Karl Quinn Sydney Morning Herald, October 15, 2022
Australia is rushing towards a shortfall in filmmaking talent within the next five years, says acclaimed producer Tony Ayres, as the demise of Neighbours and other long-running TV series leaves nowhere for upcoming writers, directors and other key creatives to develop their skills.
Ayres – whose hit shows include Glitch, Stateless, The Slap, Barracuda, Seven Types of Ambiguity and Clickbait – says that while the local industry is enjoying an unprecedented boom in high-end production, much of it with the international market in mind, those shows offer few opportunities for emerging writers, directors and producers to hone their craft.
Tony Ayres: shows like Neighbours “gave younger directors an opportunity to direct, gave newer writers an opportunity to write”. CREDIT: LOUIE DOUVIS
“My concern is that there is a systemic flaw, which is that if we only do the kind of top-end, bigger-budget, more elite work, there is going to be a gap in about five years, when one generation moves on and another generation has to emerge,” says Ayres. “Who are those people going to be if they haven’t had the opportunities to learn?
“There is a real and significant gap in our production output [which was once filled by things] like Neighbours, great shows like Packed To the Rafters, Offspring, All Saints – the basic, longer, returning series, which gave younger directors an opportunity to direct, gave newer writers an opportunity to write.”https://omny.fm/shows/good-weekend-talks-1/acclaimed-tv-producer-tony-ayres-on-the-filmmaking/embed?background=f4f5f7&description=1&download=1&foreground=0a1633&highlight=096dd2&image=1&share=1&style=artwork&subscribe=1
The writer-producer-director – whose company Tony Ayres Productions has a development deal with the US giant NBC Universal – explains this issue on the latest episode of Good Weekend Talks, a podcast featuring conversations between the best journalists from across our newsrooms and the people captivating Australia right now, where he likened filmmaking to professional sport.
The cast of Neighbours gather for a farewell shot. The show was renowned for giving on-screen talent an early break, but it was also a crucial training ground for people in off-screen roles. CREDIT:SAM TABONE/GETTY
“The skill set we’re in requires practice, it actually requires you just doing the work and putting the hours in and learning and getting better,” Ayres says. “It’s like an elite athlete or any kind of highly skilled area of expertise. So unless you give people those opportunities I don’t know how they grow and develop.”
“I’m a big advocate for children’s TV,” says Ayres, whose teen drama Nowhere Boys enjoyed four seasons and a movie between 2013 and 2019. “I think it’s really important that we keep making it, not only for practitioners but for audience growth, for getting children inspired by seeing Australian stories.
“Children’s TV is crucial, it’s an area where you can give people an opportunity, and audiences tend to like it – they like watching Australian stories on our screens.”
Ayres’ comments come as federal Arts Minister Tony Burke this week signalled that Australian content quotas for the streamers remained under consideration by the government, and just days after Amazon Prime Video’s local content boss Tyler Bern argued such measures were unnecessary.
Other than America and India, he says, “there are very few market-based screen industries in the world that I’m aware of. We have to find some way of regulating the market so that we can actually exist as an industry. I absolutely believe that.”
L-R (Top): Christopher Bunton, Hattie Hook, James Majoos, Mabel Li, and Maggie (Max) McKenna. Bottom are Michelle Lim Davidson, Sana’a Shaik, Shaka Cook, Steph Tisdell, and Tuuli Narkle.
The Casting Guild of Australia (CGA) has announced its Rising Stars for 2022, highlighting ten actors with the potential to break out on the world stage.
The list for the 8th year of the initiative comprises Christopher Bunton, Hattie Hook, James Majoos, Mabel Li, Maggie (Max) McKenna, Michelle Lim Davidson, Sana’a Shaik, Shaka Cook, Steph Tisdell, and Tuuli Narkle.
They follow in the footsteps of previous recipients Milly Alcock, Eliza Scanlan, Katherine Langford, Thomas Weatherall, Zoe Terakes, Olivia De-Jonge, and Alexander England.
From November 18, the 2022 Rising Stars will be featured as part of an interview series on CGA’s Instagram, with a new performer posted each day ahead of the official in-person presentation at the CGA Awards ceremony on Friday, December 2 in Melbourne.
CGA president Thea McLeodsaid the organisation was “so proud” to have watched the progression of this year’s cohort from the casting room to screens and stages.
“Since the guild’s inception, the CGA has seen an abundance of successful rising stars launch their careers in Australia and beyond,” she said.
