A procession of successful single women has been travelling from the United States to Australia lately.
Laura Price, a San Francisco lawyer, went to a tropical island to convince her childhood best friend to inherit a billion-dollar business. On arriving, she found he was now a hunky beach bum who preferred charity work … but might just be a better match than her questionable fiancé back home.
A San Francisco lawyer (Saskia Hampele) connects with a laid-back Australian hunk (Liam McIntyre) in This Little Love of Mine. CREDIT:STEVE JAGGI COMPANY
Then there was Caroline Wilson, a New York chef, who went to a coastal town after discovering her late aunt had left her a café. On arrival, she met the hunky cook … who just might be a better match than her dodgy ex-fiancé back home.
And Amelia Hart, a Chicago florist, went to a country town to salvage her little sister’s wedding. But as she spent time planning with the hunky best man, she realised – you guessed it – he just might be a better match than her dubious boyfriend back home.
They are all characters in romantic films that have been shot in Australia recently: Christine Luby’s This Little Love Of Mine, Rosie Lourde’s Romance On The Menu and Rogue Rubin’s Love In Bloom. And they’re part of the latest trend in Australian films: “uplifting, positive, female-driven stories set in idyllic locations”.
The Australian romance film boom
Romance on the Menu (2020) – Released on Hallmark in the US, Netflix in the rest of the world
This Little Love of Mine (2021) – Released in cinemas, then on Netflix
Christmas On The Farm (2021) – Released on Stan*
Sit. Stay. Love (2021) – Released in cinemas
A Perfect Pairing (2022) – Released on Netflix
Mistletoe Ranch (2022) – In cinemas from November 17
Love In Bloom (2022) – Releasing in February next year
You, Me And The Penguins (2023) – Releasing next year
A Royal In Paradise (2023) – In post-production
Love By The Glass (2023) – In production
In other words, romances in which career women – often in their thirties and with bad boyfriends – find love with a caring and ruggedly handsome guy. Often a laid-back Australian.https://www.youtube.com/embed/WR21TH-6LfY
Demand surged so much during the pandemic that Brisbane-based producer Steve Jaggi (Rip Tide, Dive Club) has shot eight romantic films in Queensland, including the ones above, since just before COVID-19 closed borders.Advertisement
The best title: Sit. Stay. Love, which is about an American aid worker who, on heading home to snowy Vermont for Christmas, has to save an animal shelter with a handsome vet. It’s also from the popular sub-genre of Christmas romances.
The poster for Mistletoe Ranch: a Christmas romance about a rising photographer (Mercy Cornwall) who heads back to the small American town she grew up in and finds sparks with her ex-fiance (Jordi Webber). CREDIT: STEVE JAGGI COMPANY
Another Brisbane production company, Hoodlum Entertainment, has made two romantic comedies along the same lines: Stuart McDonald’s A Perfect Pairing (a wine expert from Los Angeles heads to rural Australia to land a new client) and Christopher Weekes’ Christmas On The Farm (a successful author heads from New York to an Australian farm to cover up the lie behind her book).
In a way, they are (much) lower-budget versions of the Hollywood romcom, Ticket To Paradisethat Julia Roberts and George Clooney shot in Queensland during the pandemic.
Sometimes, the female stars are Australian or made their name here, including Rhiannon Fish (Home and Away), Tammin Sursok (Home and Away), Georgia Flood (Wentworth) and Mercy Cornwall (Dive Club). But Canadian Cindy Busby (Supernatural) and American Susie Abromeit (Jessica Jones) have both shot two of these films.
The next one off the production line, Mistletoe Ranch, opens in Australian cinemas next week. It centres on a rising twentysomething photographer who heads back to the small American town she grew up in to save Christmas celebrations … and finds a spark with her handsome ex-fiance.
Like Sit. Stay. Love, it was shot in Queensland using snow machines to create a wintry landscape.
Jaggi, a prolific producer of young adult and romance projects, says the demand for romances has exploded in the past two years. “COVID undoubtedly made a huge difference,” he says. “More and more people wanted to watch uplifting content.”
The expansion of streaming services has meant there are also new buyers for these optimistic PG-rated films.
“Before COVID, as an Australian company, you tried to make a film that would work for as broad an audience as possible to make money,” Jaggi says. “Now it’s the reverse: if you want to be successful as a business, you make more and more niche content.”https://www.youtube.com/embed/MFNKHY86oFk
The market includes the American cable channels Hallmark and Lifetime, more sophisticated romances for streaming services led by Netflix, and even more sophisticated versions for cinema release. Largely appealing to an aspirational female audience interested in adventure, Jaggi’s films are set either in Australia, the US or an exotic “generic” location.
“Escapist destinations tend to work well with the audience,” he says. “What we find works really well is if one of the protagonists is American and one is Australian. The ‘Australian hunk’ is a good formula.”
Jaggi is now planning 10 to 12 more romance films in the next two years. He is considering diversifying into having a thirtysomething man finding love, same-sex couples, and possibly “steamier” storylines.
While none of his films have Screen Australia funding, they are all supported by Screen Queensland – either logistically or through regional grants. And most use the country’s 30 per cent tax incentive (called the producer offset), while giving a break to rising (often female) directors.
“Australia is a huge entertainment exporter,” Jaggi says. And while that has traditionally been family and children’s shows watched by millions around the world, it now includes romances.
Anna Torv and Robert Taylor in The Newsreader, courtesy ABC.SHARE
In 1986, when screenwriter and producer Michael Lucas was eight years old, his dad got picked up from the local oval by the Ten Eyewitness News helicopter. ‘It was the most exciting thing that had ever happened to me,’ Lucas says, laughing on the phone to Screenhub.
‘My father was an infectious diseases doctor and AIDS specialist,’ he explains, ‘and because of that – much like in this past year when medical professionals and epidemiologists have appeared in the media a lot – he went on news shows. I have these really vivid memories of the helicopter taking him away, and I’ve still got the videotape of him being interviewed by David Johnson and Jo Pearson.’
