The Boom in Broome

11 August 2008

Jon Cope

Screenings - External

This is the full text of the feature article that appeared in FTI News Volume 12, No.2

The coastal Kimberley town of Broome is renowned for its perfect winter weather, stunning landscapes, its creative community and multicultural heritage. Like the rising tide of tourists that visit the region each year, there’s also been a huge swell in the level of screen productions in Broome in recent times. There are currently four major productions being made in Western Australia’s new filmmaking mecca this year, plus a growing number of local independent productions.

The major drama productions in Broome include a second series of Media World Picture’s award winning prime-time adult drama The Circuit, Northway Production’s 26-part children’s series Trapped, Great Western Entertainment’s 26-part children’s sci-fi international co-production Stormworld, and a feature film of the Jimmy Chi musical Bran Nue Dae made by Blackfella Films.

“The truth is that there’s more drama happening in Broome at the moment than there is in Sydney,” said veteran Australian producer, Bruce Best. “There are more hours of drama being made here than in supposedly the nation’s biggest filmmaking capital.”

Best, of Northway Productions, is currently producing 26 episodes of Trapped for the Seven Network. He first came to Broome in 2001 and made Ocean Star, the 13-part children’s series for the BBC and Channel 10, and has since established a permanent production base in the town.

“When I first came to Broome, I fell in love with it immediately and by the time we’d shot Ocean Star here that winter, I thought, this place is gold. If you’re going to go and work anywhere to get high concept/low budget drama, then go to Broome. It’s got great locations, it’s very user-friendly and you’ve got the weather – that’s a pretty ideal combination.”

Media World Picture’s second series of The Circuit continues the story of the travelling regional magistrate’s court. According to producer Ross Hutchens, the story could possibly have been set in another remote regional centre, but the combination of Broome’s idyllic tropical holiday reputation and its location as the gateway into the Indigenous Kimberley country, worked perfectly with the themes of the drama production. The production is scheduled to start a 10-week production shoot from late September until December, with a crew of about 40 people.

For producer Paul Barron, the choice of Broome as a major location for Stormworld was due to a number of practical environmental factors.“There are lots of reasons. One is the flat water, because we’re doing a lot of work with kids and boats with the cast on water, and we wanted a safe working environment and Broome has shallow and relatively flat water,” he said.“Partly too it was the coastline, the rocky foreshores leading directly onto the beaches, because Stormworld is very much a story about being lost in a desert landscape environment, so we wanted a look that was harsh that looked different. It’s proved to be absolutely the right decision in terms of the look of the show, in that we’ve been able to meld the locations from the various places into one, and so far at least I have to say the combination looks terrific and the overseas buyers, which are the main criteria, say they’re very happy.

“From an overseas perspective they had never seen anything like it, so whenever we showed them photographs of what the coastline looked like up in Broome, they didn’t go ‘Oh, that’s Broome’ or ‘Oh, that’s the Kimberley coastline’, they went ‘I’ve never seen anything like that in my life!

“I think it’s fair to say we’re the biggest WA homegrown drama both in terms of budget and terms of amount of production being done here. We’re doing 26 half-hours with a total budget of $10.6 million. We shot eight weeks in Perth, then we’re six weeks up here, we took a large part of the Australian crew to Singapore for the one-week shoot, and we’re taking a significant number of the WA crew to Canada for that shoot,” he said.

Stormworld has been pre-sold to Channel Nine, the ABC and Disney in Australia, plus it’s been pre-sold to Canada’s popular sci-fi Space Channel. I think that’s an important coup for the WA industry because it’s one of the first shows to get a major North American pre-sale, and what we’re obviously hoping is it leads to other North American sales,” said Barron.

