When: Thursday 28 February 2008, 12.30 – 2.00pm
Where: The NAB Theatrette, 800 Bourke St, (cnr
Harbour Esplanade), Docklands, which is on the City Circle tram line.
Guest speakers include:
Megan Harding, Executive Producer, ABC TVLizzette Atkins, Producer, Lawrence Johnston's NIGHT
Helen Mariampolski, Freelance TV Producer
Gracie Otto, independent filmmaker
Carmela Baranowska, Producer, How Afghanistan was Lost (MeetMarket, AIDC)
Seminar Notes
Introduction & Notes by Sue Marriott
Each month the FRAMED seminar series strives to shed some light on current issues affecting the screen industry. And I'm pleased to welcome today's speakers who are are 5 women from film, documentary making, and television, all of whom are carving out successful careers in the industry.
At the recent Australian International Documentary Conference, Peter Greenaway stated that “The online environment is creating a change to the whole way we look at the world and how we distribute films.” A question I'd like to put to the panel is: In light of some of the issues discussed at the AIDC, such as digital distribution and the whole online environment, what are your views on the future of the film & TV industries, not only in Australia, but internationally?
“Basically cinema is dead - a new technology has come along and created its own vocabulary” (Peter Greenaway, AIDC)
“The old adage of ‘content is everything' has been replaced by ‘everything is content'. Content is consumed in such a variety of different ways that content creators need to adapt…The market's number one desire is video content on demand” (AIDC)
What are audiences watching and where they will be in 2012 when we go digital and Australia will shut-down analogue broadcasting services?
- Marketing & distribution – how are these changing in light of the online environment?
- Production climate changes since the introduction of the producer’s offset deal?
- What do you like/find challenging about making documentaries?
- Recycling and repurposing film footage
- Creative Commons: a rights management system that provides a potential answer to incompatibility between the traditional broadcast licensing model and the new forms of digital distribution
- Unlocking the story in Documentary material
- There is a renewed sense of history on TV screens around the world. Audiences everywhere have shown an appetite for well-made history documentaries, and governments have dumped a lot of money into programs that help shape a shared sense of national history. That was the view of the session“The Future of History”, presented on the first day of this year's Australian International Documentary Conference
Links
ABC documentary programming - information about Submitting a Proposal, Funding, How to Find a Production Company:
more info
For Arts, Entertainment & Comedy programming queries email:
brunskill.richard@abc.net.au
AIDC 2008 day 2: The Producer Offset; The Practicalities:
more info
Film Finance Corporation Australia - Producer Offset:
more info
French Film Funding System
The French system for financing films is unique in Europe. Major TV channels (TF1, M6, France 2 and France 3) must allocate 3.2% of their turnover to cinema (including at least 2.5% to French films).For each of them, this represents 20 to 30 films and 30 to 50 million Euros. They must broadcast a minimum of 50% of French films. Canal+, a very popular pay-channel, must devote 20% of its turnover to buy the rights of films (12% European minimum, including 9% French minimum). On each cinema ticket, a 11% tax is allocated to the " Fonds de Soutien ", which is open to foreign films provided they are co-produced with a French producer. The result of this policy is that with more than 160 films/year, the French film industry is third in the world after the USA (500) and India (800) and the success does not go only to "typically so French" movies. French industry is clearly the strongest in Europe (France produces 22% of European films and has the largest market-share of nationally-produced films in Europe). (Excerpt from download pdf )
Sigrid Thornton on the Australian film and television industry:
more info
THE PANEL
Sue Marriott, President, WIFT (Vic) & Vice President, MEAA (Vic), Facilitator
Sue Marriott currently works as a freelance film production and events management consultant and lecturer in arts management. She was an Industrial Organiser for 16 years with the Media Entertainment & Arts Alliance (MEAA) and a recent Film Victoria Board Member until 2004. Sue is currently President of Women in Film & Television (WIFT) Victoria and a Vice-President of the MEAA, Victorian Branch. As a lecturer at Melbourne University for the last two years, Sue taught Industrial Relations and Arts Management for Post-Graduate Diploma students. She has a recent broadcast screen credit as Production/Location Management Consultant for the documentary “Endangered”. Sue knows and has worked or consulted with, nearly every established producer/production company in Victoria and many interstate.
Megan Harding, Executive Producer, ABC TV
Megan Harding is an Executive Producer in ABC TV's Arts, Entertainment and Comedy department, currently overseeing the Artscape series. Since joining the ABC in 2005 she has also been involved with Rage and its 20th Anniversary, The Glass House, The Sideshow and other arts series. She has also worked at Channel 7 and on a number of Australian feature films. As an Executive Producer in ABC TV’s Arts, Entertainment and Comedy department, Megan is currently overseeing Artscape (previously Tuesday at 10), Double the Fist – Series 2, Review with Myles Barlow and a number of other short run comedy series. Since joining the ABC in 2005 she has also been involved with Rage and its 20th Anniversary, The Glass House, The Sideshow and other arts series. After graduating from Australian Film, Television and Radio School in 1996 Megan produced the multi award winning short drama In Search of Mike. Her television credits include the eight part comedy series Double the Fist, winner of the 2004 AFI Award for Best Comedy produced for the ABC, Cooking with Frank and Bruce Petty’s The Mad Century for SBS Independent. She is also the producer for the doco Death of a Cook, the prequel to Robert Gibson’s 1996 film Video Fool for Love. She has also worked at Channel 7 and on a number of Australian feature films.