1986 was also the year NASA’s Space Shuttle ‘Challenger’ exploded just moments after launch. Lucas remembers seeing it on TV. ‘My mum was crying, and that made a big impression on me, as it does when you’re little and you see mum crying which doesn’t happen very often.’
These experiences helped inspire the creation and writing ofThe Newsreader, the ABC drama set in the high-stakes world of an 80s nightly newsroom. Created and produced by Lucas and Joanna Werner, with all six episodes directed by Emma Freeman, the series has lots of big hair and some giant shoulder pads (costume designer Marion Boyce has a ball). It’s fun period drama, in all the ways that period dramas are fun (‘look at the racism! Look at the sexism! Those cars…), while speaking to contemporary Australian cultural debates, and presenting a complex but very recognisable species of romantically charged work friendship.
Anna Torv stars as the ambitious female newsreader, battling sexism (particularly that of her boss, a magnificently monstrous William McInnes) and her own internal panic attacks. Sam Reid plays her junior co-worker, a sensitive but diligent young journalist who’s still unsure of his voice. As they work together covering the events of an intense three-month period, including the AIDS crisis and Lindy Chamberlin’s release, they form a unique bond.https://www.youtube.com/embed/k_0kxdPnEWg?feature=oembed
Writing relationship dramas and rom-coms is Lucas’s specialty. Nominated four times for the AWGIE for Best TV Screenplay, his credits include being a core writer and script editor on the hit series Offspring (2010 – 2014), Wentworth, Rosehaven, producing on Party Tricks and creating contemporary relationship drama Five Bedrooms, which sold to the UK and is now in production on its third season. (Season 2 begins on new streamer Paramount+ on August 11.) Lucas was also the writer of the 2012 unconventional romantic comedy feature film Not Suitable for Children, directed by Peter Templeman and starring Sarah Snook and Ryan Kwanten.
Lucas says that, when he started work on it in 2015, the kernel of the idea for The Newsreader actually had nothing to do with the politics of the newsroom, and everything to do with a particular kind of relationship dynamic.
‘I was writing a relationship drama between the characters of Dale and Helen, and it was set in the 80s. I wanted to look at a male character that was sort of struggling to be the masculine ideal that the world wanted him to be. And conversely, I wanted a female character who had those sort of alpha traits and she was punished for it. About a year and a half later I set it in the newsroom.’
As difficult as COVID was, there was this massive silver lining to all these remarkable people being home in Australia and there was not much other production happening. So, in normal circumstances, Anna Torv would have been in LA and Sam Reid would have been in London and we still would have offered it to them, but God knows what we might have been competing with. But they were back in their family homes.
Michael Lucas
‘I thought, well, if he wants to be this masculine ideal, what does he want to be? A politician? A sportsman? And then once I thought of a newsreader, it lit up for me.’
It should be noted too, that Lucas is a self-confessed news junkie. He finds looking through news archives ‘exhilarating’, and also loves any kind of film or TV show set in a newsroom. ‘From Broadcast News, to Press Gang, Frontline, Tootsie and Network, I love them all,’ he says. ‘But particularly Broadcast News, and there are some very specific moments of homage to that movie in our series.’
L-R Robert Taylor, Marg Downey and Michael Lucas in episode 2 where Lucas cameos as a DJ. Supplied.
Screenhub: What kind of research did you do to write this script?
Michael Lucas: I spoke to a lot of people. I was so lucky that people were incredibly generous, but also, a lot of the people that were working in news in the 80s are just on retirement age at the moment and It felt like I was hitting them up at a good time. They were ready to unload about what the workplace culture was like back then.
I built up a big Bible and I spoke to people that were on camera, off-camera, producers, people in as many different roles as I could to build up a portrait. I very quickly found that even though I was speaking to people from different networks, some commercial, and some ABC, there were definite hallmarks of those kinds of workplaces no matter who you were speaking to.
The newsroom you present here is quite diverse, with actors like Michelle Lim Davidson, Chai Hansen and Chum Ehelepola given key roles. Was it really like that?
I think undoubtedly newsrooms at that time were very male-dominated and very white. And so that was a real conversation in terms of casting it in 2021. There are so many different approaches you can take. There’s Bridgerton, which is almost set in a in a different version of history, and then there are shows where you’re colourblind or colour conscious. We spoke about it endlessly.
And I would say that with a mix of particular characters, they were conceived to really tell a story of what it would be like to be sort of a first-generation immigrant coming into a workplace. That was really something that was happening in Australian culture in the 80s.
In other cases, there would be a spectacular performer that really was perfect for that character and so we cast them. Our newsroom is a little bit more diverse than it would have been, but that’s where we landed.
In the first two episodes I’ve watched, there’s a lovely ambiguity and subtlety between the two leads. Nothing is over-explained.
I have to give a huge amount of credit for that to both the director Emma Freeman and the actors, Anna Torv and Sam Reid, who, if they could act it with subtlety, didn’t want to state it [in words]. They had such beautiful instincts. And I feel like I should say that, because they may have protected me from myself a few times! They’ve really made me look good.
The show also really captures some of that ambiguity around homosexuality that we had in the 80s, where there was a lot of very camp pop culture, but to be gay in real life was still very difficult and secret.
It was such contradiction, wasn’t it? You turn on TV, and you’ll get Culture Club. But then in the wider world, there’s this intense homophobia and repression. It was really strange even now to go back to that and try and get your head around what was the real attitude?
Sam Reid and Chai Hansen in The Newsreader, courtesy ABC.
Was it difficult to get the rights to all the archival footage you’ve used?
It was maddeningly complex! There’s a very good reason the ABC was the perfect place to make this story, because they have those expansive news archives and the ABC News owns so much footage, which was fantastic. But it was more complex than I could have imagined, depending on which show the footage came from.
Like, if it was on an ABC news bulletin, then they could give us the right to that and we could use it. But if it was on Four Corners, that’s a different rights situation. We had to be a little bit crafty, for example, in the opening episode, the footage of the Challenger explosion had to be purchased from the US.
Literally every frame has a different rights situation. I don’t know if we’ll get a season two, but if we do I want to change the process and start with all the material we have access to first.
When did you go into production and how did COVID affect you?
