Tag Archives: documentary

Who Killed the Documentary?: Screen Australia replies

An Open Letter to the Documentary Sector,

We note Dr Trevor Graham’s concerns in his article ‘Docos Slaughtered for Ratings Success’ and we appreciate his very thoughtful analysis of the current state of play and the subsequent debate around broadcaster licensing priorities.

In recent years there has been an increase in hours of documentary series and a subsequent decrease in one-off documentaries commissioned by the public broadcasters. Nevertheless, Screen Australia continues to have a demonstrated commitment to one-off documentaries. We recognise the important contribution of these films to a diverse and healthy documentary sector.

Currently we support one-off documentaries through a variety of programs and we are also engaged with the issues Trevor raises in a number of ways:

• Over the past three years we have consistently developed many more one-off documentaries than series. Approximately 65% of our development projects in 2011/12 were one-offs.

• Over the last three years the number of one-off documentaries to which we have contributed production investment has been steady at approximately 45 projects per year.

• Our Signature Program which supports one off documentaries with a strong authorial voice and does not require a broadcast presale in order to receive our support is unique. Last year it was increased from $700,000 to $1.4 million. We have split the funds into two rounds per year in response to feedback from filmmakers.

• Screen Australia recently announced a new intensive workshop to inspire Australian filmmakers to create feature documentaries – the Think Big Documentary Lab. The workshop will be led by Simon Chinn Academy Award®–winning producer of Man on Wire, Project Nim and Searching for Sugar Man. He will be supported by Australian filmmakers Gillian Armstrong, Matt Bate and Tony Krawitz.

• Developing new digital platforms and pathways for innovative documentaries through the NDP and more recently our Multiplatform Production Fund has been a particular focus. For example the award winning Big Stories Small Towns (IDFA, SXSW), Goa Hippy Tribe (IDFA, SXSW).

• Screen Australia continues the strong tradition of support for new and emerging Australian documentary filmmakers through the joint ABC-Screen Australia Initiative of one-off documentaries, Opening Shot. This Initiative advances the careers of a new generation of documentary filmmakers.

We want to engage with a wide audience where possible and we encourage filmmakers to access many types of distribution, broadcasting and on-line delivery. We work closely with both public broadcasters as well as subscription channels and acknowledge there is broadcaster demand for factual content which includes series. That said, our funding mix will continue reflect our commitment to a diverse documentary culture.

Yours sincerely

Fiona Cameron
Chief Operating Officer

12 September 2012

Documentary: Trevor Graham on Who Killed Documentary?

At this year’s Australian International Documentary Conference (AIDC), in Adelaide, Screen Australia`s CEO, Ruth Harley, described me as a “veteran documentary filmmaker”. If 30 years in the business and 30+ films under my belt makes me a veteran then so be it. I also have a few ‘war’ medals to wear in the way of various national and international film and television awards. Thanks Ruth for your nod to my years in the industry, much appreciated. But this veteran, like many of my esteemed colleagues, is on his last war-weary legs. After all these years in the business of film and TV it hasn`t become any easier – for veterans and new recruits alike. In fact the current climate for producing documentary in Australia, and abroad, is the worst I’ve seen it.

Let’s not have any illusions though. Australian documentary makers have always had it tough – I knew that when I co-produced and co-directed my first film, Red Matildas, in the early 1980s. But once upon a time there were some rewards. Our documentary work was lauded and considered amongst the best in the world. We were recognised at international festivals, won awards and we gained recognition, at home too, critical reviews, TV broadcasts and sometimes via the cinema. Once upon a time, we produced documentaries about compelling contemporary social issues and matters of import to our national life. We made films about the work of socially motivated eye surgeons, like Fred Hollows (For All the World to See 1993) or other international heroes, like the struggles of East Timor’s former President Jose Ramos Horta (The Diplomat 2000) and in my own instance a film about our home grown Native Title champion, Eddie Koiki Mabo (Mabo Life of an Island Man 1997).