The feature film adaptation of Jimmy Chi’s hit musical Bran Nue Dae, with a cast that includes Ernie Dingo, Ningali Lawford and Geoffrey Rush, alongside local Indigenous actors, is another coup for Broome that is likely to have a strong international impact. It’s a homegrown Broome story based on Jimmy Chi’s own experiences and observances. When first staged in the 1980s and early 90s, the musical was widely acclaimed for its combination of strong music, dance, comedy, Indigenous spirituality and Broome history.
Directed by Rachel Perkins of Blackfella Films and shot by Andrew Lesnie, the film is scheduled for a five-week production shoot in Broome starting in November or December, with two-week shoot in Perth. “We’ve been adapting it for a number of years in collaboration with Jimmy and some of the original members of Kuckles, the band that created a lot of the music,” said Perkins.

“We always wanted the film to reflect the place it came from, because Broome’s such a unique location, so we wanted it to be not only in the place it came from, but also populated with the people that it came from. It’s going to be hot as hell, so that’s really going to put pressure on everybody. The actors will be constantly sweating and the crew will be finding it very difficult, I think.

“In regard to travel and transport, getting the equipment and gear in, even the grips and gaffer trucks that need to come into Broome, they’ll need to travel some thousands of kilometres, so it’s expensive. But we’ve always known that would be the case, because that’s the way that we wanted to do it, to keep the integrity of the origin of the work,” she said.

For Bruce Best, establishing a permanent and sustainable Broome production company requires running a tight and focused production team.“I used to work up in Queensland for some years and they sort of judged their importance by the amount of Winnebagos. Trapped is the complete antithesis of that and that’s why I can take gambles on all the young people,” he said.

“The crew is about 16 all up and four of the five directors are absolutely first time with no screen credits. ScreenWest have been enormously supportive. The crew are all people ScreenWest and the WA government have poured quite a lot of money into over the years, so it’s pretty damn good to see them get their guernsey and I would cheerfully use them all again.

“We cast from all over Australia. After an Australia-wide search, we got two from Broome, which is fantastic, two from Perth, one from Brisbane, one Sydney, one from Melbourne and one from Taree. And it was cast purely on talent. I didn’t have a particular mix in mind, I just had in mind the characters and I cast it on the best actors I can find, which is the other way of making sure it goes quickly.

“We have to deliver high concept on smaller budgets. That’s got to be our niche and that’s what attracts particularly the Europeans, that we can deliver really classy-looking stuff reasonably cheaply. Action-adventure we can do up here because the location suits it. The location is the backdrop of it, the beach, the colour of the water, the red – that is the canvas on which the whole thing is painted. But the drama is really character-driven, which means it’s achievable,” he said.

A new development for Broome’s production industry is the recent establishment of the local family company Wawili Pitjas, the first independent Aboriginal production company in Western Australia, formed by Mitch and Eileen Torres. “We thought, we’ve got all this talent in the family, so why not use it?” said director Mitch Torres.

The new company has been working on a six-part, half-hour Kimberley magazine-style show called Milli Milli Nganka for NITV and Foxtel, plus a language documentary, and is currently in negotiations with the ABC for a historical documentary. “Because we’re locally based and we’re Kimberley family, we know the community already,” Torres said.

“When these other productions come up to this country, they need to take a cultural advisor on board as a crew member, from beginning of shoot to end, it’s imperative. It guarantees that everyone in your crew comes under that person’s care, because some people shoot areas that are not supposed to be seen. “The Circuit always did that and that’s why it was so fantastic and so embraced by the community. It shows in the end product too, that people were willing to work long hours and people wanted to be part of it because they knew it was sanctioned,” she said.

“We never though about doing it any other way,” said Ross Hutchens. “We wanted to work with Goolarri, though we didn’t need a co-production partner, and they helped facilitate the protocols and we wanted to help develop local Indigenous production skills,” he said. The issue of local protocol is important factor for production companies working in the Kimberley and, according to Dot West of Broome-based Goolarri Media, the active engagement of the local Indigenous community is paramount to the success of the productions.

“The Circuit is a very good example of working within the Indigenous community here, from having a traditional Welcome to Country, where all the cast a crew were welcomed to country, and liaising all the way through with local Indigenous people at various points in the production, served very well to ensure that there were no major cultural hiccups,” she said. “We assisted in the facilitation of Media World Pictures working in with Rubibi, the native title group of the region, and also the local culture centre, from checking through any issues that may arise out of the script to ensuring that what was filmed and where it was filmed was okay with the local community.