We started shooting in Melbourne in November 2020. We were lucky to sort of land in a relatively calm time although we still had massive curveballs, things like sending the cast home for Christmas and then the Northern Beaches outbreak happens and then we have to say to some of them, ‘I’m sorry. You’re not going to have a family Christmas. You’re packing up your car. You coming to Victoria right now.’ Those sort of things happened.
We also had plans to shoot in different parts of the country at various points, but it all had to be Victorian-based.
As difficult as COVID was, there was this massive silver lining to all these remarkable people being home in Australia and there was not much other production happening. So, in normal circumstances, Anna Torv would have been in LA and Sam Reid would have been in London and we still would have offered it to them, but God knows what we might have been competing with. But they were back in their family homes.
Not just the actors, but amazing heads of department like production designer Melinda Doring, who doesn’t usually do recurring series, she usually does feature films. We were one of the first productions to go back into shooting and I feel like we got some amazing coups in casting crew that that were probably the product of 2020 being such a weird year.
What can you tell us about the excellent cringe 80s costuming?
Costume Designer Marion Boyce [The Dressmaker, Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries] is amazing, and that was another thing that came out of Melbourne’s lockdown. She was online the whole time going to deceased estates that were auctioning off 80s clothes, and a lot of the things that Anna Torv in particular wears are real vintage outfits from the 80s. On a normal production, there’s no way the designer would have months and months to sit there online going to auctions because of a pandemic.
When did Emma Freeman come on as director and did you always envisage her doing all six episodes?
Basically, as soon as I got together with Jo [Werner], we discussed Emma. We had to wait until the date firmed up before it could become a formal offer, But I’ve worked with her for so long and so has Jo, and we kept dropping it into conversation to get her interest. I thought we were in with a real shot because I knew she would love to do something in the 80s, knowing what she loves. She’s done the 70s and Puberty Blues but she hadn’t ever really gone into the 80s. She’s so respected and has so many offers from overseas, we were lucky to get her
In terms of Emma directing at all, that was partially because we had to shoot it all as one sort of block. We didn’t shoot in discrete episodes, we shot all six episodes all at once. So there were practical elements, but also we had a really particular tone we were trying to hit. And I just knew that Emma intuitively understood it.
When she directs my stuff, I always feel like she is in contact with both the comedy and also the sort of darker underlying or more dramatic elements. She manages to bring both of them out so skillfully. I wanted her to be able to be a core storyteller and really put her stamp on it.
Do you have advice for emerging screenwriters?
I know a lot of people always say this, but write. Write an awful lot. I just wrote and wrote and wrote. I’d been writing for 10 years before anything of mine was professionally produced. I wrote a lot of things that are tucked in a bottom drawer for a very good reason. And I think you have to go through that. I certainly come in contact with a lot of aspiring screenwriters, who really want to get into it, but haven’t really spent that time.
The other thing is if you can try and balance that with real experience of film or TV productions. I was an assistant for Bazmark, [Baz Luhrmann’s company], and I was a script assistant for John Edwards, and Imogen Banks and, and that was really essential to witness the process of scripts being made, how production works and how to how to interpret notes and all those sorts of things.
Try to write as much as you can and seek out opportunities, whether it be doing placements, or whether even just starting as a runner. I was a runner in my very early days. It’s all really valuable.
The Newsreader premieres on Sunday 15 August at 8.30pm on ABC TV and ABC iview.
Production Credit:The Newsreader is a Werner Films Production for the ABC. Major production investment from Screen Australia and the ABC and financed with support from Film Victoria. Worldwide distribution is managed by Entertainment One (eOne). Created by Michael Lucas. Directed by Emma Freeman. Produced by Lucas and Joanna Werner. Executive Producers Werner and Stuart Menzies. ABC Executive Producers Brett Sleigh and Sally Riley.
The box office sees a small elite flocking to You Won’t Be Alone, as mainstream audiences prefer a pair of elderly lovers wisecracking in Ticket to Paradise.
Goran Stolevski’s Australian-Macedonian film You Won’t Be Alone arrived this year with some excellent reviews. ‘A spellbinding horror movie from a great new talent’, said The Guardian, though David Stratton admits to being down on the film.
We will side patriotically with Variety, which contributes, ‘Drawing on his Macedonian roots, director Goran Stolevski delivers a truly unique feature debut: an erotically charged, at times brutish quest for identity, disguised as an elevated horror film.’
The film also played at the Melbourne International Film Festival, where Stolevski’s sophomore featureOf An Age opened the festival to rave reviews. 2022, it seems, is the year of Stolevski.
But how does the Box Office treat that true filmic reality – a new talent with a powerful vision? It went out on seven screens and made just $11,000. Here’s hoping this is ‘week one’ in a cunning plan by distributor Madman. It has taken $422,000 around the world including $405,000 from the US, before streaming in North America on Peacock.
In other news, Del Kathryn Barton’s Blaze has been in cinemas for five weeks, is now on only one screen and has made $85,000. It seems daring cinema is not being celebrated – and magic realism is treated like the pox.
The box office ladder
For the second weekend in succession, soft rom-com Ticket to Paradise from Julia Roberts and George Clooney takes the top slot with a hefty $2.87m, even as all the states went into school holiday mode and saw younger audiences filling theatres.
Ticket toParadise lost 61 screens to run on 454 total, but only dropped 5% in total box office, to put a solid $7.8m into the exhibitor bank accounts.
DC League of Super-Pets went up by 50% to reach $7.87m, almost challenging Ticket to Paradise for top slot. In fact, it has made $4,000 more than Ticket to Paradise over the same two weeks by pulling ahead this week.
Paws of Fury climbed into the ring to face the Super-Pets, but took only $559,000. It has 150 less screens, but is also burdened with a younger demographic. It opened in the US back in July with $9.7m, and ultimately made $38m around the world. The budget was around $70m.
The other reasons for the Fury flop? it is a parody/homage to Blazing Saddles (which is too confusing for the young’uns), and it has been accused of racism for using Chinese gang tropes.