“Australia used to be at the forefront”, proclaimed Bob Connolly at the annual AIDC talkfest this year. Connolly’s another veteran of the documentary trenches – one of the filmmakers behind publicly acclaimed and award winning works like, Rats in the Ranks (1996) and Mrs Carey’s Concert (2010). Connolly went on loudly and emotionally about the current state of documentary, now controlled almost exclusively by our public broadcasters. They are, he said, “transforming our industry, concerned with artistry and high endeavour, into a sausage factory, turning out, with some very honourable exceptions, what can only be described as fodder. In other words, we as an industry are busily engaged in eliminating the concept of art. That’s what I was brought up to believe was the end point of all this , concerned with creative excellence.”

So what’s happened? Who’s the assassin? Who killed the documentary ‘goose’ and our long tradition of socially engaged storytelling? Well the short answer is our two publicly owned broadcasters, the ABC and SBS, along with the current administration at Screen Australia, the Federal government’s screen funding agency.

Currently, the near universal funding mechanism for documentary requires a presale commitment from a national broadcaster, which is then backed up and enhanced with investment from Screen Australia, whose brief it is to support, underpin and advance Australian screen culture. Broadcasters purchase a license to broadcast a documentary they commission, for approximately 25% to 50% of its total cost and the remainder of the budget is often supported by a patchwork of funders, Screen Australia, state funding agencies like Screen NSW, and by what is known as the Producer Offset, a reimbursement of 20% of budget to television producers, paid by the Australian Tax Office, on completion of the project.

But despite the average contribution of either SBS or the ABC being only a quarter, to half the budget, they want and have all the power–the power to green light a project, along with increasingly high levels of editorial and creative control. If you need some proof of who is responsible for killing the golden goose, knock on the door of either of our public broadcasters and their documentary commissioning editor teams. Try presenting them with today’s equivalent, social issue stories, like those of Eddie Koiki Mabo, Jose Ramos Horta, or Fred Hollows. Try convincing them to buy a story on one of the most divisive social/environmental issues of our times–climate change. You’d be laughed at, shown the door.

But it’s not as simple as that either. Public broadcasters are now desperate for ratings; it’s a competitive market out there, gaining the attention of the national television audience in a multi platform environment. And now, our public broadcasters want to compete with commercial broadcasters as audiences fragment with the on-line offerings provided by the internet. And here’s the rub; to compete more successfully our public broadcasters want series, not stand alone documentaries.

For 30 years I have made my name, reputation and livelihood from producing and directing ‘one off’ documentaries. The ‘one off doco’ is akin to the authored novel. A single story, hard hitting, that tells a complete narrative unto itself. There’s NO next week, NO next episode, NO weekly instalment like, Downtown Abbey. It’s a single hit–one crack at an audience. And it used to be regular, weekly TV fare, on both SBS and the ABC. It’s how I, and most of my colleagues, made our reputations and living. From 2005 to 2007, SBS TV prided itself with Australian seasons of locally made stories in a strand it specially created called, Storyline Australia. The ABC too would regularly run ‘one off’ documentaries about us Australians–stories from all over the continent and made by many producers.

These ‘one offs’ are what made our doco makers famous around the world–the works of David Bradbury, Bob Connolly and Robin Anderson, Dennis O’Rourke and even the documentary oeuvre of acclaimed drama director Gillian Armstrong.

But the ‘factual television series’ is now all the vogue and the figures speak for themselves. In 2009, 50% of documentaries commissioned by the ABC were single documentaries and the other half series. By 2012, series accounted for 70% of the ABC’s commissioning, with less than 14 hours of one offs. And it’s even more diabolical at SBS. In 2007, SBS’s Storyline Australia, broadcast a staggering 26 hours of one off documentaries, just in that one strand. And then there were other single programs and series in other weekly strands. For up to 26 weeks of the year SBS audiences could tune into locally made stories, reflecting the great cultural diversity of Australia.

Among them gems like, Esben Storm’s, The Bridge at Midnight Trembles (nominated for a Logie), 2 Mums and a Dad and Vote Yes for Aborigines. Some rated well. Some didn’t. But that wasn’t the point. Storyline Australia was there on the TV schedule, week in week out, for audiences that appreciated the locally made, ‘one off’ documentary. This staggering output, that must now be considered ‘a golden age’, has now been reduced in 2012 to a shameful five hours of ‘one off’ documentary programs.

