Documentary to explore reasons behind box office slump of Australian movies

Any chance to watch this online?

Interesting move to include the guy from AMP Capital saying “Do Australians want to make films? I don’t really have the answer to that” in the trailer. With that kind of insight, not sure I’ll be rushing to watch this!

To me its blatantly obvious – make things people want to see!

Why are most Aussie films box office flops? Dud scripts. End of story.

It’s not nearly as simple as “make things that people want to see” and “dud scripts”. I realise that a large proportion of readers of this site are advertising creatives who secretly and not-so-secretly harbour desires to write-n-direct, but for supposedly commercially savvy types, many of you hipsters are absolute clueless naifs when it comes to the brutal reality of the business in Australia.

Australia is a particular beast. It’s got a big enough population to be worth the effort, but it’s small enough that natural oligopolies form. In Australia, the exhibition complex is unassailable. When it comes to the no-brainer choice of what material to take wide, they will obviously go for what they know will fill their seats and get popcorn and postmix drinks sold. No prizes for guessing what that is. Tentpole product, with multi-million $ marketing campaigns. That’s what it takes to get attention. There’ll be a Red Dog breakout every now and then, but they’re the exception.

In the US, day-and-date limited release combined with VOD is already a legitimate choice for smaller independent films. Again, this is a function of population. There’s a big enough market over there and good enough platforms to allow for it. Here? Nope.

So, the (Jesus, I hate this word, but amongst you jargonistas it’s apropos) “takeaway” is: it’s very, very tough.

You have now been educated. You’re welcome.

Simple invest in writers so they have a future. Secondly stop being self conscious about being Australian and telling “Australian stories”. We are a diverse culture with many stories, so who gives a stuff about accents. That is so white bread. Need good writing. Think Lantana. Could have been set anywhere. Head On was fantastic, Greek gays in Melbourne but universal story. The Boys – terrifying story of a violent family. Brilliant writing. Great scripts for great actors in small films.

1. Dud scripts
2. Same actors cropping up over and over
3. Depressing story lines – domestic violence, drug abuse, ferals
4. Stereotypical characters.

Firstly – One of the reasons I have not been to see an Australian movie is because I don’t believe the advertising and hype. How many times have I seen it advertised as mesmerising, best movie of the year, excellent movie, wonderful entertainment, only to discover it was crap!

Secondly – I agree with John, the same actors again and again, how many times do you want to see yet another coming of age story. Not many upbeat Auatralian movies out there.m

Thirdly – The price, it costs more than the ticket to buy a popcorn and drink, so it ends up a very expensive night with babysitter, parking, meal, popcorn, drink, ticket. It’s cheaper to order in a pizza and watch a movie from Quickflix.

This film is the ultimate irony.

A documentary about why Australian films suck? Who’s going to want to watch that?

Australia needs to make genre films. People like to watch genre movies. They like to be entertained. Not challenged. For every person you find who prefers to watch an “important” film, I can find you 100 who would rather watch something where they live happily ever after.

People go to the movies for a good time. But so many Australian movies seem to ignore this. We either make worthy, wrist-slitty, character pieces or self-conscious studies of our uneasy relationship with the outback or over-the-top comedies which seem to think that whacky equals funny.

In our films, the “town is actually a character in the film”. Or “this was an important story to tell”. Or “I wanted to shed light on a part of society that people rarely see”. Or “We set out on a journey to…” Kill me now.

A commercially viable industry needs people to buy tickets to watch the films. And nobody wants to buy tickets to watch depressing shit or sucky comedies or NIDA grads almost nailing the perfect unemployed junkie rasp. Almost. The don’t want to watch “Australian” stories. They want to watch good stories. Stories that make them feel good.

I’m dying to watch an Australian movie that doesn’t care that it’s in Australia. Where the town isn’t a character in the film. Where things aren’s self conscious or weird. Where Margaret and David wouldn’t use a phrase like “difficult but ultimately life affirming” to describe it. Why can’t it be easy and life affirming?