Avatar has been re-released and lit up 500 screens to make a modest $1.39m to claim third place on the ladder. IMAX would have been a significant contributor. It turns out we still have an appetite for colourful space adventures.
Fall, at the number four slot, probably deserves more. Two people trapped up a 2,000 foot mast is an elegant premise that makes no bones about the emotions on offer, and it did very well internationally. $20m off a budget of $4.6m will make UK expat director Scott Mann very happy after a miserable run of three indie action flops, none of which took more than $6.2m.https://www.youtube.com/embed/iSspRSGc4Dk?feature=oembed
We got this film late, and it claimed $754,000 off 264 screens. Not bad, with more to come.
Bullet Train, fattened up with $12.05m over 8 weeks, is coasting into its final station, but still making $337,000 on a weekend. Horror pic Orphan: First Kill has taken $2.56m in four weeks; Rom-com After Ever Happy is slogging along with $1.80m in three weeks, and horror funny Bodies Bodies Bodies has hustled $692,000 in two weeks, which is not bad.
Elvis is sitting on the porch strumming a guitar with $33.27m.
Good Luck to You, Leo Grande has hung in for six weeks to reach $3.06m, with $85,000 this weekend on 94 screens. Without a US release it made $9.72m around the world though some of the figures are obsolete.
Three Thousand Years of Longing never found an audience. Here it has made $1.21m in four weeks and is down to 75 screens and $90,000 over the weekend, though the international total is $24m. However, $12.58m comes from the US, so Leo Grande pushed it fairly hard. They are very different films, but they both have Australian directors.
The Drover’s Wife: the Legend of Molly Johnson has been around for 21 weeks, is now on one screen, and has made $1.90m, but won’t cross the $2m barrier. So near and so far.
See How They Run is built around Agatha Christie’s play, The Mousetrap, which a producer tries to option before his murder. Even the Christie herself becomes involved. Who knows how it will go here, though competition for grownups wanting some silly fun is limited.
Smile is yet another psychological horror rooted deep in the supernatural, involving doctors and self-generated horror. It’s said to have good scares, but little stands out in rewriting an ageing genre.
In other words, the school holiday films are playing out, and nothing much else is happening.
Go and see You Won’t Be Alone if you can find it. You will belong to a small, smug elite – and don’t we all want that?
By Sandy George. 6 September 2022. Screen International
Melbourne-based producer Arenamedia is on a roll. The filmmaker-driven independent, run by Australian producer, director and writer Robert Connolly, has three films — Blueback, Emily and Sweet As — playing at Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF).
Connolly wrote (with Harry Cripps) and directed 2021 Australian box-office hit The Dry, starring Eric Bana, and his directing credits range from his early social and political critiques The Bank, Three Dollars and Balibo through to family film Paper Planes, International Emmy-nominated TV series The Slap and Deep State for Fox Network Group. As a producer and executive producer, Connolly has also worked on films and series such as The Boys, Romulus, My Father, The Warriors, Gallipoli and Chasing Asylum.
With Connolly often busy directing and writing, Arenamedia has three other full-timers who produce or executive produce: Liz Kearney, Robert Patterson and emerging writer/producer Tara Bilston. James Grandison — who runs the Western Australian office and produced Blueback alongside Connolly and Kearney — Kate Laurie (Petrol) and Chloe Brugale (Because We Have Each Other) are non-exclusive producers at Arenamedia.
“We are lean but have a model that allows a diverse amount of work,” says Connolly, who notes that all Arenamedia producers and other key creatives have a stake in their own productions via partnership arrangements. “The whole producing team share an interest in deeply humanist stories, whether they be dramas, thrillers or comedies… We’re not trying to second-guess the market.”
Like many producers, Connolly believes television has taken over the middle ground of scripted content, forcing a polarisation of cinema. This partly explains Arenamedia’s slate being either bold, hard-to-finance films by new and emerging directors or films of scale, usually driven by Connolly himself.
Environmental drama Blueback — premiering as a special presentation at TIFF — is an example of the latter. It stars Mia Wasikowska, Radha Mitchell and Eric Bana, and is written and directed by Connolly based on Tim Winton’s novel. “It has this epic, dramatic scale but at its heart it is a profound film about saving the ocean, and a commercial film with big environmental ambition,” says Connolly. HanWay Films has pre-sold Blueback to territories including Weltkino Filmverleih in Germany, while Roadshow Films will open it locally on January 1, 2023.
Meanwhile, Emily is actress Frances O’Connor’s feature directing debut and opens TIFF’s Platform section. Emma Mackey plays author Emily Brontë, and the Tempo/Beaglepug production with Arenamedia has been pre-sold widely by Embankment Films, including to Bleecker Street for the US.
Jub Clerc’s directing debut Sweet As is playing in TIFF Discovery, anchored by emerging First Nations actor Shantae Barnes-Cowan’s performance. Investment from the Melbourne International Film Festival (MIFF)’s Premiere Fund meant it received its world premiere there on August 13.
“The whole producing team share an interest in deeply humanist stories, which could be dramas, thrillers or comedies,” says Connolly.
Diverse portfolio
ROBERT CONNOLLY
Meanwhile, Force Of Nature is in post. The sequel to The Dry is again with MadeUp Stories and features five women who go on a hiking retreat in the Australian bush but only four return. “We’re unafraid of making unashamedly Australian work with Australian talent,” says Connolly.
Also in the works is Mike Hailwood Film, based on the UK motorcycle racing legend’s 1978 comeback. Bana is writing and will play Hailwood and direct alongside Connolly. “It will shoot on the Isle of Man, in Victoria and possibly in New Zealand but maybe not until 2024,” says Patterson.
There are also a pair of animated features on the slate: stop-motion Memoir Of A Snail, written and directed by Oscar winner Adam Elliot (Harvey Krumpet), and Magic Beach, based on Alison Lester’s children’s book.
Kearney and Connolly are also involved in Originate, a VicScreen/SBS initiative that aims to champion new voices from traditionally underrepresented backgrounds. They will act as executive producers and mentors on the project that goes into production.
