows? Slim, Read more »
Fox Studios comes out of hibernation as the bustling screen hub we want to see
A few months back I visited Fox Studios in Sydney to view the filming of a commercial for Earth Hour.
The main thing that struck me (apart from the massively rude security guy on the gate) was how depressingly empty most of the place was.
It was desolate. It had the atmosphere of a business district on a Sunday afternoon rather than the film hub of one of the world’s great cities.
Today though, the feeling is very different. Read more »
If scripts could talk
This week the Screen Producers Association of Australia presented its list of seven projects that it will be putting in the shop window at its conference. But the SPAAmart list omitted the names of the script writers. A member of the Australian Writers Guild offers this alternative version of events.
Trouble is brewing over this year’s SPAA conference, with the scripts selected for the feature film shop window staging a sit-in at SPAA head office.
Wake Up Dead, a particularly fat script, blocked the door of the SPAA lunchroom just before lunch yesterday while other scripts phoned media outlets with a list of demands.
Sci-fi thriller The Room was clearly angry, “I mean, we all wrote ourselves, didn’t we? Read more »
The screen industry should run on ingenuity, not politics
Popcorn Taxi’s Chris Murray suggests a taxi service and pie van could keep the industry moving – an industry that should be founded on ingenuity and creativity rather than politics.
It would seem, based on serial offenders to the numerous blogs in and around the Australian Film Industry, that as a generalisation, filmmakers have a lot of time on their hands.
SPAA to lobby for content quotas on multi-channels
SPAA will host a Parliamentary Breakfast in Canberra tomorrow, to discuss measures to boost TV production, as well as the distributor Commercial Film Fund Initiative and an increase in funding for SBS.
Executive director Geoff Brown said that while commercial networks had already received a “massive boost” to their bottom line with the reduction of their licence fees, content creators should be acknowledged for the role they will play in the digital switchover – not with financial incentives, but with an immediate lift in drama (adult/children’s) and documentary sub-quotas for the multi-channels.
The organisation also wants Government to institute minimum licence fees for television sub-quotas in adult drama, children’s television and documentary.
Another point of discussion will be the three-year $30m film fund to stimulate distributor investment in mid-range features ($7-30m) that SPAA discussed in the April issue of Encore (10 Solutions to Heal the Industry) and as part of its submission for the Federal Government’s screen industry review.
“The rationale for the fund is to harness the market knowledge and power of feature film distributors in the cause of an outward-looking, ambitious Australian industry. A paper with detailed financial modelling showing higher than average investor return will be presented in Canberra on Wednesday,” said Brown.
SPAA will endorse SBS’s bid for increased funding of $30m, which Brown said would increase adult drama by 30 hours and documentary by 50.
Attendees will include Bob Campbell (Screentime), Brian Rosen, Daniel Scharf, Jenny Lalor and Michael Bourchier, and from SPAA president Antony I. Ginnane.
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