A new generation of screenwriters is being trained up as I write, with fresh ideas and acknowledgement of the ‘American’ script structure. We want to write damn good scripts, but seeing what this country makes and celebrates we all set our sights on distant shores.
I want to see this country make such amazing films that when people stand at the cinema, they struggle to choose between an Aus film and the latest American blockbuster. I want to no longer hear “We could go see that Australian film, but…”.
Let’s get so good that people forget where films came from, or even better, get EXCITED about a new Australian film coming out.

No more junkies, incest tales, ocka accents, and down endings please. For a while at least.
They have a place, but so does every other kind of damn story that isn’t being told in this country. I can’t relate to that version of Australia and Australians I see onscreen. If there are gritty, almost plotless films about dodgy dealer shits from western suburbs who kill people all the time then let’s get our own Back to the Futures, Labyrinths, Donnie Darkos, Breakfast Clubs. We won’t be mimicking America – we’ll be adding a flavour to these types of films never seen before, cast through our Aussie filter.

If this scene doesn’t change, that new generation of writers I mentioned will be gone, off to London, off to LA. The cream will rise and float away, leaving the lesser talents behind to make the next 20 years of facepalm Australian cinema.
This problem has a solution. It just seems the powers that be don’t want to change. Our film industry needs to become commercial, not only so Australian audiences can be entertained by local films instead of using them as suicide motivation, but so people who work in this industry can actually make a LIVING. There’s no shame in that.

As for the American film industry, are their films really that better considering their budgets and star power? You’d be lucky to find a decent flick on at your local twelve screen metroplex. No one doubts they can churn em out but it’s nearly always quantity over quality. This year’s Oscar selections were amongst the weakest I’ve ever seen. Besides, the Best Foreign Film category is so good that the Yanks usually try and remake most of them (and butcher the remake).

Cinema ticket prices don’t help or outrageous prices for popcorn, choctops etc. I’d rather spend my hard earned cash on live music a good book or watch a doco.

It would also help the local film industry if they changed the tax incentive for investors from $1 Million to $250,000. You’d attract more investment and students and short film makers would get more opportunities to learn their craft. Would it be so bad to return to the days of the late seventies and early eighties and produce more lower budget genre films?

Damien Goldsworthy = voice of reason + common sense.

Also, I agree that nothing will change due to this discussion. Its up to us to create the stories, and write them with the audience in mind. A well written, entertaining story will always have an audience, and generate ticket sales.

If no-one shows up, is it everyone elses fault but mine? Hell no!

The reason people don’t go to a film is because the trailer they see turns them off. If there is no story to get enveloped in, no-one will go. It doesn’t matter where it’s from. American films that don’t have a good story don’t do well.

The bottom line here is a good story will do well.

This reminds me of “The Emporers New Clothes”. The scammers tell everyone the Emperor is wearing clothes of the finest thread and if you can’t see that then you are not worthy, so everyone says how good the clothes are and send the Emperor into the streets naked, trying not to look like a dim-wit but knowing something is wrong.

We all know the Emperor is naked, it’s not until the funding bodies and producers can see this that things will improve and we can have something worthy of calling an industry.

The problems I see are thus

1) lack of screenwriting craft, people are just writing really bad scripts and are simply not applying themselves to the craft of screenwriting and storytelling and when they are its formulaic, Robert McKee cookie cutting screenwriting as if cut from some pattern. The Americans have moved on from this and we here in Australia are still pushing that boring wheelbarrow with inciting incidents and plot points and all this bullshit. Screenwriting isn’t art its a craft, a screenplay is an invitation to others to collaborate towards the making of a piece of art..the film. Screenwriting is a tough gig…its telling stories, not many can do this confidently or at all well. Troy Lum is right…have 20 ideas…if you don’t…think harder..thats what screenwriting is about..thinking harder

2) Australian culture: sitting idle, lazy, spoon fed for years on crap American product, peppered here and there with brilliant American product, this strange combination of quality and crap has made us lazy and spoilt. Australia is quickly turning into a brat culture, just like England & America. People have less time and new technologies, like video games are changing the way we interact and dissolving our patience levels. Standards are high and low…a toxic mix of confusion Quality films take effort…Australians by and large want escapism and America provides that by the bucket load..we can’t compete..we don’t have the budget or the talent pool…they go and work in America

3) Australian TV: Shocking..boring..local production which should be a training ground for filmmakers, especially screenwriters is puerile and reality drive. The highest rating show is Master Chef..this opinion ends here

4)The red tape and catch 22 booby traps of Australian Film Funding culture mean talent simply gives up, you can’t make a living in this industry, quality writers simply give up or move to the USA…Stuart Beattie is constantly wheeled out as an example…(Tony Ginnane..one successful screenwriter is not an industry) Screen Australia should be paying talented screenwriters/producers with at least 10 quality ideas to live and train in the US for up to five years and by contract bring that writing knowledge back to Australia

5) Snouts in the trough…since the golden years of the 1970’s certain individuals have had their collective snouts in the funding trough and they only come up for air to hear the groan of Australian audiences saying “What crap” before they stick their fat heads back in the trough for more public funds to have another crack at the title (Think the Big Lebowski scene when he’s getting his head dunked in the toilet…”Where’s the money Lebowski?”…”I think its down there somewhere let me take another look”

6)$$ We don’t have the money to make the kind of quality escapist product Australians want to see….we could make some low budget intelligent Sci-Fi like Moon or Monsters…why we aren’t…who fucking knows…see 1) for an answer

Funding bodies and the industry in general needs a major shift in perspective…but then again its an industry where nobody knows anything..so what the fuck do I know?

Dan I think you should talk to Martin Walsh at Red Dune films they have a Long Tan project that has been trying to get into development for the last nine years and I know of another team also working on a production, also check out a doco called Eyes of the Tiger by Lets Play Productions

All that aside..Tony Ginnane..what are you on about? What a cat chasing his tail he is, he seems utterly delusional as to what is plausible..this panel was a real reflection of the kind of mindless muddle that is the Australian Film Industry at present…I mean what a totally embarrassing waste of time. I think Troy Lum is the only person on that panel speaking anything that makes any sense.
“Lots of films that talk to lots of different audiences” okay Ruth Harley…what kind of script development money are you offering to Screenwriters? Feasible money that aspiring writers can apply for, not money wheeled out to the same “experts” I mean what she is talking about is just hot air, its all total bullshit..she is not building the craft or the expertise..they simply aren’t…what an arrogant hot air load of crap…really annoying…the model..with regard to script development in this country is utterly absurd…change it…don’t validate it

Dag Karel,

Bedankt voor je reactie in het Nederlands.
Waarom zou het niet eerlijk zijn om belastinggeld te gebruiken voor een minderheid en wel voor een meerderheid? Ik begrijp dit niet goed. Persoonlijk vind ik dat kwaliteit er voor iedereen moet zijn. Mensen moeten kunnen ontdekken wat er in de wereld leeft en de meeste cinéart films kunnen dit zeer goed weergeven. Dit kan onze dagelijkse vooroordelen verminderen. Dus wat mij betreft kunnen ze niet genoeg overheidsgeld krijgen.
In alle geval is het prettig om van jou iets te lezen.