Patterson says Arenamedia has strong theatrical ambitions for its projects. It has its own distribution arm CinemaPlus and sales arm North South East West, which makes it easier for the firm to access finance from government agency Screen Australia — whose eligibility criteria stipulates that local distributors and international sales agents must be attached prior to production.
But Arenamedia will partner up where appropriate. Sphere Films and Roadshow picked up Sweet As on completion, for example. Roadshow has signed on for six Arenamedia theatrical releases, including The Dry and Force Of Nature. Madman has Emily locally. “We’re all about the cinema experience for communal consumption,” says Patterson. “We’re not purists and snobs but it’s what we all do and love.”
DOP Bonnie Elliott and director Rachel Ward on the set of ‘Palm Beach’.
Directors working in the streaming landscape and alongside showrunners must take a “humility pill” or “move to the exit”, according to Rachel Ward.
The director of films such as Beautiful Kate and Palm Beach, opened the Australian Directors’ Guild conference, Director’s Cut, on Saturday in a keynote address.
In her speech, she referenced a controversial article she penned for the Nine papers in 2019, where she declared the director “dead” and wrote that today’s “Leans and Hitchcocks and Weirs” aren’t making film, but TV, where they have been “sadly neutered”.
“Producers and showrunners are the new brands, not the directors. They cast, they develop the scripts, they set the tone, they have final cut,” she wrote then.
Ward quipped on Saturday the piece did not win her many industry friends. However, she said she wrote it from her own experience.
Her own dose of “humility” came via a TV series where she “was not permitted to change one word of the script without prior consent”.
“I had to respond to eight pages of notes for a set-up episode from some invisible exec, deep in the streamer’s bowels. My editor was removed. Eventually I was too. And as small as our industry is here, I did not work again for many years,” she told the conference.
However, Ward said her most recent experience on a series “could not have been more fruitful, respectful and collaborative”.
“I am tempted to take back everything I said about our imminent death.
“But the truth is, the ground is shifting. And while we have enjoyed incredible autonomy and an unbridled voice in cinemas for decades, that platform, for most genres, is waning fast.
“Whether we like it or not, streaming – and with it our diminished voices – is the delivery service and the workplace for most directors of the future.
“It won’t be the same. We’ll have to conform to the streamer’s niche markets. We must do coverage execs may want, even if we don’t. We’ll get notes we have no option but to attend to. We won’t get the usual six to eight weeks to play in our edit; I have three days for a 35 minute episode in my latest.
“Of course there is no keeping good talent down. The best will rise. Their pilots will get picked up. Their set-up eps will rate the highest. They will be afforded the classiest fare; or they will develop, write and sell their own shows to streamers, and retain exec power. Either way, these director voices will increasingly be re-centred.”
Rachel Ward addressing the ADG conference.
Indeed, the role of the directors’ voice in a changing creative landscape – and their industrial rights – was among Director’s Cut’s key discussions.
In the “golden age of TV”, it’s not unusual to see six, eight or 10-episode series entirely shot by just one director, and to hear directors speak of how that creative opportunity presents to them like a “long film”.
But on that kind of project, whose voice is at the centre? Is it the director or the creative producer? What happens when you add a showrunner into the mix? Does a director get a say in major production decisions, like casting? Who gets final cut? Should a writer-director be able to be fired off their own project?
The role of the director continued in a panel session following Ward’s address, ‘Director at the Centre’. Moderated by ADG president Rowan Woods, it featured the Emmy-nominated Daina Reid, Bus Stop Films co-founder Genevieve Clay-Smith, Adrian Russell Wills and Partho Sen-Gupta.
Woods began the session by positing that throughout the history of screen storytelling, authorship has been shared in a “jostle-like manner” by directors, writers and producers.
“This movement, or this jostle at the centre is often rooted in a belief that a singularity of vision brings originality and coherence to screen storytelling.”
While collaborative practice was paramount, he added the director leads the interpretation of a text and the process of creating screen language – mise en scene – stating: “We must stand up for what that voice is worth to the screen project and to what it’s worth to the audience.”
There was an emphasis on a directors’ singularity of vision in the TV landscape like never before, Reid said.
However, if she was to have put on the ADG’s conference, she would have called it “Episode 8”, referring to some of her frustrations working under the showrunner model. She noted that often a showrunner’s attention is pulled in multiple directions, leading to script delays.
“I have been in the position where I’ve finished a few series. I never have that script. I wait and I wait and I wait and it doesn’t come.
“It all breaks apart at that point, because a director can’t direct, a producer can’t produce, and the actors can’t act if there’s no script. So if that showrunner has had their focus split so much they can’t deliver it to you, then where are we?”
In terms of how she sees the director’s role, Reid compared herself to a conductor, arguing the role is collaborative.
On that point, Clay-Smith agreed, noting her directorial style was that of “servant leadership”, as opposed to others serving her vision. That is, the creative vision is worked out as a team, with the director’s role then to get the best out of said team.
This idea of allowing others authorship in the creative process has informed her work with the disability community via Bus Stop Films. The concept of the auteur was not something that sat right with her.
“There is a way to have a creative vision and to lead with empathetic leadership; to be able listen to people, to give other people the space and to see them as valued members of the team, not just servants for the machine. That’s where inclusive filmmaking for me really came from; it was the idea of a shoulder-to-shoulder model, not a hierarchical model,” she said.
Contrastingly, Sen-Gupta argued the idea of the auteur needed to be reclaimed and revisited. They encouraged delegates to remember where the idea of the ‘auteur’ came from; a reaction against the studio industrial model in France in the ’50s where directors were seen as craftspeople – they believe we are at similar juncture now.
“I’d like to like to take that word back and own it. Yes, I do call myself an author-director because I am the author of the story and the film. As I go along, I work with different collaborators, all contributing to my vision in their own way. But they come and they go, and I continue to work on that project for a long time,” they said.
Wills added at times, strain on time and money on Australian productions – particularly in episodic TV – can mean a director is made to feel they are just there to “shoot a call sheet”.
“That’s when I start to feel my mental health declines, because I’m after the art; I’m after the performance, the storytelling…I think that’s getting further and further out of reach in this country.”