“The annual Rising Star awards highlight the fantastic calibre of talent we have here in Australia. We send our deepest congratulations to the Rising Stars of 2022 – a very talented bunch.”
The program is supported by Casting Networks and Showcast, with both providing 24-month premium memberships for each of the actors.
The 2022 CGA Rising Stars are as follows:
Christopher Bunton: An actor, gymnast, and dancer who made his feature film debut in Down Under and has since gone on to star in Nude Tuesday, Relic, Lone Wolf and Kairos. In television, Bunton has appeared in Doctor, Doctor, The Other Guy and is set to grace the screen alongside Josh Gad and Isla Fisher in the second season of Stan’s Wolf Like Me. This year, he appeared in the AACTA-nominated digital series, It’s Fine, I’m Fine, which he also co-wrote. He is currently studying film at AFTRS with Bus Stop Films.
Hattie Hook:Hook has a role in Stan’s upcoming Ten Pound Poms and appeared in ABC’s Savage River alongside Rising Star alum Katherine Langford. In 2022, she debuted in her first feature, Goran Stolevski’s Of An Age, which opened the 2022 Melbourne International Film Festival. Her onstage credits include Gypsy, Mary Poppins and Annie.
James Majoos: Majoos earned an AACTA nomination for Best Lead Actor in a Drama for their role as ‘Darren’ Netflix’s Heartbreak High. On stage, they have appeared in Sydney Theatre Company’s production of Grand Horizons and Belvoir’s Fangirls, the latter of which was awarded the Best Production of a Mainstage Musical by the Sydney Theatre Awards in 2019.
Mabel Li: Since graduating from NIDA in 2019, Li has appeared in SBS series, The Tailings, and SBS drama, New Gold Mountain, for which she was nominated for a Silver Logie for Most Outstanding Supporting Actress and won an Asian Academy award for Best Supporting Actress. Onstage, she has been seen in Never Closer (Downstairs Belvoir), Miss Peony (Belvoir), Delilah by the Hour, and D.N.A (Seymour Theatre). Next year she will star in Kindling Pictures’ Safe Home for SBS.
Maggie (Max) McKenna: Since making their professional theatre debut in 2017 as Muriel Heslop in Sydney Theatre Company’s Muriel’s Wedding: The Musical, McKenna has appeared on television in the Foxtel comedy series Open Slather, for which they wrote and performed music parodies, and the ABC drama series The Doctor Blake Mysteries. In 2018, McKenna joined the American touring production of Tony Award-winning musical Dear Evan Hansen in the role of Zoe Murphy as it toured fifty U.S cities. More recently, they’ve been seen in Sydney Theatre Company’s Melbourne and Sydney seasons of the Alanis Morrissette-inspired musical, Jagged Little Pill, in which they starred as Jo.
Michelle Lim Davidson: A graduate of the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts with experience in theatre, TV and film, Davidson has had roles in Nine Network’s After the Verdict and ABC’s The Newsreader, for which she received an AACTA nomination for Best Supporting Actress in a Television Drama. She is also a regular presenter on Play School and ABC KIDS Listen’s Story Salad.
Sana’a Shaik: Born in South Africa, Shaik moved to Perth a when she was 16. She cultivated her passion and ambition for the arts while at Curtin University, where she majored in Economics with a minor in Performing Arts. After studying the Meissner technique and working closely with various Sydney-based acting coaches, she has gone on to star in Stan’s Jack Irish, US mini-series Reckoning, and as Xanthe in the sci-fi climate change feature 2067. Shaik also has roles on feature film It Only Takes a Night, Amazon Prime’s original Australian series Class of ’07 and ABC anthology series, Summer Love.
Shaka Cook: A proud Innawonga and Yindjibarndi man from the Pilbara region of Western Australia, Cook has performed across Australia in theatrical productions for numerous main stage theatre companies, including a tour of The Secret River to the Edinburgh Festival and the National Theatre in London with the Sydney Theatre Company. On television, he has appeared in Cleverman, The Leftovers, Black Comedy, and Operation Buffalo, while his film work includes Top End Wedding and The Flood. Cook also starred as James Madison/Hercules Mulligan in the Australian production of international theatrical sensation Hamilton. He will next appear in feature film Kid Snow, due for release in 2023.
Steph Tisdell: It was in 2014 that Tisdell won the Deadly Funny National Grand Final, going on to sell out award-winning shows around the country. Seven years later, she made her acting debut in ABC’s Total Control and will soon appear in the Amazon Prime series Class of ‘07.
