Too Many Filmmakers?

1 July 2006

by Graeme Watson

Short Courses

Imagine a Saturday morning under 16’s Aussie Rules game. Imagine if just before the kick off an official walked out and stopped the game. “I’m sorry” declares the official “We’ve just realised that only one of you is going to make it to the AFL! The others can just go home now, we won’t need you.” It seems ludicrous of course, but the recent calls to narrow the number of people entering the screen industry utilises the same argument.

The question has been asked, “What is wrong with the Australian film industry?” In fact it’s been asked a lot. There is not a major newspaper, current affairs show or magazine that has not run an article on the topic in the last few years.

There is simply not enough money in the industry and too many filmmakers trying to access it. The solutions, easy, get more money and less filmmakers. Yet this simplistic response may not be as effective as its proponents suggest and is quickly being misdirected across the filmmaking landscape of Australia.

Head of the Film Finance Corporation (FFC) Brian Rosen has described the Australian film industry as a cottage industry, because of its low output and an inability to establish viable production houses. Malcolm Long, Head of the Australian Film and Television Radio School (AFTRS) echoed these views in his recent speech at the University of Western Australia.

In all of the speeches, arguments and articles, a lack of sufficient funding and mechanisms to attract private investment has been highlighted. There is not enough money in the mix to create the level of production that would lead to a sustainable and growing industry.

Proposals on improving funding and financing pathways are being suggested and a range of programs to improve screen businesses viability and sustainability have been implemented.

At the other end of the argument is the belief that there are too many filmmakers. Statistics have been put forward to back this up, in the last thirty years of feature films in Australia 73% of Producers, 80% of Directors and 83% of Writers only make only 1 film. More alarmingly, the percentage of Writers and Directors who have made three or more films is in single digits. AFTRS head Malcolm Long described this, rightly so, as a huge loss of investment in talent and skill.

Brian Rosen criticised many Australian filmmakers as being in the industry as a ‘lifestyle choice’ in 2004 when he delivered the annual Ian McPherson Lecture at the Sydney Film Festival. Malcolm Long also highlighted the need to eliminate the ‘lifestyle filmmaker’ from the industry in his recent presentation.

In July 2005 filmmaker and writer Storry Walton published an essay entitled “Shooting through, Australian Film and the Brain Drain”, one of the four suggestions that Walton calls for an end to entitlement, noting again that they are too many filmmakers. Walton suggests that our film schools and funding agencies are over whelmed by wannabe filmmakers whose work is ‘technically adequate and conceptually vapid”.

Walton calls for a ‘raising of the bar’, asking that our filmmakers should be more knowledge people with awareness of arts, history, social sciences and politics and suggests that the applicants in line with their scripts and show reels should be the first to go. Similarly those who do not have original ideas should follow suit.

The philosophy is that the Australian film industry has too broad a base, that we are training too many and funding too many and the natural attrition that the industry has relied on is not knocking out the poor quality effectively enough. So training schools and funding agencies should only open the door to the best and pick the right horses before they come out of the gate.

This argument is fine for the true industry level, in relation to the work of Directors, Producers and Writers. As you move further down the career ladder though, it makes less and less sense.

Many people, in fact the larger majority, of people working in the film industry are not Producers, Directors and Writers. The industry also includes all the other crew roles, gaffers, grips, continuity, runners, editors; – the call for a deep understanding of social sciences and politics is maybe not so needed in all roles.

Most people who apply to go to film school are focussed on being a Director for the simple reason that they have not been exposed to any of the other crew roles. One of the best things the Australian film industry could do to improve the development of upcoming practitioners is to promote understanding of the diversity career options available.

Film Schools, and Funding Bodies to a lesser extent, are also required to be viable businesses. Film Schools do not have the option of saying “I’m sorry we are only taking on three students in 2007’, they also have a business to run. There are few funding bodies who could get away with an announcement of “we didn’t like anyone’s ideas; hence we are not funding anyone this year.” The reality is that many government bodies wouldn’t allocate the funding next year to the agency to distribute.

There is however an ethical questions for film schools, are you training for the industries sake or for trainings sake? Film programs accepting students in large numbers have more to answer than those who accept low numbers. As do those who are only training mass numbers to be Directors.

The biggest question though is the difficulty in choosing. Who is going to do this choosing, how will they be free of bias? How would they not contravene requirements that training institutions address access and equity? How are they ever going to choose the right people?

Many great filmmakers learnt their skills and discovered their voice at film school or through low level funding programs. Many probably got their great ideas from the philosophical discussions they had with a passing ‘lifestyle filmmaker’. If we choose to soon, will we be cutting off our great talents of the future before they have had time to learn and create for the first time.

The film industry, like all creative industries is a funnel, it has a wide opening, but very few get through. This is the way it will always be. The proliferation of digital media and broadband internet will make it an even wider mouthed funnel in the future.

The task ahead is to let the talented, the professional and the reliable through – but these decisions need to be made half way down the journey, not at the entrance way. It is not a judgement that should be taken at the level of $2000 in-kind production schemes, or one the first day of filmmaking class or at community based filmmaking workshops. It is the right way to approach decisions at a feature film level which is where this philosophy of ‘too broad a base’ originated and belongs.