Adrian Russell Wills, Daina Reid, Genevieve Clay-Smith, Partho Sen-Gupta and Rowan Woods.
In another session, ‘Rights, Representation and Residuals’, RGM’s Jennifer Naughton and Frankel Lawyers’ Greg Duffy spoke to negotiating directors’ rights within the changing landscape.
Duffy said that over the last decade, he had increasingly observed directors getting siloed out of key decisions, though noted that was changing somewhat. Within that, he flagged concerns around showrunners ‘cutting behind’ directors across the US, Australia and the UK.
“You’ve got to be really clear about your vision, how you’re going to present it and what process, contractually, that means. So for instance… What period do you have to exclusively work with the editor to do the director’s cut? Then, who do you deliver to? Who do you take notes from? Do you get a chance to go back and interpret those notes and do another cut, and then who does it go to? That last jump is the bit that’s creating tension.”
Another growing trend was the early termination of directors. Naughton noted examples of clauses in contracts that would allow a director – shooting all episodes of a series – to be fired after the first episode if a platform didn’t like their approach.
Duffy cautioned termination provisions should be careful negotiated, particularly when the director was also the creator of the project. He noted that in feature film, there was a typically process before a director could be terminated: consultation, back and forth and then arbitration. He encouraged directors working in other mediums to also include an arbitration clause in their contracts, allowing a neutral party to resolve decisions quickly.
In terms of residuals, Naughton said that directors rarely see more than upfront fees on streaming projects. Both she and Duffy noted it is very hard for representatives, whether agent, manager or legal, to argue against the global might of streamers in contracting, with the argument often: “It’s been signed and used in 190 countries worldwide.”
In that sense, Duffy said there was a need for industrial action. “Writers, composers and producers around the world have been dealt into that particular pie for a long time. It’s only just started with directors in a small way.”
Further, Duffy noted that most countries around the world, except the US, have moral rights for directors, which involves the right to be credited and the right of integrity. He has started pushing this on contracts with global streamers as Australian directors are afforded these productions under the Copyright Act.
“We don’t want [directors] to be cut behind or pushed out of the of the consultation, collaboration process in the final delivery,” he said. “If the production company wants the director enough, there’s a discussion.”
Naughton said if a director waived the attribution of authorship in their moral rights, it was actually in conflict with their credit clause. “We keep raising this with the various legal teams that represent these companies, and it’s like bashing your head against a brick wall.
“These companies, most of them are coming out of the US. They have an understanding of working with the guilds there. Those guilds have such strong memberships, such strong powers. It very difficult for us to rely on that in this market without that industrial instrument in place. If we’re relying on the guild to step in and say, ‘Well, no, the director needs to be credited, and you can’t cut up their work’, that’s what the ADG should be doing.”
The ADG is finalising a TV director’s agreement with Screen Producers Australia.
“This is the only project I’ve ever done which Closer isn’t producer of,” Sophie Hyde tells us during the promotional junket for her latest directorial effort Good Luck to You, Leo Grande, an entirely UK production.
Closer Productions is the Adelaide based company that has brought us formally and thematically progressive works such as feature films 52 Tuesdays and Animals, documentaries In My Blood it Runs, Life in Movement, Sam Klemke’s Time Machine and The Dreamlife of Georgie Stone, and series Fucking Adelaide and Aftertaste.
Hyde is co-owner and one of the directors at Closer, and says that it’s “sometimes nice to go and do something else,” with regards to Good Luck to You, Leo Grande, starring Emma Thompson and Daryl McCormack.
“Australia should be producing things like this. This is the only film I’ve ever done that I’m not a producer of… Silly me,” Hyde says about the film, which is getting a big push around the world.
“I think this is exactly the kind of thing we can be producing out of Australia. As producers, we don’t look at the international world. It’s a real tight balance because Australian audiences in the cinema for Australian films are not necessarily the same… We seem to have films that are successful in Australia in cinema, and then not as successful overseas. Or they’re successful overseas and not as successful in the cinema here. I don’t know why. I don’t know how to grapple with that. I just know that I make films that feel like they’re international, but they feel Australian to me too. I hope that we open up and want to see more kinds of stories. That’s always the thing, more different stories … for everybody.”
Good Luck to You, Leo Grande is certainly a different kind of story. Essentially a two-hander set in a hotel room, the film stars Emma Thompson as a former schoolteacher of religion, a recent widow who hires an escort, played by Daryl McCormack, so that she can experience delights of the body that she has repressed for so long.
Written by comedic performer Katy Brand, and with Emma Thompson attached, Hyde was sent the script off the back of her work on Animals.
“It was a very early draft of the script, a very short draft. I had a meeting with them and said what I wanted to do with it. Then we worked on the script for 11 drafts quite quickly.
“Katy had sat down and written a story about these two characters. She’d written a script where they met three times, and she knew it was an early draft. She knew she wanted to go further with it, but it was short at 70 pages. It was dialogue. And then we expanded it to be the fourth meeting and changed a bunch of the story.”
When we bring up the fact that the story could have equally lent itself to the stage, Hyde is quick to point out her reasoning for the cinematic approach.
“For me, we’re looking at intimacy between two people and two bodies,” says Hyde. “That never feels like a play because that’s not my art form. All I see is movie, especially when it’s as intimate as this. I think that’s much more the pleasure of a movie where you can be close to someone, you can feel with them as opposed to looking at a distance. These kinds of films are the ones that I think of as the most cinematic in some ways. I never felt like I wanted to make it bigger. There was always a sense of emotional terrain, and the landscapes of their faces and their bodies was enough.”
Speaking of intimacy, did Hyde work with an intimacy coordinator on the film? No, though I think that it’s such a good advent in film. There’s been so many instances where actors have been really mistreated. I think as a director, in the most part, it means you can push harder for what you want because you know you are safe in the boundaries.
“With this though, Emma and Daryl and I talked about it a lot, and we were just really comfortable with the idea that we had each other. And another voice felt like too much for this. I think I work in some of the same ways that an intimacy coordinator does, which is very much about continual, constant, enthusiastic consent. That’s something that is present all the time in the shoot, and in the way that I work with actors. But on something bigger, where I’m not just dealing with two people, I would bring someone in.”
