Mary Colbert writes in the Sun Herald Jan 24th 2010 about the relationship Aussie audiences have with Aussie films.
Two main questions were being asked: Who/What was killing the Australian Movie? and How Do You Solve a Problem Like Box Office?
There is a compromise between story and commercial viability that requires attention. Tony Ginnane is no stranger to ruffling a few feathers when it comes time to mentioning "commercial viability" and rightly so. How can an industry sustain itself when government funding is frugal and private investors aren't interested because our track record on making a profit is so low? The tag line for Colbert's article reads "Telling quality stories and winning committed viewers is proving more important than box office for Australian film". I would tend to disagree with this comment. I come from a generation who are online, tech savvy innovators and are not interested in being bombarded by dark and depressing stories that cost way too much money to make and never recoup their costs. As an advocate for Gen Y I agree that there is room for cinema to challenge us and move us but these can't be the only films we watch. We want to be entertained, removed from daily woes, forget where and who we are for two hours...no Australian film has done that for decades. They are constant reminders of a nervous history, cliched characters and a painful domestic life.
I agree with Robert Connolly as he states that the larger Australian film audience exists through DVD sales, computer downloads, pay TV and free-to-air TV platforms. Why are we wasting our money on theatrical releases of films that will never be watched theatrically? Aggressive marketing campaigns may be one solution for getting the audience back to the cinema but with the release of 3D in cinemas, a regular release won't offer anything a DVD release can't.
The answer is not to abolish theatrical releases altogether because we still want to compete in the commercial/international market...don't we? Or are we all working in this arts industry not to make money? To satisfy the critics of commercialism, I don't believe in "selling out". I believe in providing a product to satisfy a need/want. Ultimately we are dealing with products. The film product. And the need/want is to be entertained/challenged. This is all basic stuff but it's almost as if we've become too complex and anal for our own good, telling "our stories" that no one wants to watch.
I do love Connolly's analogy of the Oz industry as the organic range in your local supermarket - niche quality products that are good for the soul - but we can not sustain an entire industry on this kind of product because not everyone eats organic!! Maybe the organic farmers can sustain this kind of productivity because the marketing is in place and we all have to eat to live. Aussie film marketing is pretty pathetic and we don't all have to watch Aussie films to survive.
We are dealing more and more with a global audience and if Aussie's don't want to watch "our stories" I can't imagine an international market would either.
Where are the solutions?
Two main questions were being asked: Who/What was killing the Australian Movie? and How Do You Solve a Problem Like Box Office?
There is a compromise between story and commercial viability that requires attention. Tony Ginnane is no stranger to ruffling a few feathers when it comes time to mentioning "commercial viability" and rightly so. How can an industry sustain itself when government funding is frugal and private investors aren't interested because our track record on making a profit is so low? The tag line for Colbert's article reads "Telling quality stories and winning committed viewers is proving more important than box office for Australian film". I would tend to disagree with this comment. I come from a generation who are online, tech savvy innovators and are not interested in being bombarded by dark and depressing stories that cost way too much money to make and never recoup their costs. As an advocate for Gen Y I agree that there is room for cinema to challenge us and move us but these can't be the only films we watch. We want to be entertained, removed from daily woes, forget where and who we are for two hours...no Australian film has done that for decades. They are constant reminders of a nervous history, cliched characters and a painful domestic life.
I agree with Robert Connolly as he states that the larger Australian film audience exists through DVD sales, computer downloads, pay TV and free-to-air TV platforms. Why are we wasting our money on theatrical releases of films that will never be watched theatrically? Aggressive marketing campaigns may be one solution for getting the audience back to the cinema but with the release of 3D in cinemas, a regular release won't offer anything a DVD release can't.
The answer is not to abolish theatrical releases altogether because we still want to compete in the commercial/international market...don't we? Or are we all working in this arts industry not to make money? To satisfy the critics of commercialism, I don't believe in "selling out". I believe in providing a product to satisfy a need/want. Ultimately we are dealing with products. The film product. And the need/want is to be entertained/challenged. This is all basic stuff but it's almost as if we've become too complex and anal for our own good, telling "our stories" that no one wants to watch.
I do love Connolly's analogy of the Oz industry as the organic range in your local supermarket - niche quality products that are good for the soul - but we can not sustain an entire industry on this kind of product because not everyone eats organic!! Maybe the organic farmers can sustain this kind of productivity because the marketing is in place and we all have to eat to live. Aussie film marketing is pretty pathetic and we don't all have to watch Aussie films to survive.
We are dealing more and more with a global audience and if Aussie's don't want to watch "our stories" I can't imagine an international market would either.
Where are the solutions?