Tuuli Narkle: Born and raised in rural Western Australia, Narkle’s first major acting role came as ‘Ruby’ in the Jane Harrison play Stolen, which was directed and produced by Leah Purcell. Graduating from NIDA in 2018, Narkle has since appeared in multiple productions for stage and screen, including returning to the Sydney Theatre Company for their production of The Tenant of Wildfell Hall this year and making her Melbourne Theatre Company debut playing the role of Roxanne in a modern adaption of Cyrano. She starred in the comedy series All My Friends Are Racist for ABC iView and in the Corrie Chen-directed drama series Bad Behaviour for Matchbox Pictures. This year, she joined the cast of season 3 of ABC’s Mystery Road and received an AACTA Award nomination for Best Lead Actress in Drama.
See the full list of nominees for the 55th annual AWGIE Awards below. Winners in bold
FEATURE FILM – ORIGINAL Blaze – Del Kathryn Barton and Huna Amweero How To Please A Woman – Renée Webster Sissy – Hannah Barlow and Kane Senes Sweet As – Jub Clerc and Steve Rodgers
FEATURE FILM – ADAPTED Mrs Harris Goes to Paris – Keith Thompson with Carroll Cartwright & Anthony Fabian, and Olivia Hetreed The Drover’s Wife The Legend of Molly Johnson – Leah Purcell The Stranger – Thomas M. Wright
SHORT FILM Pasifika Drift – Natasha Henry Snapshot – Becki Bouchier The Moths Will Eat Them Up – Tanya Modini When The Sky Was Blue – Rae Choi
DOCUMENTARY – PUBLIC BROADCAST (INCLUDING VOD) OR EXHIBITION Beyond The Reef – Georgia Harrison Big Deal – Craig Reucassel and Christiaan Van Vuuren Girl Like You – Frances Elliott with Samantha Marlowe Ithaka – Ben Lawrence Peace Pilgrims – John Hughes
TELEVISION – SERIAL Home and Away: Episode 7742 – Louise Bowes Neighbours: Episode 8654 – Jessica Paine Neighbours: Episode 8801 – Emma J Steele
TELEVISION – SERIES Bump: Season 2, ‘AITA (Am I the Arsehole)’ – Jessica Tuckwell Firebite: Season 1, ‘I Wanna Go Home’ – Kodie Bedford Heartbreak High: Season 1, Episode 1 – Hannah Carroll Chapman The Newsreader: Season 1, ‘A Step Closer to the Madness’ – Niki Aken The Newsreader: Season 1, ‘No More Lies’ – Kim Ho and Michael Lucas Total Control: Season 2, Episode 2 – Pip Karmel
TELEVISION – LIMITED SERIES Fires – Tony Ayres, Belinda Chayko, Anya Beyersdorf, Steven McGregor and Jacquelin Perske with Mirrah Foulkes Lie With Me – Jason Herbison and Margaret Wilson with Anthony Ellis
ANIMATION Metropius: Season 1, Case #001 – Ally Burnham
CHILDREN’S TELEVISION – ‘P’ CLASSIFICATION (PRESCHOOL – UNDER 5 YEARS), ORIGINAL OR ADAPTED, ANIMATED OR PERFORMED Beep and Mort: Season 1, ‘Beep’s Home’ – Charlotte Rose Hamlyn Little J & Big Cuz: Season 3, ‘Levi Learns’ – Samuel Nuggin-Paynter Little J & Big Cuz: Season 3, ‘Serpent’s Eye’ – Dot West Little J & Big Cuz: Season 3, ‘Shelter’ – Adam Thompson
CHILDREN’S TELEVISION – ‘C’ CLASSIFICATION (CHILDREN’S – 5–14 YEARS), ORIGINAL OR ADAPTED, ANIMATED OR PERFORMED Rock Island Mysteries: Season 1, ‘A Young Mystery’ – Marisa Nathar The PM’s Daughter: Season 1, Episode 4 – Angela McDonald The PM’s Daughter: Season 1, Episode 8 – Lou Sanz The Strange Chores: Season 2, ‘Walk Wolfman’ – Luke Tierney
COMEDY – SITUATION OR NARRATIVE How to Stay Married: Season 3, ‘Keyboard Warriors’ – Nick Musgrove Metro Sexual: Season 2, ‘Martha Bradbury’ – Henry Boffin with Nicholas Kraak Spreadsheet: Season 1, ‘Chlamydia & Nits’ – Kala Ellis
COMEDY – SKETCH OR LIGHT ENTERTAINMENT Gruen: Season 13, ‘Punts’ – Sophie Braham and James Colley with Cameron James, Bec Melrose and Mark Sutton The Feed: ‘Comedy Sketches, 2021’ – Ben Jenkins, Alex Lee, Jenna Owen, Vidya Rajan and Vic Zerbst
AUDIO – FICTION Sunshadow: Episode 1, Episode, 9 and Episode 10 – Phil Enchelmaier and Bronwen Noakes The Bazura Project’s Radio Free Cinema: ‘Herzog’s Adventures in Wernerland’ – Lee Zachariah with Shannon Marinko The Fitzroy Diaries: Season 3, Episode 1, Episode 3, Episode 7 and Episode 8 – Lorin Clarke The Great Mantini – Simon Luckhurst Untrue Romance: ‘Call You Back’ – Tommy Murphy