Working on such a contained project, shot in 19 days with a minimal crew, also allowed Hyde to work at her best. “I had a monitor, and I was offset a lot, just outside the hotel room. As a director, I have to have direct line to my actors, even if I’m a long way from them, because I go to them a lot. If anyone stands in front of me and the actors, I get really annoyed. It’s one of the only things that annoys me on a set, actually. That’s really important to me, that direct line to them and the sense that I can get to them fast, as soon as they cut.”
Even though this was not technically a Closer production, Sophie Hyde certainly had the support of her team, including her partner Bryan Mason [above, with Sophie on set], who was cinematographer and editor on Good Luck To You, Leo Grande. “We spend so much time together developing, and he’s there from the very start,” Hyde says. “I had really strong ideas about this film, about the way that light would be in each shot and the way that it would look, the neutrality of the space. And so we just had to build the set with the production designer, and to make sure that we could get those kind of shots. It wasn’t storyboarded, but we knew exactly how we wanted it to look all the time.
“A lot of our [Closer] team helped in the development of the script too. And post is a lot of the same team, so you still have the same DNA in a project like this.”
Good Luck To You, Leo Grande is in cinemas August 18, 2022
From a unique and authentic voice comes the highly anticipated feature debut Shayda, by writer and director Noora Niasari, starring Iranian actress Zar Amir-Ebrahimi (Tehran Taboo, Morgen sind wir frei) with major production investment from Screen Australia.
Melbourne-based Niasari is well known for her award-winning short films including Waterfall which screened at the 66th Melbourne International Film Festival (MIFF) where it was nominated for best short film, Tâm and feature documentary Casa Antúnez. HanWay Films has come on board to handle international sales and distribution, UTA Independent Film Group is representing the U.S. sale.
Shayda is produced by Vincent Sheehan (The Hunter, Jasper Jones, Animal Kingdom, Lore) through his new production venture Origma 45. Cate Blanchett, Andrew Upton and Coco Francini at Dirty Films (Apples, Carol, Little Fish) are executive producers. Shayda received major production investment from Screen Australia in association with The 51 Fund and financed with support from VicScreen and the MIFF Premiere Fund, while local distribution in Australia and New Zealand will be handled by Madman Entertainment. The 51 Fund (Cusp and the upcoming Shari & Lamb Chop) provides financing to feature films of any genre that are directed by women, with the goal of providing support to the most exciting female voices within the creative industry. Caitlin Gold, Lindsay Lanzillotta, Naomi McDougall Jones, Lois Scott, and Nivedita Kulkarni also serve as executive producers on behalf of 51.
Heads of production will include Cinematographer and Niasari’s closest collaborator Sherwin Akbarzadeh (Stories From Oz). Osamah Sami (Ali’s Wedding), Leah Purcell (The Drover’s Wife: The Legend of Molly Johnson), Mojean Aria (The Enforcer), Jillian Nguyen (Expired) and Rina Mousavi (Alexander) will star alongside Amir-Ebrahimi. Production will commence on 11 July in Australia.
A young Iranian mother (Amir-Ebrahimi) and her six-year-old daughter find refuge in an Australian women’s shelter during the two weeks of Iranian New Year (Nowrooz) which is celebrated as a time of renewal and re-birth. Aided by the strong community of women at the refuge they seek their freedom in this new world of possibilities, only to find themselves facing the violence they tried so hard to escape.
Vincent Sheehan commented, “Shayda is a powerful, timely and important story to be telling and Noora’s unique Iranian/Australian voice as a director will be a potent combination. I am thrilled to be working with such a quality stable of producers and market partners with a shared passion and commitment to backing Noora and her story.”
Screen Australia’s Head of Content Grainne Brunsdon said, “Rising talent Noora Niasari has created a well-crafted script, vibrant characters and an authentic world and Screen Australia is delighted to support her debut feature through development and into production. Shayda offers a unique perspective on a story with universal themes of survival and the cost of freedom.”
Dirty Films also noted, “We first encountered Noora’s talent watching her short films, The Phoenix and Tâm. We were blown away by her precise, emotionally-driven filmmaking and her capacity to draw out gripping performances. We are excited to be working alongside Vincent again to help Noora fulfil her bold and distinct vision for Shayda.”
HanWay Films MD Gabrielle Stewart said, “We are delighted to be part of an incredible team supporting Noora Niasari’s feature debut. Noora has written a beautiful piece that reflects much of her own experience of moving to Australia as a child. There is an intimacy to her storytelling that brings to life what it is to honour the traditions of the culture you have left behind as a mother raising her young child, whilst together bravely embracing a whole new one.”
The Australian Director’s Guild (ADG) will hold a one-day conference in Sydney next month for directors and industry members.
Carrying the theme of Cutting Through The Noise, Director’s Cut will feature panels exploring the director’s role in a changed streaming landscape and how emerging directors can bridge the gap to paid work.
Delegates will also hear from internationally successful directors about opportunities outside Australia and have the opportunity to discuss the value of impact strategies for both unscripted and scripted productions, while also getting updates on their rights and representation.
Other topics for the event range from looking at how sets can be made more sustainable and ensuring that they are a safe space for diverse cast and crew to how directors can work with funding agencies, networks, and streamers.
Leading Australian director, Cate Shortland (Black Widow) is the ADG’s guest for First-Hand, an in-depth conversation that will delve into her work in Australia and overseas.
Other speakers include ADG president Rowan Woods, Matt Moore, Shawn Seet, Partho Sen-Gupta, Katrina Irawati Graham, Monica Zanetti, and Tin Pang with more to be confirmed over the coming weeks.
ADG executive director Alaric McAusland said the event was aimed at “recentering the director’s voice and underscoring their leadership and significant creative contributions to today’s screen industry”.
“It’s been several years since we staged a conference and post-covid there is an enormous appetite for our members to connect with each other and across the industry, this was recently evidenced with our 2021 annual awards oversubscribed three times over last December,” he said.
