Screen Australia launches fund aimed at creating next Breaking Bad or Game Of Thrones

Breaking Bad cost about $3m US per episode, and the Game of Thrones pilot cost a reported $5 to $10m US.

Suggesting that $40,000 could help Australian producers create content at that level is a complete joke. They may be lucky to create the next ‘Neighbours’ or ‘Home and Away’ with that sort of budget.

Screen Australia would have a better chance of supporting high-end television if they increased the Producer Offset to 40% for all Film and TV projects and removed the ridiculous red tape around ‘Significant Australian Content’ and ‘market attachment’.

Great idea, but please, let’s not kid ourselves that Top of the Lake was anywhere near the standard of Breaking Bad, Game of Thrones or even The Bridge (US or Danish). Yes Jane Campion is a wonderful director and producer but the show was riddled with ridiculous caricatures (hello Holly Hunter) and weak scripting despite some fine actors and imagery.

We can tell great stories without pandering to ocker bogans like Underbelly has and trying too hard like Top of the Lake.

Translation: The body that’s never before produced a TV series remotely as good as Breaking Bad or Game of Thones, and probably can’t afford to anyway, is offering free cash giveaways to writers to fill out forms, attend meetings, and write ‘treatments’ that will be developed over extended periods of time and if ‘very’ lucky turnout hackworthy melodrama, doing little for the careers of those involved, unless they take a high paid job at Screen Australia and continue the process.

Good luck with that!

How is 40K going to help with “high quality”?
Scroll down to where it says $25m per episode…

@All above

40k is for development, not production it would seem:

“The program aims to assist Australian producers to develop inventive, high-end ideas from concept to series bible and first draft pilot script.”

I’d assume with the hope that the international broadcasters/streaming service would pay the rest?

@WTF and @Jeremy – scroll up to where it says the 40K is for development of a pilot script, not to fund an episode or an entire freaking series.

Development of Aussie TV drama is generally the province of the broadcasters. They proceed to development with often very short pitches from producers and while this money may help a little the responsibility is with the TV commissioners and frankly the commercial free to air networks have little interest in emulating the HBOs of this world. It is the ABC which should be called to account as it has no commercial constraints. It has squandered millions of dollars on developing and investing in some really crap dramas. Serangoon Road is the latest disaster but don’t forget Crownies and quite a few others. Who let this crap through? Until the gatekeepers can recognise and nurture good writing then no amount of government incentives will help. Perhaps we also need a national film & TV school of excellence and rigour. The AFTRS has sunk into mediocrity and lots of good young writers are looking elsewhere for training. The new Coalition government could actually do something about all this if it is interested enough.

Why is the program aiming to assist Australian ‘producers’ and not screenwriters? Is it not realistic for screenwriters to originate ‘inventive, high-end ideas’ on spec script basis in Australia?

The Screen Australia announcement added: “The hope is that the program will identify inventive high-end TV series ideas with an international key market, enabling Australian producers to work in an international broadcasting landscape. It will also be distinguished by projects that tell specific but universal stories, with a creatively ambitious vision and a cinematic sensibility to encourage the cross-fertilisation of the best Australian cinema and TV creative talent.”

Ever read such convoluted confused bureaucracy speak? Perhaps we have.

What a pity the networks are so poor they can’t put up any development money?

How DO they get away with it?

Charles, a relatively simple answer in an acknowledged sweeping generalisation.

Producers take risks, screenwriters write for those that take the risks. A sizeable chunk of the $40k will probably end up in a writers pocket anyway and none if any in the producers pocket.

Charles – I agree. Unless these ‘producers’ are also the writers, then why give them more money? It’s the quality of the writing that counts in development. Australia will never be able to emulate until it does what the US does – values the screenwriter above all else, certainly above producers. Here, for some reason, the producer is still king in TV drama.

This notion that Screen Australia will enable producers and writers to work in an “international broadcasting environment” demonstrates the complete lack of understanding Screen Australia has about how TV drama works. Breaking Bad wasn’t developed for such an environment but for the US domestic cable market. The Killing was developed for the Danish free to air TV market. The best TV is parochial but extremely well crafted TV drama can now have a niche and lucrative international market with many online platforms. The problem in Australia lies with the broadcasters who develop and commission. We have a lot of average writers working consistently but we also have a solid group of first class writers but they’re not working in a broadcast environment which pushes them to their limits and their ideas are often not put into development.

Agree with Charles and others – until networks and funding bodies start to value the writers and allow them to run shows, we’ll never achieve anything. All those fabulous, and fabulously successful shows like Breaking Bad, Game of Thrones are conceived and run by writers: ie Show Runners. When is Screen Australia and Networks going to get that? Writers/creatives scare the decision makers because they’re not bean counters.

And that projects will need a letter of intent from o/s – how on earth will that work? American Networks will want to meet the writer/s before they invest because they know they’re the engine room – so there goes a good chunk of the 40k in travel.