One has to ask, where is the ‘public’ in public broadcasting when it comes to the last four to five years of SBS programming? What did, James May’s Toy Storie or Top Gear Australia have to do the with the SBS charter to provide services that, “inform, educate and entertain all Australians and, in doing so, reflect Australia`s multicultural society”? From SBS recently, outside of a couple of worthwhile series like, Go Back to Where You Came From, there has been scant commitment to local Australian documentary stories.

So what are Australian audiences missing out on? Why is it important and why should we care? Why am I whingeing and what do ‘one off’ stories provide that series don’t? Am I just bitching about change I don’t like? It is summed up with one all important word, DIVERSITY.

A top notch Australian ‘one off’ documentary will engage, entertain, inform and educate audiences, and even trigger water cooler discussions next day. They are an important arm of our ‘civic culture’. They bring Australian life, hopes, dreams, losses, heroes, and ordinary folk to our screens–and are part of our national ‘family album’. And they help put the ‘public’ into ‘public broadcasting’, by holding up a mirror to our life as a nation. But the move to factual series radically cuts across these values of diversity. Not only do we now have fewer stories from fewer producers, but the breadth and depth of stories and storytelling is vastly reduced. The one series’ scenario plays out over many episodes, where-as previously there may have been many different stories.

This undermines the democratic nature, of many voices, many styles, and sadly also leaves one questioning the current values of public broadcasting in Australia. By way of example try proposing to the ABC stories about the many problems facing rural Australia, like declining farm incomes, the steady population drift to the big cities. Or, who will take over the family farm? The answer will be, “We’ve done that mate! Country Town Rescue”. Yes they have done it and it was a fine series of eight half hour programs. But what it also did was, replace the resources of a potential four one hour programs, four different stories from four different rural or regional communities across Australia.

Instead, the township of Trundle, in Country Town Rescue, is meant to be emblematic of all regional and rural Australian communities, and so the ABC puts all its eggs into the one ‘series’ basket. But does Trundle really represent the length and breadth of regional and rural Australia and all the significant issues they face? Surely not. But it has to if all the financial resources for regional stories have been used in that one series. And, it’s easy to see who the loser is – the very people the broadcaster is trying to entice, the audience.

The predominance of the factual series on the ABC also affects the diversity of storytelling styles, as much as it does the content. Take for instance the recent history series, Australia on Trial, presented by Michael Cathcart, which recreated three historic trials that were meant to throw light on Australia’s colonial development. An enormous amount of public money from both the ABC and Screen Australia were devoted to this three hour series, with its lavish courtroom recreations.

But this series format, narrowed down the three historic trials, to the perspective of one, single viewpoint, that of historian Michael Cathcart. Whether you agree with Cathcart’s view of the trials and our history or not, isn’t my point. Rather, that his is the only viewpoint, on offer in the 3 hour series–as though our national story can be filtered for us, the national audience, through the viewpoint of Cathcart alone, one single, male, white historian. There was no-one else across the three hours of television. No other viewpoint; as though our history is uncontested. Cathcart’s history is official. It’s on the ABC. It’s co-funded by Screen Australia. It’s almost Stalinism.

It’s insidious in other ways too. This concentration of the ‘national story’ the ‘national photo album’ into too few producer hands has long term editorial and business implications. Both the ABC and SBS continue to commission programs from independent companies, but they are increasingly the ‘big’ companies, those capable of producing longer series and format television. Not “The individual”. The freelancer, or the maverick as some would no doubt describe them. The “bedroom filmmakers” is how Connolly described doco makers at AIDC. The danger is that the bigger production companies, usually Melbourne or Sydney centric, with their larger overheads, need to play it safe with their relationship to public broadcasters. They will only present ideas they know the broadcasters will like and see as relevant to their quest for ratings, and in the case of SBS, its commercial advertising agenda. It’s like shrinking the national creative gene pool–for genetically modified factual television.

And commissioning editors from both broadcasters increasingly micro manage the creative processes. It can include writing and supplying their preferred narration, and as Bob Connolly commented, “It has become normal, in some large production houses, to actually exclude the director from the editing room, once the film is shot.”

Less diversity of production companies affects editors and directors of photography too, because the pool of work is simply more concentrated in series production. Six ‘one off’ producers might use six different post production businesses to complete their single program. The producer of a six hour series does a great deal with ONE post house. So the gene pool of industry business shrinks too.

