Last year Screen Australia held a session at AIDC to talk about their new documentary guidelines. Here is my coverage of that session in Screen Hub:
SCREEN AUSTRALIA
Today Screen Australia posted their brand spanking new draft guidelines for Documentary Programs.
The surprises?
A few.
Ross Mathews announced that he is not the Colonel Gaddaffi of the film industry, and Screen Australia is not going to dictate to the industry or decide what is going to be made. However they do reserve the right to make a decision when faced with more projects than available funds, which is increasingly the case.
Screen Australia have maintained the funding available for documentary at $16.5 million over all programs, but they have shaved funds off existing programs to make room for a new program, All Media, which will cost $500,000 a year. Details on this new program to be advised.
The Making History program has been formally entombed, with funds for history now available through the National Documentary Program. This also means that history programs are no longer tied to the ABC, as the National Interest Program docs were, but open to all broadcasters. Liz Stevens, the manager of the Documentary Unit at Screen Australia, clarified for the audience that the previous history documentaries emerged from a contract between the government and Film Australia as a three year program that ran for a second three year period. However when the three agencies were merged in 2008, this contract came to an end.
A third announcement is that yesterday the Screen Australian Board opted to split the funds in the NDP and the General programs along a 50:40:10 division between the ABC, SBS and the Commercial and Subscription TV channels.
The documentary community present at AIDC interrogated the changes, with points being made about the need for certainty of guidelines as development takes years, and also that under the Making History banner a number of successful docs were made. However as the changes are in draft form, there is time for the industry to respond.
It is envisaged that the guidelines will be issued in May and come into effect on July 1, 2011. The draft guidelines are open for comment by the industry until the end of April.
MARK POOLE