AUDIO – NON-FICTION The Phantom Never Dies: Fantomen – Maria Lewis
STAGE – ORIGINAL Dogged – Andrea James and Catherine Ryan Horizon – Maxine Mellor
STAGE – ADAPTED Animal Farm – Van Badham Playing Beatie Bow – Kate Mulvany My Father’s Wars – Elaine Acworth
COMMUNITY AND YOUTH THEATRE Euphoria – Emily Steel Summer at Suspended Stone Camp – Madelaine Nunn Very Happy Children With Bright and Wonderful Futures – Joshua Maxwell
THEATRE FOR YOUNG AUDIENCES Cactus – Madelaine Nunn House – Dan Giovannoni We Are The Mutable – Matthew Whittet
INTERACTIVE MEDIA & GAMING Sun Runners: Radioactive Laser Eyes – Zoe Pepper
WEB SERIES AND OTHER NON-BROADCAST/NON-‘SUBSCRIPTION VIDEO ON DEMAND’ TV SHORT WORKS A Beginner’s Guide to Grief: Segment 1: Denial, ‘Stung By A Thousand Bees’ – Anna Lindner All My Friends Are Racist: Season 1, ‘Cancelled’ – Kodie Bedford and Enoch Mailangi Iggy & Ace: Season 1, Episode 3 and Episode 4 – AB Morrison It’s Fine, I’m Fine: Season 1, ‘Poo Boy’ – Jeanette Cronin The Power of the Dream: Season 1, ‘Swimming’ and ‘Weightlifting’ – Alexandra Keddie and Bobbie-Jean Henning
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.
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.”
Playwright Suzie Miller received the Major Award at the AWGIES for her play Prima Facie, part of a career build between Sydney and London which spans 20 plays in 20 years, spread over 70 productions around the world. She has received a lot of support, and was mentored by Edward Albee for three years.
Now Miller is also working in television and film, after a short burst with the small screen over 15 years ago. She has been involved with Hoodlum, Heiress Films, Bunya Productions and Matchbox Pictures.
These are many of the companies known to support writers effectively and understand her achievements. Miller told Screenhub in an interview that, ‘I have a fantastic manager [at HLA], who introduced me to the people she thinks are critical. So it is almost like there’s a mediator between me and who I end up working with. I do have fabulous producers, each one of them sort of hand picked, and we see eye to eye on issues and storytelling. And that’s just been a blessing really.’
A legal impediment
Miller has been a practicing lawyer, enjoying the combat of the courts, and loves ideas. She also has a practice-based PhD in theatre/science for which she wrote a play about a mathematician. There is a particular legal switch between theatre and screen which gives playwrights the irrits.
‘When I was mentored by Edward Albee, he really emphasised how significant it is that playwrights keep the copyright on their product’ she said. ‘No matter who pays for the commission, you can never be sacked as the writer. That idea of being sacked from your own project is terrifying to a playwright because it never happens,’ she said.
‘You can be passed over because someone decides it goes in a direction they can’t program, but you are still paid the commission and you own it outright and you can take it somewhere else.
‘I feel that I’ve been really lucky. Possibly I’ve been blindly going in as a playwright, where you project ownership of the story in some way, because you don’t know any other way,’ said Miller.
At the moment her screen collaborations are her own creations so she is not sharing them with other writers.
Relating to audiences
From a screenmaker’s perspective it seems that playwrights have a different relationship with audiences during the process of creation. They can work with a company, evolve in the collective moment, and show it to audiences very quickly. In screen the process is much more segmented and shared with viewers long after the show is built.