There is strong anecdotal evidence that the drive to factual series production above the ‘one off’ documentary is being driven not so much by programmers at our national broadcasters, but by their marketing departments. They get more bang for their marketing buck with a series that lasts four to six weeks, than what the resources or time they would need promoting the equivalent hours for individual programs. If this is true, then it’s another example of ‘spin doctoring’ our national narrative. Or, a case of the tail wagging the dog.

The Federal Government’s screen funding agency, Screen Australia, has a lot to answer for in my view. It has allowed this scenario to grow and grow and handed over all power to the broadcasters about what projects they invest in. As holders of the public’s ‘film investment purse’ they need a stronger voice in promoting the ‘art of documentary’ to advance and nurture our screen industries and the talents that underpin it. There also needs to be some checks and balances on the rating aspirations within our public broadcasters. Being relevant to a national audience isn’t just about numbers. It’s about debate, it’s about engagement, it’s about ideas, and seeking out a multitude of stories, from every nook and cranny, the unusual, the unknown, the exotic, the madcap. This requires editorial imagination, vision, courage, confidence and leadership.

It’s time Screen Australia and our public broadcasters stepped up to the plate and reclaimed their responsibility to promote a diversity of views through factual stories, and to nurture those who do it for them, the Australian documentary makers of our time.
by: Trevor Graham

Screen Hub
Monday 10 September, 2012

Trevor Graham
Trevor Graham is the writer and director of, Make Hummus Not War, which had its World Premiere at the Melbourne International Film Festival in August. It was produced without television presales and funded via Screen Australia’s Signature Program, the Premier Fund of MIFF, Screen NSW, the Telematics Trust and Fine Cut Films. The film has a theatrical release in Melbourne commencing 15th of September. Graham is the former Co-Chair of the Australian International Documentary Conference and a former commissioning editor at SBS TV.

INPUT SYDNEY presents: Is the Web the Future of Documentaries?

Input Sydney –  May 7 – 11 at Hoyts Cinemas, The Entertainment Quarter, Moore Park.

What does it take to make a successful web documentary and how can online
technologies contribute to the art of storytelling? As Internet connectivity and speeds
improve, audiences are spending more time online and patterns and behaviours of
narrative consumption are evolving.

Documentaries are evolving as well with more and more documentaries being
commissioned exclusively for the online platform – tapping the traditional power of
narrative video but augmenting this with audio, photos, textual content, data
visualisation, user generated content and other interactivity.

In this session (Thursday May 10 from 2pm to 5pm)we hear from some of the world’s
leaders in this space about successful projects and what might happen next.

Projects to be presented and discussed are:

Afghanistan (France – Broadcaster: ARTE)
Letting Afghanis have their say and intersecting points of view: these are the two
underlying principles of the web-documentary Afghanistan, devoted to Afghanistan
a decade after the outbreak of the war following the attack on the world Trade Centre
towers in New York.
www.arte.tv/afghanistan

In Situ (France – Broadcaster: ARTE)
In Situ is a poetic essay and interactive documentary about the urban space in
Europe seen through very diverse artistic experiences and inventions. Antoine
Viviani (Author, filmmaker, producer) will be at INPUT to present In Situ.
www.arte.tv/insitu

The arab world in revolution(s) (France – Broadcaster: ARTE)
With the Arab world is undergoing unpredictable, revolutionary change. ARTE
followed the issue from different perspectives, not only on television, but also online,
staying close to the people and events, especially when they were no longer topical or
eventful enough for other media to cover.
ww.arte.tv/arabworld

The Block (Australia – Broadcaster: SBS)
A sneak preview of this major SBS production, to be launched in July 2012, which is
described as a time capsule about the indigenous-owned neighbourhood in Redfern,
NSW, told by residents past and present. (URL not available)

Bear 71 (Canada – Broadcaster: National Film Board of Canada)
Bear 71 is about a grizzly bear in Banff National Park, who was collared at the age of
three and was watched her whole life via trail cameras in the park. Following Bear 71,
the web documentary explores the connections between the human and animal
world, and the far-ranging effects that human settlements, roads and railways have
on wildlife. The documentary features a map of Banff National Park that allows
users to follow Bear 71’s movements by scrolling over the cameras, and look at other
users by activating the computer’s webcam. Bear 71 went live on the NFB website on
January 19, 2012. It was also the subject of an installation at the 2012 Sundance Film
Festival’s New Frontier program beginning January 20, followed by the Utah
Museum of Contemporary Art. One of two producers, Jeremy Von Mendes, will be at
INPUT.
(http://bear71.nfb.ca)

“This session brings together high calibre digital pioneers – program makers and
broadcasters at the forefront of on-line documentary from around the world to
present these ground-breaking web documentaries,” says session moderator
Marshall Heald, Director of Online & Emerging Platforms at SBS.