Do you hear me Little Fish, Candy, Burning Man, Romulus my Father, The Boys, Noise, Lantana, Sleeping Beauty, Animal Kingdom, Samson and Delilah, Beautiful Kate, The Proposition?

Funding bodies should make you pitch your script to a random selection of people who’ve just come out of a screening of Fast and Furious 18 or My Best Friend’s Baby Shower. Then we’d start seeing bums on seats.

I think we have all the talent we need. Australian filmmakers are fiercely talented. Our focus is wrong, and I think that’s a problem of priorities.

You have to be honest. You have to acknowledge that your important, hard-to-define creative projects, while artistically searing, may not make any money.

You design an industry that makes movies based on what people want to watch. Not driven by what you want to make. Lots of movies that sell lots of tickets.

You use the profit you make from those movies for the movies for smart people. Still great films, but not commercially viable.

The decline in Australian films is due to the Abbott government. When the Howard government was in there were no Australian films either – it was all Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings. The Whitlam government gave us Barry McKenzie, Alvin Purple, Sunday Too Far Away and Picnic At Hanging Rock. The Hawke and Keating governments gave us Moulin Rouge, Priscilla, Strictly Ballroom, Muriel’s Wedding and Babe. The Liberals have given us nothing.

Scripts. That and only that.

I saw Felony the other night and my companion and I just looked at each other afterwards and said, “Why can’t Australians make a compelling story?”. Love Joel Edgerton and hate criticising the withering industry, but seriously, we need to be making films that are much richer in story telling.

Cop knocks kid over while drink driving and lives with the consequences. That’s not a film. It’s a TAC ad.

Who knows if the funding model here makes our storytelling laden with ‘a message’ about Our Culture? But something’s amiss.

Screen Australia doesn’t make money from Australian films putting bums on seats – it makes money because Australia films ‘don’t’ put bums on seats.

Ironically, “…advertising creatives who secretly and not-so-secretly harbour desires to write-n-direct,” played a major role in setting up the 70s and 80s film industry. ‘Ad Creatives’ such as Fred Schepsi, whose Filmhouse advertising work helped train and produce some of the world’s best directors and crews. Phillip Adams, who had the advertising success to enable him to help lead Australia back into the thriving film industry it once had. The hundreds of film crew members who were able to learn their craft and be paid for it, whilst doing pro bono work on film.
If anyone knows the state of ‘Film’ in Australia now, it’s those airhead creatives – we do know the ‘business’, saw the writing on the wall, which is why we do it in an agency and not up on screen.

There are countless excellent scripts created by Australians, probably higher in ratio to the clowny trash found in massive hollywood films that have the budget of a small country. I’d pin it more on attitudes of viewers – since we in Australia are shown nothing but American movies and TV our whole lives, people go in expecting an Australian movie will be second rate and little will change their mind.
I like how ‘real’ Australian movies feel and how truly confronting they can be, The Proposition being a great example.
2014 has been a great year for Australian movies (irrespective of financial success) and I do hope that people start catching on if more Australian movies are given a chance with wide cinema releases and active promotion.

@copy.fiona

The (I’m assuming) airhead creatives posting here — and constantly banging on with the “it’s the scripts” answer — don’t seem to understand anything about the business. They have a vague notion that it could do be done better, I suspect with the masterpiece they’ve knocked out. Taxonomically speaking, I’d also argue that today’s typical Surry Hills or Fitzroy North creative is a much lesser animal than Fred Schepisi or Phillip Adams were in their heydays.

Of course you need a good script. And good direction. And performances. And so on. That’s so obvious that it barely needs stating.

But the pivotal factor is the marketing. Any Australian film is competing with monster production AND marketing budgets. And, as I’ve stated before, with the added impediment of an extremely locked-up exhibition business without a viable VOD alternative. This isn’t anyone’s fault, per se. It’s just the way it is, and {once again) is largely a function of a small population.