Not so, Miller replied. ‘What people don’t realise about playwrights is the years of writing before you actually get the actors in a room rehearsing. When you are fine tuning and getting notes from producers or directors or dramaturgs.’
‘When I was mentored by Edward Albee, he really emphasised how significant it is that playwrights keep the copyright on their product’
Prima Facie is a one woman show described as ‘an unsparing study of the Australian legal system’s treatment of sexual assault cases’. The play, which opened to standing ovation, concludes with a simple but compelling statement – spoken by the character Tessa, played by Sheridan Harbridge – “something has to change”.’
Miller pointed out she could have written that work any time in the last ten years, but she effectively had to wait until it had a political context. Theatres had to sense the movement and audiences had to grasp the moment too. That is ten years of patient evolution.
Screen producers understand that gap; Miller argues that writers are better off on this side because the development process can be financed earlier in the evolution of a project.
Starting with ideas
In general it seems that playwrights bring an intense sense of dialogue and the ability to explore complex material in very simple ways to the table.
‘Yes, that is what it really does,’ Miller said. ‘And that’s based on the fact that there’s no money. Theatre people often start with broad strokes and themes and metaphoric devices, to think about the whole picture and then bring it down to two people having a conversation.’
‘What people don’t realise about playwrights is the years of writing before you actually get the actors in a room rehearsing.’
When she goes into a film and TV spaces, she finds the opposite. ‘It seems they start with the dialogue and then try to infuse it with the thematic and the bigger picture stuff. [Playwrights] actually have to have all these ideas really flowing around on a metaphoric basis before we can create the characters that actually bring the audience to that place,’ she explained.
‘The development of an idea is about shaping or sculpting as opposed to the writing, as it does require you to think in sort of a few dimensions, rather than just in text. And then you have to, somehow, briefly bring it into text by creating characters that can carry the audience. And that’s why you have quite deep characters. So it’s not because you do that character work that everyone seems to do by lot of background writing, it’s more that you just think about a person, that’s someone who is flawed because of an idea that you want to get.
‘The world building is so exciting, but then the character building is something that I just get so excited about, because you never know how you’re going to trip your character up until you do it. Or how you how your character is going to go into a deeper kind of freefall. About life or a deeper kind of way, where the stakes just keep increasing, until you’re actually at the moment where you’re about to run it, and then it sort of writes itself, and you’re terribly excited about it.’
Miller made an excursion into serial television early in her career. She hated it, and has been cautious about coming back. But it seems that theatre and screen are becoming more and more similar.
‘It feels with film and TV there is a hunger for production and a desire for great content. And I am sure theatre would say that as well. But theatre is more of a hierarchy, and film is more collaborative in a really special way. It’s not just the writer on their own forever. There’s people involved if you want them to be involved – which is an interesting irony because you imagine that would happen in theatre. And it does, to a point, but they just don’t have any money to subsidise writers.’
You weep for them
It seems to me that the screen side has replaced the traditional live performance notion that drama is conflict.
‘Ultimately, I steer us away from the idea of just conflict,’ Miller said. ‘Because young writers see conflict as a fight, but it’s not always an argument – sometimes it’s just conflict with inner tension, it’s like a tension has to be there. And conflict can be like an emotional conflict. You just feel it in your bones, because the characters got such a depth to them. But also I am saying that conflict is actually a sophisticated way of thinking, it’s just about the stakes for someone. But once you’ve had good characters, you cry for them inwardly, you weep for them.’
The streets of St Kilda
Suzie Miller grew up in St Kilda, and was the first generation of her family to go to university. ‘My father wasn’t an emotionally expressive person,’ she explained. ‘But he really loved maps, and he had an elegance with mathematics. And so he sort of brought me into that world really early. So I never had that fear of science and math which lots of girls had. it was always something that was magnificent. It was almost religious for me in a way, like it had a kind of beauty to it.’
She studied immunology at university where she realised the jobs were mostly in areas like pharmacology or research.
‘Really what happened in my final year was is that Chernobyl exploded. I thought, “Oh, this is a huge, I want to have a conversation, I want to turn on the television, I want…” – I realised I am very much a person that loves to be in dialogue.’
To the surprise of her family, she went to law school. ‘But there was a certain point when I was on a program working in King’s Cross with street kids and young drug addicts. And I was going home every night thinking, “Oh my God, this is so overwhelming,” and I turned it into a play about 24 hours in the community. And it went on at the Opera House and in King’s Cross. And I remember people coming up to me saying I had no idea that these people could be my sister or my cousin or they were always just the junkies down the crowd.