“These projects provide an exciting peak into the future evolution of digital content
in a post NBN world and how content makers can exploit technology to tell engaging
stories in new and interesting ways whether through explorations of form, function,
interactivity or method of audience engagement”

Participants in this session are:

Marshall Heald, SBS
Sabine Lange, ARTE
Jeremy Von Mendes, NFB
Antonie Viviani, Filmmaker

INPUT SYDNEY will feature a multi-platform/on-line session each afternoon of the
conference.
Marshall Heald will also moderate Comedy Rules the World – How to make a Hit
Comedy Series on the Internet (Tuesday May 8). Unconditional Love and Touch
Screens, on Wednesday May 9, will interrogate the world cross media for children.
The session on Friday May 11 is 10 Ways to involve your Audience and use Social
Media.

INPUT is based on the principal of television in the public interest – a meeting place
where broadcasters, commissioners, programmers, producers and directors from 50
countries and five continents come together to share programs, ideas and
aspirations.

The Conference runs in a different country each year, screening and debating around
70 hours of international programming. It is a unique ‘whole of television’ event,
encompassing Drama, Documentary and Factual, TV Specific programming and
Transmedia. Discussions follow all screenings in which delegates talk directly with
the commissioner, producer or director of the program about the craft, the politics,
and the broadcast issues. The discussions are frank, open, often challenging, and
very refreshing.

Register NOW! Full registration is just 100 Euros. Program runs May 7 – 11 at
Hoyts Cinemas, The Entertainment Quarter, Moore Park. Full program is available
at: www.inputsydney.com

Media enquiries
Tracey Mair, TM Publicity
For INPUT SYDNEY
Ph: + 61 (0) 419 221 493

Werner Herzog on death, danger and the end of the world

He’s risked his life to make films, been shot at, and his latest film investigates a
triple homicide. So is Werner Herzog fascinated by death? No, he tells Steve Rose,
he’s just not afraid of it.

Werner Herzog: ‘If we perish I want to see what’s coming at me, and if we survive, I
want to see it as well.’

Some years ago, Werner Herzog was on an internal flight somewhere in Colorado
and the plane’s landing gear wouldn’t come down. They would have to make an
emergency landing. The runway was covered in foam and flanked by scores of fire
engines. “We were ordered to crouch down with our faces on our knees and hold our
legs,” says Herzog, “and I refused to do it.” The stewardess was very upset, the co-
pilot came out from the cabin and ordered him to do as he was told. “I said, ‘If we
perish I want to see what’s coming at me, and if we survive, I want to see it as well.
I’m not posing a danger to anyone by not being in this shitty, undignified position.'”
In the end, the plane landed normally. Herzog was banned from the airline for life
but, he laughs, it went bust two years later anyway.Herzog tells this story to illustrate
how he’ll face anything that’s thrown at him, as if that was ever in any doubt.

Now approaching his 70th birthday, the German film-maker has assumed legendary
status for facing things others wouldn’t. He’s lived a life packed with intrepid movie
shoots, far-flung locations and general high-stakes film-making. He has a biography
too dense to summarise. But his tale also confirms the suspicion that he’s helplessly
drawn to danger and death. Or vice versa.

Continue reading Werner Herzog on death, danger and the end of the world

Cameraman kills earless bunny

An earless baby bunny that was a rising star on Germany’s celebrity animal scene had his 15 minutes of fame brought to an abrupt end when he was accidentally stepped on by a television cameraman.

The fate of 17-day-old Til, a rabbit with a genetic defect, was plastered across German newspapers on Thursday, the same day a small zoo in Saxony was to have presented him to the world at a press conference.