“What was also very beneficial in the first series was that every crew member and every major cast member of The Circuit went through a cultural awareness program, with one of the directors, Richard Franklin.”

For Bran Nue Dae, which will be based at Goolarri, a Patrons’ committee has been set up which includes representatives from the traditional owners’ group, plus locals who have been involved in the work and leaders in the community, who will be given the script and will have an opportunity for feedback. “Jimmy Chi is born and bred in Broome and he is the creative force of the work. We’ve liaised with the traditional owners’ group that has been formed, and one of Jimmy’s friends, who’s on the traditional owners group, will also be working on the film. So we’re spending a lot of time thinking about that issue and we’ve got a process in place,” Perkins said.

According to Bruce Best, “Broome’s a bit more complicated because of the native title issues, which is not a simple thing. Gaining permission is not always straightforward, because you may get permission from people who say they are the appropriate source, only to come up against something where you find somebody else feels they have a very strong position, and that is an issue. You’ve got to remind yourself it’s their home and you’re asking. You have to not assume that just because you want to do it, that’s okay. That’s just something we’ve got to deal with.”

One of the unique location challenges for Stormworld has been the impact of legendary Kimberley tides that rise up to nine metres, and their effect on production schedules. “Everything about our schedule up here is not being driven by the cast, it’s not being driven by the weather, though obviously all those things are a factor, but eighty percent of the schedule is being driven by tides,” said Barron. Even on the shore you need beach, and on some of the beaches at high tide basically the beach disappears, and you’ve got trucks down there, and the crew down there, so mastering the tides has probably been the biggest issue,” he said.

Accommodation costs and availability during the tourist high season are another major issue facing all production companies on location in Broome, as well as the impact of the busy airport, especially for Northway Productions located nearby. “The sound of the airport has become more of a problem than it was. I’ve moved some things further out this year to places like Roebuck Plains, but it’s not just the airport per se, it’s also the tourist activities like the skydiving and the scenic flights as the tourist numbers increase, which they have enormously over the past five years,” said Best.

According to Patrick Imbert, President of the Broome Chamber of Commerce, “Broome is a town that adapts quickly in supporting new ventures, especially in the creative fields. We have a proud history of film and television production and we are only too happy to keep this tradition alive.”

For Best, the increase of production activity in recent times has helped establish Broome as a regional centre for filmmaking, and there are more industry people beginning to drift north. “I think the quality of life in Broome is a big seller, and you can get people to come here – you never have to offer twice. If you say to a cast person, even quite a senior cast person, ‘I want you to do a relatively small role in Broome for three weeks’, you’re knocked over in the rush!

“It’ll never be like the big boom in Queensland, where a lot of the grips and gaffers, the sort of equipment-heavy people, all moved to Queensland because of Village’s big deep pockets and because of the American approach to filmmaking. But I think the people who move to Broome are filmmakers who want to get back to filmmaking,” he said.

According to Ian Booth, ScreenWest Chief Executive, the outlook for production in Broome is very positive, “The Kimberley, and Broome in particular, has a bright future,” he said. “It’s fair to say that ScreenWest has been involved for some time in developing projects that have been slated to be produced in Broome, including The Circuit, Stormworld, Trapped and Bran Nue Dae, and it’s terrific to see them reach full finance and production. I think they will achieve strong audiences nationally and internationally, and that will generate further interest for projects in Broome.

“We’ve committed to Mad Bastards (the Pigram Brothers’ feature film), and there are a number of projects in active development, from features to adult drama series to documentaries,” Booth said.

The increased production this year is certainly encouraging for the screen industry in Western Australia, but the ramifications for Broome itself may be increased pressure on the laid-back atmosphere of the town.

“I think it’s good for Broome in a lot of ways,” said Perkins about the potential impact of Bran Nue Dae. “But it might put Broome even more on the map whether Broome wants to be or not. On one hand, we’re trying to celebrate Broome and the special nature of its community, and in the same way, you want Broome to be preserved because it is such a special place.”