‘I realised I am very much a person that loves to be in dialogue.’
‘When you’re actually sitting in the theatre, and you’re forced to relate to the characters, I felt that there was there was a chance for me to express their humanity in a three dimensional way. And so that kind of changed me forever, actually. Because I thought, “Right, I think that’s what I have to do.” It sounds so naïve. That is actually true. I mean, I was in law because I wanted to change the world. And actually, before that, I was hoping to find a cure for cancer when I was a scientist.’
She described the kind of childhood that belongs in a novel. Long before St Kilda gentrified she was a bit hyper-active, eager to learn, hanging out in the streets, working in the chemist and a printers and the hot bread shop (opposite the cake shops in Acland Street) and delivering papers and generally being ‘a bit naughty’. Going home to play chess with her father.
But she talked about her mother in a special way. ‘To be honest, my mum was amazing. She was the most charismatic, beloved person, by all her friends in the community. She was also really badly visually impaired, but she sort of cut through everything and was sort of magnificent.
‘She ended up becoming the Mayor of St Kilda because she was so community minded. Because of that I have never questioned that I would have my own journey.’
David Tiley was the Editor of Screenhub from 2005 until he became Content Lead for Film in 2021 with a special interest in policy. He is a writer in screen media with a long career in educational programs, documentary, and government funding, with a side order in script editing. He values curiosity, humour and objectivity in support of Australian visions and the art of storytelling.
Jon Bell’s ‘The Moogai’ will receive production funding from Screen Australia.
New seasons of Total Control and children’s titles Rock Island Mysteries and Strange Chores, as well as feature films from Northern Pictures, Made Up Stories and Causeway Films are among the nine projects that will share in $12 million of production funding from Screen Australia.
Four feature films, three television dramas, and two children’s titles will be supported through the agency, the likes of which also include a feature version of Jon Bell’s award-winning short The Moogai, and television dramas While the Men are Away and North Shore.
Screen Australia head of content Grainne Brunsdon said there had been a “solid pipeline of impressive applications” so far this financial year, making for an “incredibly competitive” selection process.
“We know there is an appetite for fun, joyful drama content in the international market right now and we’re pleased to announce a number of distinct Australian dramedies and romantic comedies that will engage global audiences as part of this mix,” she said.
“We are also proud to support Australian creatives expanding their skillset, including Northern Pictures producing their first feature film Little Bird and Arcadia bringing to life their first episodic drama with While the Men Are Away for SBS.”
Head of First Nations Angela Bates said the titles supported through her department explored “important themes of intergenerational trauma, colonisation, and power”.
“We are proud to announce two premium dramas today including a new season of Total Control, which continues to not only captivate viewers but also provide important opportunities for emerging filmmakers above and below the line,” she said.
Deborah Mailman and Rachel Griffiths in ‘Total Control’.
The successful projects are as follows:
First Nations
The Moogai: A psychological horror from writer/director Jon Bell, who teams up with producers Mitchell Stanley, and Causeway Films’ Kristina Ceyton and Samantha Jennings. The film follows Sarah and Fergus, a hopeful young couple who give birth to their second baby. What should be a joyous time of their lives becomes sinister when Sarah starts seeing a malevolent spirit she is convinced is trying to take her children. Fergus desperately wants to believe her but grows increasingly worried as she becomes more unbalanced. The Moogai is financed with support from Screen NSW. Australian distribution is by Maslow Umbrella 387 Entertainment with Bankside managing international sales.
Total Control (season three): A six-part third series of the ground-breaking drama for ABC starring Deborah Mailman and Rachel Griffiths. In the corridors of power, adversaries Alex Irving and Rachel Anderson battle to control their political destinies. Season two writers Stuart Page and Pip Karmel again team up with producers Darren Dale, Erin Bretherton, and Rachel Griffiths. They are joined by writers Julia Moriarty, Meyne Wyatt, and Debra Oswald. Total Control season three is financed with support from the ABC, with All3Media managing international sales.
Feature Films
Addition: The debut feature film from writer Becca Johnstone and director Marcelle Lunam, who are working with producers Bruna Papandrea, Steve Hutensky, and Jodi Matterson of Made Up Stories, and Cristina Pozzan of Buon Giorno Productions. This romantic comedy follows 30-something-year-old Grace who has a thing for numbers and the inventor Nikola Tesla. But when an average guy, Seamus, comes along, Grace falls for Seamus and her meticulously ordered life begins to unravel around her. To let this love in, she must let go of the things she’s been holding onto. Addition will be distributed in Australia by Roadshow Films, with WME managing international sales.