The cameraman told Bild newspaper he had not seen Til, who had buried himself in hay, when he took the fateful step backwards on Wednesday.

Til was reportedly hidden under hay when he was stepped on.Til was reportedly hidden under hay when he was stepped on. Photo: AP

Zoo director Uwe Dempewolf told Spiegel magazine that Til did not suffer.

“We are all shocked. During the filming, the cameraman took a step back and trod on the bunny.

“He was immediately dead, he didn’t suffer. It was a direct hit. No one could have foreseen this. Everyone here is upset. The cameraman was distraught.”

Spiegel Online reported that the rabbit’s body would be frozen while zoo officials decided if it would be stuffed.

Germany has been home to several global animal celebrities in recent years, including polar bear Knut and Paul the prognosticating octopus.

AP and smh.com.au

Screen Australia loses Producer Offset appeal

As predicted by Simon Nasht at last week’s 2012 AIDC conference in Adelaide, the Federal Court has rejected Screen Australia’s appeal against the documentary series Lush House being granted the producer offset.

As Geoff Brown says, SPAA urged Screen Australia not to appeal against the ruling that Lush House was eligible for the offset, but they went ahead anyway. This will now add to the uncertainty about the definition of what is a documentary, for the purposes of the Producer Offset.

Here is Brendan Swift of IF Magazine’s take on the issue (Wed 07/03/2012)

The Federal Court of Australia has confirmed that TV documentary series Lush House should qualify for the Producer Offset rebate after Screen Australia challenged last year’s similar decision by the Administrative Appeals Tribunal.

The national screen agency originally rejected Essential Media and Entertainment’s Producer Offset application because it viewed the ten-episode cleaning series as a ‘reality’ program. However, Essential argued that the series, which follows household expert Shannon Lush as she gives cleaning advice to homemakers, was similar to another of its programs, Is Your House Killing You?, which did receive the tax break.

The AAT confirmed Essential’s position although Screen Australia then challenged that judgement in the Federal Court.

Essential said the Federal Court did not find any fault with the process followed by the lower court in determining that Lush House is eligible for the 20 per cent tax rebate available for broadcast documentaries.

Essential Media and Entertainment chief executive Chris Hilton said the company is pleased with the Federal Court decision.

“It represents a win for the Australian production industry as a whole and should provide more certainty to producers who are seeking to invest the Producer’s Offset as part of their project finance,” he said in a statement.

Continue reading Screen Australia loses Producer Offset appeal

Australian docs – view from the US by Peter Hamilton

Peter Hamilton runs documentary.com, a site about the market for documentaries around the globe. Peter is an Aussie who once taught at Sunshine Tech, would you believe, but is now based in New York.

Here is his summary of what’s going on in Australia, gleaned at the WCSFP congress in Paris late last year.

Australia: Rich in Coal and the Flat White Lifestyle. But What About Factual Commissions?

2012 March 7
by Peter Hamilton

Australia is enjoying its biggest boom since the 1850′s Gold Rush:

  • The GFC wasn’t even a hiccup.
  • Carpenters sip their early morning strong flat whites and then head off to work in their Audi’s.
  • New Coal-for-China billionaires seem to be minted weekly.

Is this wealth trickling down to the Aussie Factual sector?

For the Paris Science Congress, we surveyed the Australian landscape from 20,0000 feet through interviews with local industry participants. We focused on Specials, limited series and docs. Here are our updated findings…

———————-

TAKEAWAYS

  • 90%+ of Australia’s total factual spend is accounted for by ABC and SBS.
  • Both are taxpayer-supported broadcasters.
  • And they are experiencing reorgs.
  • Australia’s economy is booming, and there is a traditionally sympathetic Labor government in power in Canberra
    • But neither pubcaster has benefited from a big step up in the public TV budget that would have flowed through to local unscripted production.

    FUNDING

    • Funding from Screen Australia is steady – this year $16+/- million is budgeted for factual, indicating the  modest scale of the Australian market
    • Screen Australia’s factual spend is directed (+/-):
    • 50% for ABC
    • 40% for SBS
    • And 10% for cable/satellite channels.
  • “Screen Australia has budgeted $3-5 million for 2011/12 in the All Media Fund, a new $3-5 million Fund which encourages interactive or multi-platform innovative, risk-taking storytelling and includes factual -based projects.” Continue reading Australian docs – view from the US by Peter Hamilton
  • What’s a documentary?