As a US TV writer and producer now living in Sydney and attempting to get back to doing what I love, I am absolutely SHOCKED and DISILLUSIONED by the narrow-minded vision, or lack thereof, I encounter in the industry. It is truly SHOCKING. What’s more, I turn on my telly and find nothing worth watching. The other day, I heard colleagues in my office chatting in the kitchen about how terrible TV is here. And these were Australians talking!

I am pleased to hear that Screen Australia has recognized a need for better funding. I only hope this program will achieve it’s intended goal and that better quality series are considered and developed as a result.

Thumbs up for 12:55. Australian TV execs wouldn’t know a decent script if it jumped up and bit them on their Wonderland-loving arses. No wonder most of them are months away from being bankrupt.

I don’t think this country has the commitment to screen writers and the respect of writing process to achieve any of this. The Director-heavy culture needs change first. And that’s 20 years away.

The fund only extends to to ‘first draft pilot script’. Says it all really. In this country this translates to ‘last and only draft – milked to death’.

Supposing $20k of the $40k fund actually goes towards conceptualising and writing. How many quality head hours will that realistically buy? Not many.

No effing clue, this mob.

Stop complaining about the money and let see if this initiative works. There is never enough money. All I know as a ‘consumer’ (sadly that’s what an audience is reduced to) Australian TV is terrible, that’s why I pay and stream as are many rapidly.

Here’s an idea:

Have a member-driven selection process akin to oursay.com.au whereby screenwriters pitch their ideas to members, these are listed on the screen australia website somewhere, and members are able to give three votes to pitched ideas.

After 8 weeks, the top 10 ideas are chosen and a writing team is attached (usually taken from those who voted it up). The team is made up of 8-10 screenwriters and one showrunner (similar to the US/Danish Model, rather than 1-2 screenwriters here).

That team has 4 weeks to produce a show bible, 13 ep season breakdown, and pilot ep. Those 10 ideas are then published and SPAA, Aus/US networks, or outside parties may choose to develop the work.

Seems to me whats missing is the inversion of power that the US has. Good TV (or rather storytelling) comes initially from a writers room, not an EP with a market hard-on.

Throwing 40k at a black box does nothing to inspire me to hand over my good ideas. Get in touch if you want to build this.

Ben Prendergast

Ben, an interesting idea. So the 8-10 screenwriters would provide their services under what sort of financial agreement? The normal asking price is around $3k so there goes $30k – plus the showrunner … so there’s the $40k there. That leaves nothing for the myriad of other input that broadcasters require (such as designs, budgets etc.). And that is just for one ep.

But I do like the idea if the asking price is lower.

SS, the writers would get a nominal sum to be involved, take points on the approved project, and get a guaranteed writing income if the show gets picked up, however the work is spread so its not like one person writing the pilot, instead you get a virtual writing room to break an ep and write/develop the pilot.

The showrunner spends the budget, just like in the US.

You need to flip the model or the market will always dictate content. We have to give them what they didn’t know they wanted to see.

You can’t feed a family on a nominal sum and points. Not in this country. Ever tried to offer Woolies points for their groceries? 😉

But as Ben highlighted, that’s what writers here are asked to survive on, at the most important part of the process. Every other trade in the industry feeds from these initial concepts and yet it’s where the least financial support is offered.

If I had a killer idea I wouldn’t trust anyone in Australia to recognise it, let alone fund it. I would be pitching it overseas first.

I agree with the nominal sum – it’s a risk versus reward equation, though no-one should work unpaid (just for less than standard rates until the show gets up). The model I like is ‘trading-off” up-front reduced-pay labour for equity in the project.

This is the model which independent producers generally have to use in order to get anything made. They trade-off their offset as equity in the project. If – and I mean IF – the project turns a profit (generally on back-end revenues) the producer is then in the queue to get some of the offset rebate back. Given that the BIG backers get the lion’s share of profit it can be a long wait. But, by all means get in the queue with the independent producers.

The difference is that in the concept stage the independent producer (generally) takes no income and indeed has to fund the writers, designers etc. out of any incentives available or out of past earnings. Their income stream only starts once a project gets the green-light – before that it is all outgoings and expense. It is 100% risk at this stage.

Writers et al in Australia would do well to follow the UK model. For humour at least some of the best shows now on TV have come via radio. (Flight of the Concords, Little Britain, Cabin Pressure, Faulty Towers, HGTTG).

Radio provides the opportunity to test a concept on a comparatively minuscule production budget. And the UK have the radio outlet for these radio series. I’m sure Australian radio networks would find airtime if the content were presented to them.

Once again it falls on the writers to create the initial script content, but the opportunity is there for anyone with an idea to take an alternative production route with almost no budget. It’s a great way to demonstrate proof of concept.