Went up the Hill: A psychological three-handed thriller played out between only two actors. The story follows Jack as he travels to a remote region in New Zealand to attend the funeral of Elizabeth, the mother who abandoned him as a child. There he meets Jill, Elizabeth’s widow. Both are searching for answers; Jack about why she deserted him and Jill about why she killed herself. But Elizabeth’s spirit lingers and soon finds a way to possess both Jack and Jill’s bodies at night. Caught in a life-threatening nocturnal dance, Jack and Jill must find a way to let go of Elizabeth’s toxic hold, before she pushes them to the edge. This film is a New Zealand/Australian co-production from writer/director Samuel Van Grinsven and writer Jory Anast, who previously collaborated on their debut feature Sequin in a Blue Room. Causeway Films’ Samantha Jennings and Kristina Ceyton are producing alongside Vicky Pope. Went up the Hill has been offered production investment from the New Zealand Film Commission and is financed with support from Spectrum Films, Stage 23, RB Sound, and Screen Canterbury. Vendetta Films is handling local distribution while Bankside Films is on board for international distribution.
Little Bird: A romantic comedy from Northern Pictures about a poor but spirited young woman, who teams up with a burnt-out legend to become one of Australia’s most extraordinary flying teams. Set in the glamorous world of 1930s aviation and based on pilot Nancy Bird Walton, Little Bird is about defying expectations and letting your spirit soar as high as the sky. The creative team features director Darren Ashton, writers Harry Cripps and Hannah Reilly, and producers Joe Weatherstone and Catherine Nebauer. It is financed with support from Screen NSW, with local distribution by Maslow Umbrella 387 Entertainment and Parkland Pictures managing international sales.
Television Drama
While the Men are Away: A queer, revisionist historical dramedy for SBS set in 1940s rural Australia. While the men are off fighting in WWII, the people who have been excluded from power suddenly find themselves running the show. Two Women’s Land Army recruits from Sydney arrive in the country and undergo a heady course in race relations, rural politics, spirituality, sex, and personal growth- oh, and farming. While the Men are Away is created by Alexandra Burke, Kim Wilson, and Monica Zanetti, and written by Wilson, Zanetti, Jada Alberts, Magda Wozniak, Enoch Mailangi, and Sam Icklow. It is produced by Lisa Shaunessy of Arcadia. The series is financed with support from Screen NSW with Red Arrow Studios International managing international sales. The title is the first 8 x 30 drama from SBS Scripted Originals.
North Shore: A six-part crime thriller for Paramount ANZ created by Mike Bullen and directed by Gregor Jordan with writing from Marcia Gardner. Set on and around Sydney Harbour, this series follows the clash of cultures when British and Australian detectives team up to solve a complex murder mystery, and uncover a conspiracy with international political consequences. Produced by Beach Road Pictures, North Shore is financed with support from Screen NSW. It is also produced in association with ITV Studios, which will handle international distribution.
Children’s Projects
Rock Island Mysteries (season two): A 20-episode second series for Network 10, detailing the adventures of Aussie teen Taylor Young and her gang of friends. The group continue their adventurous search for Taylor’s missing Uncle Charlie now that they know he is still alive somewhere within the increasingly mysterious Rock Island. Season two sees the return of directors Jovita O’Shaughnessy and Evan Clarry, and writers Alix Beane, Marisa Nathar, Jessica Brookman, and Trent Roberts. They are joined by writers Matthew Bon, Chloe Wong, Rachel Laverty, and Dave Cartel. Rock Island Mysteries is produced by Timothy Powell and Jonah Klein of Fremantle Australia. The series is financed with support from Screen Queensland, with international sales by ViacomCBS.
The Strange Chores (season three) : A 26-part third season for ABC of Ludo Studio and Media World Pictures’ series about two teenage wannabe monster warrior heroes, Charlie and Pierce, and a spirited ghost girl Que, who master their skills from the ageing monster hunter Helsing by doing his strange supernatural chores. Director Scott Vanden Bosch returns with writers John McGeachin and Luke Tierney, and executive producers Daley Pearson, Charlie Aspinwall and Colin South. They are joined by writers Alix Beane and Magda Wozniak, and producer Carmel McAloon. The series is financed in association with VicScreen and with support from Screen Queensland. It is distributed globally by Boat Rocker.