    WHAT’S A DOCUMENTARY?

    This session at the AIDC 2012 in Adelaide has arisen via a ‘stoush’ between Chris Hilton and Screen Australia over their production Lush House. Chris applied for a producer offset for the program, but it was rejected. However Chris appealed to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal, who overturned the decision. Then Screen Australia appealed, and this was heard on 13 February. To date the outcome is still pending.

    The session was the liveliest of the conference, with robust discussion as could be expected – and then some! Chris Hilton put forward a passionate argument in favour of Lush House being awarded the offset, and Screen Australia’s Chief Operating Officer Fiona Cameron rebutted his arguments.

    Simon Nasht countered with an offer of a bet that Screen Australia would lose its appeal, as in his eyes their case is weak. If he is right, this will create the very uncertainty that Fiona said they were seeking to avoid over what sort of documentary is eligible for an offset.

    Bob Connolly unleashed an astounding diatribe against the current state of the documentary industry in Australia. It was so astounding that we have reported it as a transcript of his comments, to the best of our ability in transcribing it. Our apologies for any errors.

    Finally Jennifer Peedom put forward a perspective of someone with fewer kilometers on the odometer, but some equally penetrating insights into the dilemmas facing writer-directors or producer-directors who were not part of a large production company, and who wanted to continue to make films, and also pay the mortgage.

    Continue reading What’s a documentary?

    Joost den Hartog mourns Film Australia

    To herald the 2012 AIDC documentary conference just completed in Adelaide, Director Joost den Hartog took the industry to task for failing to save Film Australia. He suggests that only Film Australia was capable of looking after the need to make culturally relevant documentaries here.

    This is what he said in IF magazine:

    In 2006 – the year I migrated to Australia – Film Australia made its submission to the federal government’s film funding review. That year my ignorance prevailed when I was occupied programming my first Australian International Documentary Conference (AIDC) as its new director.

    Encouraged by industry anger about the terms of trade, role and direction of Film Australia, I programmed a keynote address that criticised the six-decade-old institution and put some more fuel on the already burning fire. The keynote by Wall to Wall’s chief executive Alex Graham was meant to alter the terms of engagement, but it set the tone for a further attack on Film Australia as a whole. Unfortunately the industry mobilisation happened at a time the federal government was keen to cut some costs and a golden opportunity arose to axe Film Australia with seemingly the full blessing of stakeholders in the documentary community.

    Had I paid more attention to Film Australia’s submission, I would have realised the deep cultural importance of the institution as the people’s production house. I believe cost-cutting was the true reason behind the demise of the agency – there is no other logical explanation why a small industry would liquidate such a national public asset. Unfortunately Film Australia only made it to the age of 61. Something Australia has always understood very well is the importance of documenting its history. The national documentary history exists parallel with federated Australia’s narrative of nation building, starting with the first multi-camera documentary The Inauguration of the Commonwealth in 1901, and onwards to the present day.

    Continue reading Joost den Hartog mourns Film Australia

    ScreenAus’s optimism not shared by ADG

    Australian documentary makers are struggling to make a living and are losing the
    grip of their rights to their own intellectual property, Kingston Anderson, general
    manager of Australian Directors Guild told the Australian International
    Documentary Conference in Adelaide yesterday.

    The comments came after Ruth Harley, Screen Australia CEO on Tuesday told the
    conference as a keynote speaker, the value of documentary production was the
    highest on record to date and driven by more hours of high production value series.

    In Tuesday’s address, Harley said: “It’s been a great year for documentaries with 430
    hours of Australian documentary projects made in 2010/11 and a total of $133
    million spent on documentary production. This is above the $118 million five-year
    average for documentary production.”

    Anderson’s point was backed by an ADG survey which showed that the income levels
    of documentary makers have declined further in the last 12 months, from 55.5% of
    2011 respondents earning less than $45,000 compared to 58.6% of respondents in
    2010 earning less than $60,000 per annum. This is below the average Australian
    wage for August 2011 of $68,700.

    Continue reading ScreenAus’s optimism not shared by ADG