Rod Allan, chief executive of Docklands Studios Melbourne. ‘The studio is being used more widely, and that was the ideal a few years ago’.
EVEN by the standards of the forever fluky film industry, the young life of Docklands Studios Melbourne has been rocky. However, after two name changes, a change of ownership, a government bailout and much gnashing of teeth, the purpose-built film and television studio that sits in the windswept shadow of the Bolte Bridge has this month made it to its 10th anniversary.
“The 10 years is an opportunity worth celebrating,” says studio chief executive Rod Allan. “A lot of production has come through here in the last 10 years, international and domestic.”
The mere survival of the complex is worth celebrating. The Docklands studio hasn’t had it quite as easy as its two peers.
Sydney’s Fox Studios Australia has survived a downturn in the number of international film productions coming to Australia by hosting Hollywood films fuelled by Australian talent and the 40 per cent producer offset — ¬including Baz Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby, Stuart Beattie’s I, Frankenstein and currently Alex Proyas’s Gods of Egypt —and a steady flow of TV talent shows, including The Voice.
Meanwhile, the Gold Coast’s Village Roadshow Studios has plugged away with steady production including The Railway Man and Bait, a valuable water tank and a solid community of film services.
But Docklands struggled for years after the initial fanfare by the Bracks Labor state government in 2001 of a grand public-private partnership that would bring Hollywood to Melbourne.
The reality was Hollywood brought the occasional film to Docklands — such as Spike Jonze’s Where The Wild Things Are (Allan’s favourite during his time at the studio), thriller The Killer Elite, with Robert De Niro, and the Nicolas Cage vehicle Ghost Rider— but not at a sustainable rate.
Estimates that the studio would generate $100 million in film production every year and deliver “lasting economic and cultural benefits’’ were wildly optimistic. As it happened, the studio ¬recorded successive multimillion-dollar losses and, in 2008, Victoria was forced to take control, at a further cost of $15m, after shareholders withdrew.
Those days appear to be past after the studio, and government, realised Hollywood would not be enough. “Originally, the focus was much more international,” Allan says. “In the last five years, we’ve had to maintain that focus, but at the same time make sure the studio is available to the domestic market. I think we’ve done that quite successfully.”
A deal with the Nine Network ensures one studio is well used at all times, hosting programs -including The Footy Show and Millionaire Hot Seat.
Network Seven uses the studio for its local drama Winners & Losers and Slide Show and, before that, Australia’s Got Talent. As well, smaller Australian films — including horror remake Patrick, Kath & Kimdrella and, most recently, David Parker’s comedy drama with Noah Taylor, The Menkoff Method — have been able to afford space at Docklands.
“Certainly, the high Australian dollar has made it very difficult to attract production under the location offset, which we refer to as footloose productions,” Allan says.
“That’s an aspect of the market that has definitely slowed, which is why we and Ausfilm continue to lobby the government to increase the location offset to 30 per cent. “Currently, the 15 per cent incentive (plus usually a mixture of state government incentives) is not enough to be competitive globally,’’ he says.
The global success of The Lego Movie, produced in Sydney by Australian digital studio Animal Logic for Warner Bros and Village Roadshow, has helped generate interest, particularly with the lift in PDV (post-production, digital and visual effect) Incentive to 30 per cent. The Lego Movie used that incentive. “At 30 per cent, we’d still have to compete with everyone else, but that 30 per cent would make us competitive again,” Richards says.
Michael Bodey – The Australian – April 16, 2014