“Our reimagined conference will be a truly unique opportunity for Australian directors to hear directly from key industry stakeholder and their director colleagues as they deep dive into the current trends and issues facing directors working in Australia and internationally.”
Included in the ticket prices will be a webinar, to be held later in the year, which is a collaboration with Screen Well. The webinar will look at the ways in which a director can assist with the wellbeing of their crew/cast and how to manage work/life balance.
Director’s Cut will be held in-person at SUNSTUDIOS in Alexandria on August 20 with an accompanying live stream.
The conference program will head to Western Sydney before touring nationally over the next 12 months.
Young Aussie actress Rhiannon Fish (Home And Away, The 100) returns to Australia for The Steve Jaggi Company’s new romantic comedy drama A Royal In Paradise.
“Having the opportunity to work in Australia again is a dream come true… especially on a project like this one,” says young Australian actress Rhiannon Fish. “[Director] Adrian Powers has found a very unique/modern way of telling a classic fairy tale.”
One of many, many young local talents to graduate from the long-running television drama Home And Away onto the international stage with a major role in the TV series The 100 (which was followed by a host of television films), Rhiannon Fish is back in Australia for the first time since 2018’s sci-fi actioner Occupation to take the lead role in A Royal In Paradise.
The latest effort from director Adrian Powers (Forbidden Ground), A Royal In Paradise follows New York writer Olivia Perkins (Rhiannon Fish), a successful author on deadline for her next romantic adventure novel. The recent breakup with her boyfriend, however, has left her with writers’ block and a failing belief in love. Keen to help, Olivia’s best friend Katie (Cara McCarthy) convinces her to take a trip to the tropical Haven Isles in the hope of reinspiring her.
On the other side of the world, Prince Alexander (Mitchell Bourke) is reminded by the Queen (Andrea Moor) of his upcoming duty to marry royalty. Needing some distance, Prince Alexander decides to attend a marine conservation fundraiser on Haven Isles. On arriving at the island, the Prince and Olivia meet and form a friendship, but Alexander keeps his identity a secret. Experiencing all the Island has to offer, Olivia and Alexander grow closer, until the Prince’s true identity is exposed by a royal spy.
Currently shooting in South East Queensland, A Royal In Paradise is the latest sweet-natured, commercially-minded release from The Steve Jaggi Company, the prolific outfit behind successful youth and romance titles like Swimming For Gold, Back Of The Net, Rip Tide, This Little Love Of Mine and Romance On The Menu. “We had a lot of fun writing the script for this royal romance that embraces some beloved fairy tale archetypes while also possessing a great, modern message,” says director Adrian Powers. “I’m delighted to be directing this film with my long-time creative collaborators at The Steve Jaggi Company. We have a strong team assembled and it’s fantastic to finally be underway with filming.”
From a unique and authentic voice comes the highly anticipated feature debut Shayda, by writer and director Noora Niasari, starring Iranian actress Zar Amir-Ebrahimi (Tehran Taboo, Morgen sind wir frei) with major production investment from Screen Australia.
Melbourne-based Niasari is well known for her award-winning short films including Waterfall which screened at the 66th Melbourne International Film Festival (MIFF) where it was nominated for best short film, Tâm and feature documentary Casa Antúnez. HanWay Films has come on board to handle international sales and distribution, UTA Independent Film Group is representing the U.S. sale.
Shayda is produced by Vincent Sheehan (The Hunter, Jasper Jones, Animal Kingdom, Lore) through his new production venture Origma 45. Cate Blanchett, Andrew Upton and Coco Francini at Dirty Films (Apples, Carol, Little Fish) are executive producers. Shayda received major production investment from Screen Australia in association with The 51 Fund and financed with support from VicScreen and the MIFF Premiere Fund, while local distribution in Australia and New Zealand will be handled by Madman Entertainment. The 51 Fund (Cusp and the upcoming Shari & Lamb Chop) provides financing to feature films of any genre that are directed by women, with the goal of providing support to the most exciting female voices within the creative industry. Caitlin Gold, Lindsay Lanzillotta, Naomi McDougall Jones, Lois Scott, and Nivedita Kulkarni also serve as executive producers on behalf of 51.
Heads of production will include Cinematographer and Niasari’s closest collaborator Sherwin Akbarzadeh (Stories From Oz). Osamah Sami (Ali’s Wedding), Leah Purcell (The Drover’s Wife: The Legend of Molly Johnson), Mojean Aria (The Enforcer), Jillian Nguyen (Expired) and Rina Mousavi (Alexander) will star alongside Amir-Ebrahimi. Production will commence on 11 July in Australia.
A young Iranian mother (Amir-Ebrahimi) and her six-year-old daughter find refuge in an Australian women’s shelter during the two weeks of Iranian New Year (Nowrooz) which is celebrated as a time of renewal and re-birth. Aided by the strong community of women at the refuge they seek their freedom in this new world of possibilities, only to find themselves facing the violence they tried so hard to escape.
Vincent Sheehan commented, “Shayda is a powerful, timely and important story to be telling and Noora’s unique Iranian/Australian voice as a director will be a potent combination. I am thrilled to be working with such a quality stable of producers and market partners with a shared passion and commitment to backing Noora and her story.”
Screen Australia’s Head of Content Grainne Brunsdon said, “Rising talent Noora Niasari has created a well-crafted script, vibrant characters and an authentic world and Screen Australia is delighted to support her debut feature through development and into production. Shayda offers a unique perspective on a story with universal themes of survival and the cost of freedom.”
Dirty Films also noted, “We first encountered Noora’s talent watching her short films, The Phoenix and Tâm. We were blown away by her precise, emotionally-driven filmmaking and her capacity to draw out gripping performances. We are excited to be working alongside Vincent again to help Noora fulfil her bold and distinct vision for Shayda.”
HanWay Films MD Gabrielle Stewart said, “We are delighted to be part of an incredible team supporting Noora Niasari’s feature debut. Noora has written a beautiful piece that reflects much of her own experience of moving to Australia as a child. There is an intimacy to her storytelling that brings to life what it is to honour the traditions of the culture you have left behind as a mother raising her young child, whilst together bravely embracing a whole new one.”
