Producers set to launch pay-per-view streaming channel dedicated to Australian movies

I don’t see a problem with wanting to take advantage of streaming, I do have a problem with the content.. unfortunately most Aussie films are terrible.

If ‘The Last of the Knucklemen’ (1978) isn’t streamed I’ll be livid

This ‘sizzle’ is as boring as most Australian movies–sorry, ‘films.’ God bless ’em but this seems more like some kind of archive service rather than something I’d buy for, like, entertainment purposes.

Yeah. Nah.

‘Australian’ films are mostly shit. That said, Australians make (and contribute to) a lot of great films on the international scene.

Expecting to hear about this project quietly folding in a year or two.

With respect to the producers and to the Aus film industry . Please take note of the death of ezyflix , the last rights of quickflix, the irrelevance of Dendy, and the non event that is JB hi fi. OTT VOD start ups sadly fail in Australia. Streaming is, unless you have very deep pockets or considerable device penetration, a global game, not a local one. Try to compete with News, Apple, Google, Netflix, Telstra etc. these are billion dollar companies
You are better off making sure all Aussie films are available on iTunes. Create a search app perhaps that lists all the Aussie films, then pushes to iTunes for the transaction and the stream.
You’ll make some money, and you won’t burn a few million dollars in tech and dev, only to find no scale, ongoing costs the keep you service live and up to date, and that’s before any device placement (more cost)

Ps. Netflix launch will only benefit Netflix
Curation you will find is not a point of difference
And yes, being privy to rental and retail data, Aussie films as a rule of thumb generate significantly less revenue than Hollywood production. No one likes that, but it remains a fact

Actor, Actress, Director, Critic…they forgot to ask the average movie watcher who probably wouldn’t hold a Netflix and Ozflix account. If they want to break outside the wall of film students they need to integrate with a service of scale.

I think.Australia has made some amazing Pictures from Turky Shoot, Man from Hong Kong to Razor Back to Mick Dundee.

You must realise that Getting financial support from Sceen Qld or Australia – unless your in there you will Never get funding from them for your ‘Master Piece’.

If you have a vision and want to chase your dream – then go get it.

Sorry, this is just another well intended ” Hey, lets put on our own show !”

Get realistic about film making. Start making films. Stop looking to the US for the benchmarks. Stop trying to make every film a canted statement of national loyalty. Tell stories. Cherish characters……and like that.

Build an industry and all the rest will follow.

Entry > Think about how many Mills and Boone books and the like are out there, and wonder why.

Why are Australian films such navel gazing pieces of crap? Is it because of the funding arrangements?

Can we experiment with not funding films via government committee and see what happens?

There ARE a lot of great Australian films that are impossible to find. They have a valid point; however, I’m not sure there is much of a market. It’s like much brilliant Australian music, its largely marginal in it’s appeal. Quirky, weird, cult-appeal, but not populist.

@Tim
The funding arrangement is part of the problem. There is a group of people who consider themselves to be rather special and above it all, who are the equivalent of the culture vultures and the arbiters of taste.

The main problem is in the absence of regard for writing and the written word, and the residual culture of amateur theatre. We never question our ability to grow wheat and wool or take on the world at any given sport, but we look to the UK and worse still to the US as the real place for Film making or theatre. In Australia it still has the stain of arty farty and rampant sentimentality to overcome.

For those who think Australian films are crap it would be useful if you would elaborate in an informed and intelligent way. Your opinion: a view or judgement formed about something, not necessarily based on fact or knowledge.

Must agree with some of the previous comments. If not one major player including Netfilx , who with 70 Million subscribers worldwide, admitted this month they have not yet achieved profitability, just shows how hard this new industry is. . Also while the technology is there for SVOD, you actually need to deal with the proprietors who created the technology in the first place to acquire it. One of the reasons Quickfix has got into trouble is the mount of money invested in developing their systems to stream over new deices each time a new hardware device is released. .
Most of the good Australian films would probably already have the distirbution rights signed and sealed, so not sure what would be left, apart from the old, or very new.

@Anne

Any statement claiming “Australian films are crap” can hardly be either informed or intelligent. As with such statements as “Shakespeare, Mozart, Jazz, Opera or Ballet is crap.” To name a few that I have had to endure in my time.

I would be only too pleased to discuss the multitude of problems involved with film making in Australia, but alas this very fine opinion platform is not the place.

I think many folks have missed the point. The article is not about the quality of Australian film, which is relative.
It’s about the commercial potential of an Australian content only vod ( not svod) over the top service.
Is anyone familiar with a music download store that only sells Australian music? An e-book store with only Aussie authors? No because they would go broke in 5 minutes vs iTunes or Amazon.
Same here

Don’t quite get how this will “revitalise the Australian film industry” . Although there are one or two few hidden gems to stumble across.
If you’re serious about raising the bar, directors, producers need to stop deluding themselves that they are at the heart of great screen storytelling. The golden age unfolding in US television is mostly due to the writers being in charge as EPs.
Writer’s agents are some of the problem here. Go to any of their sites and they will say they don’t do filmscripts or that they don’t take unsolicited work. I’m talking about every agent currently listed by the Writer’s Guild on their site. Some will look at novels. I have a good LA agent prepared to read my screenplays but can’t get a Sydney one to back me.

As CEO of Ozflix, I find the really promising thing about an OTT VOD service based on Australian movies, such as Ozflix, is that streaming with it’s inherently lower overheads is perfect for niche and small volume content. Indeed B2C service providers like Vimeo specialise in small volume streams that producers and other content owners can monetize with even tiny volumes.
The difficulty faced by SVOD services is the artificially low subscription fees (set by Netflix to drive their competitors broke), given the up-front fees the services pay to the rights holders to have access to the titles.
I agree we will see some SVOD services struggle if they are competing with much bigger players, but niche content can be successful. Artisanal bakers compete well with TipTop, and at the end of the day it will be about the value-added elements of the service, which we will announce as we roll out.
And as the business is currently privately funded, we are not concerned with “shareholder value” issues.
I well remember the predictions of doom and gloom for many other successful Aussie start-ups over the past 40 years, and remain undaunted by the nay-sayers.

Nice positive contribution from Ron Brown, I hope he is right.

I think it likely that Artisanal bakers exist and operate modestly alongside Tip Top rather than compete with it.
Unfortunately, since we are using the bread analogy, the Australian product is an inconsistent and often bitter loaf, which like the Kahlil Gibran example, baked with indifference, “feeds but half a hungry man.”

I’m looking forward to seeing Houseboat Horror again! The view’s magnificent, you’ll bar up!