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.
The experts weigh in on why, in 2022, we love a rom-com more than ever. By Shona Hendley, Harper’s Bazaar August 2022
Father of the Bride | HBO
IF YOU READ that this was the ‘year of the rom-com,’ you’d be forgiven for thinking that we’d hopped in a time machine and travelled back to the 90s.
But alongside the claw clip, bucket hats and denim overalls, all that fashionable from 30 years ago is cool again, including romantic comedies.
With films like The Lost City, Ticket to Paradise, Marry Me, Shotgun Wedding, Fire Island and even a modern remake of Father of the Bride, there is no shortage of rom-coms making it to the silver screen or to streaming platforms this year.
So, what’s behind this rise in popularity? It has a lot to do with the intrinsic feel-good nature of the genre at a time when audiences are needing it says writer and director Mark Poole.
“Especially since the Covid-19 pandemic, audience have been interested in ‘feel-good’ films.”
Ticket to Paradise | UNIVERSAL
While we are still bingeing on true crime and horror — with the likes of Servant, All of Us Are Dead, The Girl from Plainville and The Staircase dominating downloads, the balance is offered and taken up with rom coms such as Bridgerton and Uncoupled proving just as popular by streaming audiences.
But as well as offering a welcome reprieve from the ongoing challenges associated with the pandemic, the uplifting mood and comedic factor generated from rom coms offer both a physical and psychological benefit to the audience says relationship therapist and director of Love Therapy Australia, Lauren Bradley.
“Viewing something positive and enjoyable can boost dopamine levels … Laughter sends a powerful message to our body and brain to relax, through lowering blood pressure, increasing endorphins and decreasing stress hormones.”
They also provide a sense of comfort.
Fire Island | JEONG PARK
“Rom coms reassure an audience that the world remains the same, that the boy will always get the girl (or vice versa) and that a dream wedding is the solution to everyone’s problems. In an uncertain world, audiences seeking certainty can watch a rom com and know that the movie will end on a high note,” says Poole.
And this offers a sense of safety, stability and familiarity which can be comforting and reassuring, especially when our real life isn’t this way believes Bradley.
“Feel-good shows take us back to a time when things were simple and positive, with clean, happy-ending plot lines, and rounded resolution, often exactly what’s missing in our real life.”
LAUGHTER sends a POWERFUL message to our BODY and brain to RELAX
Like pop superstar Kat (Jennifer Lopez) and school teacher Charlie (Owen Wilson) overcoming enormous differences in their careers and lifestyles to find their happy ending in Marry Me.
And while rom coms definitely offer their audience a reliable, happy ending, modern films and tv shows in this genre are also often heavily reliant on nostalgia and this, Associate Professor of Film Studies at the University of Sydney, Bruce Isaacs says can’t be underestimated.
“Nostalgia is one of the strongest impulses we’ve got, and modern rom coms are tapping into this.”
The return of rom com royalty, the actors who starred in 90s rom com blockbusters are just one way the genre is giving a big nod to this.https://www.youtube.com/embed/Ebv9_rNb5Ig
Because alongside the return of Sandra Bullock in The Lost City, JLo in Marry Me and Shotgun Wedding, is none other than Rom Com Queen, Julia Roberts who is starring with George Clooney in a Ticket to Paradise — hello 90s romantic comedy vibes!
“For many people born in the 90s and 2000s echoing back to old favourites takes us back to childhood, which for the fortunate and privileged, was a time of ease and carefree freedom.
We may gravitate toward shows that draw from positive experiences and memories, seeking to replicate that feeling in our lives,” says Bradley.
And while nostalgia is in demand, Poole says that modern rom coms are also becoming more inclusive, another element that the audience is responding to.
NOSTALGIA is one of the strongest IMPULSES we’ve got
“There is an increased demand for movies with a number of strong females in the lead roles. Bridesmaids (2011) arguably began this trend which reflected the increasing power and status of women in the current political, business and domestic environment,” he says.
There are also more examples of rom coms representing different ethnic and cultural backgrounds, and the class system, which had often been overlooked in earlier rom coms.
Wedding season | KEN WORONER / NETFLIX
“More recent rom-coms often feature at least one lead character from a non-white background. A contemporary example is Netflix’s Wedding Season (2022), a rom-com set in the context of Indian families living in New York,” Poole says.
While the rom com of the 90s may have had its moment, the rom com of 2022 is definitely here and is firmly in the spotlight.