Lizzette Atkins, Producer
Lizzette Atkins worked in distribution, acquisitions and exhibition (including Newvision Films and Dendy Films) for over 15 years gaining extensive knowledge in marketing, distribution and the overseas market place. In 1999 she formed her independent production company LIZZETTE ATKINS PRODUCTIONS attracting early success with the films The Way Back which won the Golden Gate Award at the San Francisco Film Festival 2003 and Best Australian Film Flickerfest; Blow, winner of the Gold Plague Chicago Film Festival 2002 and the London Film Festival and The Last Pecheniuk, winner CRA Award, Sydney Film Festival 2001 and winner National Geographic Best Documentary 2002. Towards the end of 2002, she formed a new company CIRCE FILMS with Producer Beth Frey. In 2004/2005 their documentaries Passport to Parenthood, Undercover Angels: Sex, Spies and Surveillance, and AFI award winning Vietnam Nurses which included an interactive component, screened on national television. Their multi award winning TV drama Stranded premiered at the Melbourne and London Film Festivals and went on to win 3 AFI awards. Circe’s 2 x 52 minute documentary series Do Not Resuscitate with Davor Dirlic screened on SBS in November 2006. The feature Night with director Lawrence Johnston has recently been released. Circe Films have a slate of feature films and several documentaries in development including the feature projects, Kid Snowball with writer John Brumpton and director Matthew Saville, and The Serpent with writer/director Ben Hackworth.
Helen Mariampolski, Freelance TV Producer
In a career that spans over 24 years as a producer, writer and director, Helen Mariampolski has successfully produced and developed long-running and high-rating TV series and solo projects. She has worked in the management and creative areas of television production as Executive Producer and has wide experience in entertainment, lifestyle, arts, reality, business, documentary, how-to, variety, talk and children’s production – in both studio and location formats. Helen has also worked in the corporate and marketing arenas. As Series Producer for Sunday Arts, Helen created a product that within a few months became the premier arts program for the ABC. In 2005, she co-wrote and co-produced Eating History, a lively documentary that recreated Auguste Escoffier’s famous 1895 Red Dinner. As Executive Producer at Disney Entertainment during the 90s, Helen was responsible for the company’s total production output, which at one stage involved five concurrent programs including Healthy Wealthy & Wise, Creative Living and A Cook’s Journey - all top rating programs on Network TEN. This position demanded superior management, creative and technical expertise, and totalled over 300 hours of TV product. Helen has travelled Australia and the world producing, writing and directing TV travel and cultural features and hour-long specials.
Gracie Otto, Filmmaker
Gracie Otto is part of the Otto family of actors - father Barry and sister Miranda - so it was inevitable that she would be attracted to the medium of film. However, most of her work to date has been behind the camera. Gracie graduated from the Sydney Film School in July 2006 having completed an Advanced Diploma in Film. After graduating she lived in Paris for six months but returned to Australia earlier this year. Although Gracie is only twenty years old, she has directed four short films, all of which have been acclaimed. La Meme Nuit, which stars her father Barry Otto and Matthew Newton, has screened at Sydney’s Flickerfest International Film Festival, St Kilda Film Festival in Melbourne, nationally with the St Kilda Touring FF, and will screen at the US Palm Springs International Short FF in August. Tango Trois, her 2005 thesis film, screened at the St Kilda FF, Berlin Interfilm FF, Byron Bay FF, the Australia-Japan Student Film Festival (won Best Film) and the ECU European Independent Film Festival in Paris. Her other films are Broken Beat (2005) a gay love story filmed in black and white, which was selected in the Spirit on Screen Top 10 Film Awards in NZ and awarded Best Cinematography, Best Production and Best Sound Design at the SFS screenings; and Kill Blondes (2004), her first film made in her final year of school, which received a perfect score from the HSC examiners and was the only film selected in the statewide Young Writers Showcase. Gracie has recently edited a feature film and is currently putting the finishing touches to the screenplay of her first feature Rue de Tournon which she hopes to develop later this year.
Carmela Baranowska, Producer
Carmela Baranowska has been working in South East Asia for the last fifteen years, mainly in conflict and post-conflict areas. She studied at the University of Melbourne and documentary filmmaking at the VCA School of Film and TV. Her 2004 film about Afghanistan, Taliban Country was recognised with a Walkley Award and broadcast on SBS TV, RTBF, and WDR. Her other credits include Party to Independence and Lives on the Edge broadcast on SBS TV and Al Jazeera English. She was the first Australian to win the Rory Peck Award for her film The Law of Violence that covered the 1999 UN referendum and violent backlash in East Timor. She is currently post-producing Welcome to Independence, a feature length documentary about the first years of East Timor’s independence through the eyes of a 13 year old and her large, Dili based family. She is also developing "How Afghanistan Was Lost" with journalist John Martinkus and this was recently pitched at the AIDC's Meetmarket to international broadcasters. In December 2007-January 2008 Carmela spent a month filming in West Papua (Indonesia) where foreign journalists have been banned since 2003.