The odds are massively stacked against local product, even if it’s good. The success ratio is systematically guaranteed to be low. The question then becomes: does the industry merit taxpayer support? I’d argue that it does, because the flow-on effects are considerable. Massive US productions aren’t going to shoot here if there’s no industry extant.

I work in the business. As opposed to the “it’s all the scripts/if we only did this” types.

Tell you what, creatives. Go do it. Your starry eyes will very quickly be opened.

@Umm no, I’m not talking about the ‘scripts.’ Your category of species is not the only creative group to work in this business. Many ‘airhead creatives’ do know and understand marketing and it seems quite unfair to presume they don’t.

My point is exactly that – the marketing machine is now much mightier than the pen and has rolled over and crushed the Australian film industry.

@copy.fiona , I too work in the industry and agree entirely with @Umm, no. ” Its about the marketing stupid. ” Australia makes lots of dud movies – like every other film industry ; but we lack the nous and resources to market the good ones well . And there are lots of good Aussie films . But marketing is something which the various film agencies over the years have never addressed at all – they say its not their role.
Ironically , whenever a local distributor involves an Australian ad agency in marketing of local films they just get bland, mainstream unusable campaigns.

@copy.fiona

You specifically may not be talking about “the scripts”, but scroll up. Others are.

And it’s not just the Australian film industry that’s changed when it comes to theatrical release. There’s been a seismic shift in the last few years worldwide. It’s almost hackneyed to note that television is mainly where drama lives now. There’s so much incredible serial stuff on TV that the highbrow market is well-sated for serious fare. Theatrical is dominated by spectacle, and the odd broad comedy. Completely home-grown spectacle is pretty much out of the question with local budgets and underlying material, and broad Australian comedy is hard to get OS sales for. At the fringes there’s the arthouse circuit, but it’s not as if that’s a walk in the park either.

None of this is a value judgement. It’s just the way it is.

And my point is, was and will remain: it’s not “the scripts”. It’s just an amazingly tough business. Every now and then lightning will strike, but it won’t be often.

Through the 1980s Australian films took over 23% at the local box office. Crocodile Dundee was the 2nd highest grossing film in 1986 in the US. The difference between that period and other periods in Australian filmmaking is that the government support was not direct subsidies, but tax breaks, which left the key creative decisions in the hands of filmmakers, rather than govt agencies. This attracted a huge amount of private investment and gave filmmakers the creative freedom to create the type of films that connected with wide audiences – maybe low-brow, genre, crowd-pleasers.. Australian films were successful in the past and they can be successful again, but we need govt policy change. Govt needs to relinquish creative control.

The trailer says it all, from the first over enunciated all too serious presenter, via all the excuses one has heard for 49 years that I can vouch for personally.

Haydn Keenan hits the nail firmly on the head with his opinion of the sophisticated but quite buried cultural cringe, but this is only a key component, not the whole story.

The reason that Australian films continue to fail is that they are made for the wrong reasons and they lack one major component. They are not theatrical. Script writers are generally too precious, Directors are either too much in control, or not free enough from the control of the producers.

The crazy desire to do “Australian stories,” instead of doing stories that happen to unfold in Australia, is also a stumbling block.

Those insane people who referred to the Australian accent as being a problem, need to be seriously reassessed before ever being allowed to give a public opinion on Australian films again.
The US accent may well be what we have been saturated with, but that is because the US film industry has gone through its test by fire and learned how to be a real industry, and then gone ahead and flooded the world with its propaganda. Are the French films too French? the Italian too…. etc etc.

We also get far too precious about our film making, we have a government body (useless body by the way) with a number of oh so special people with templates and agenda, who are given the right ( by God presumably) to decide what gets funding and what does not.

Film is theatre, theatre is story telling the art is a collaborative one and films need to be made with care and attention to detail.

See Jacques Becker’s Casque d’Or for details. Work from there to a story about love, corruption, class conflict and social injustice. Be prepared to lower yourself to allowing sentimentality and admit that romantic love is a value in itself. Oh and set it in Australia .

@Gray:

“Govt needs to relinquish creative control.”

I’ve been through the system. Government agencies have input, but to say that they have creative control is absolutely specious.

@Riichard Moss

“Script writers are generally too precious”

Lemme guess: you’ve got a just-the-ticket masterpiece ready to roll, right?

“We also get far too precious about our film making, we have a government body (useless body by the way) with a number of oh so special people with templates and agenda, who are given the right ( by God presumably) to decide what gets funding and what does not.”

When it’s government money involved (without which there’d be no industry), who do you propose should make the decisions? What is the practical alternative?

“See Jacques Becker’s Casque d’Or for details. Work from there to a story about love, corruption, class conflict and social injustice. Be prepared to lower yourself to allowing sentimentality and admit that romantic love is a value in itself. Oh and set it in Australia .”

I wish I could wave a wand and put you in a position where you could put all your ideas into action. Then, we’d stand back and see what would happen. I’d be betting everything I could scratch up that you’d walk away sadder and wiser.

As I’ve said many times now, it is NOT JUST THE PRODUCT. I repeat: IT IS NOT JUST THE PRODUCT.

It’s the intense competition for awareness against massively resourced megacorporations. The publicity and advertising spends for many Hollywood films just in Australia alone is often larger than the entire production budgets of local features. In one big star appearance on The Project, they can outstrip the awareness penetration of something that doesn’t have the pull to get mainstream eyeballs on it.

What on earth do you propose is done about all of that?

@Umm, no

We may well be saying the same things, we (you and I) may just be closer to it all than you think.
I too believe that it is not just the product.

No, I do not have a “just the ticket masterpiece ready to roll,” but I do have nearly fifty years of experience in the industry which has given me history if nothing else.

You do not need a wand, if you wish too discuss points of view regarding Australian film, television, and theatre production, I am a willing partner anytime.

I am already in a position where I could put many of my ideas into action. You and whomever you include in the [quote] “we’d stand back and see what would happen.” [unquote] wouldn’t need to speculate, I can tell you (though I am probably telling you nothing) that the projects would never make air.

You seem to have missed the salient point regarding my reference to Jacques Becker . That is a pity, but I am willing to discuss it any time if you are interested.

The business has already made me sadder but wiser, that’s why took the trouble to add my honest opinions.

Sorry about the typos Too = to
last lines should read. That’s why I took

Wow, someone else who loves Casque d’Or. Thought I was the only one!

@ Big Shane
We are not even the only two, I think David Stratton likes it, though he doesn’t list it in his top ten. I would guess that maybe thousands love it.

Many things are wrong with our film industry. Writers deserve to be given a better chance but they also need to collaborate more than they do. Directors are often too bound up in technicality and fail to see the need to create theatre. There is more than the usual degree of star f****ing in Australian films, where the small roles get little or no attention or involvement. This is a big and particular problem in dramas.

Promoting Mediocrity is also a problem; “Kenny” (for instance) was not a great film, it is a good piece and a laugh, it will always have a place, but it does not represent great cinema or even particularly good theatre, neither does “Red Dog” yet both are very good entertainments.

Shepherding of a few stars also leads to miscasting and a general isomorphism.
there are many other problems such as misleading advertising, fraudulent praise and reviews lavishing praise on dud films. There are too many people with personal or international corporate interests, who are part of the Australian scene, but whose involvement runs contrary to the interests of local films.

We need a group of determined people who know the craft and who would be prepared to play David to the Goliath of the foe. I would happily devote the rest of my life to such a cause, I wish there were others.

Personally, I’m sick to death is seeing what seems to be the same small cartel of a dozen or so actors cast in every single film and TV show produced in Australia.
This is the fault of the producers who think the audience wants to see these tired hacks time and again and it’s also the fault of the casting directors, who are not putting forward viable new names and faces of all ages.
I am tired of Lisa McCune, Vince Colosimo, Gary Sweet, ect,ect,ect.
Let’s get some new talent and perhaps that will generate fresh interest.
Aussie TV and film is dead otherwise.