scope
screen industry views
OUR INDUSTRY ON LIFE SUPPORT Rochelle Siemienowicz The Coronavirus hit the Australian screen industry like a badly scripted disaster film. It was 12 March when Tom Hanks announced via Instagram that, while working Down Under, he and his wife, Rita Wilson, had tested positive to COVID-19. Then came the shutdown of pre-production on that film, Baz Luhrmann’s untitled Elvis Presley project, at the Gold Coast’s Village Roadshow Studios. In the weeks that followed, other film and television productions fell over like a row of dominoes. Physical-distancing restrictions meant that both big and small productions stalled indefinitely, leaving thousands of producers, actors and crew members stranded and debt-ridden. Also affect ed were the distributors, exhibitors, publicists and audiovisual- equipment-hire companies – all those other parts of this fragile gigbased industry that annually contributes an estimated A$3 billion to the Australian economy. In dollar terms alone, the losses due to COVID-19 were huge. Reporting in mid April, Screen Producers Australia (SPA) said that 119 productions had been affected. With budgets ranging from A$50,000 to A$50 million, these included Hollywood blockbusters like Marvel Studios’ Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, soaps like Wentworth, Indigenous kids series Little J & Big Cuz, and reality TV shows such as The Block and The Bachelor. The damage to the sector, according to SPA, would be more than A$2 billion, affecting over 30,000 employees, freelancers and contractors. Like every other part of the screen industry, television broadcasters were affected too, not just because a crippled economy meant less advertising revenue, but also because undelivered content left gaps in the screening schedule. There were only so many completed shows that could be pumped down the pipeline. Acknowledging this, the Federal Government announced that it would grant tax breaks to commercial free-to-air TV broadcasters. In addition, they would be excused from honouring quotas on local drama, documentary and children’s and preschool programming for the rest of the year, with an option to continue into 2021. Local subscription-TV company Foxtel was also relieved of expenditure requirements on new Australian drama. This removal of local-content obligations played directly into a longrunning and pre-existing battle between Australian producers, who see regulation as essential to the very survival of the industry, and the ailing broadcasters, which say they can’t afford expensive local drama and kids shows, especially when competing with international services like the mammoth Netflix, Apple TV+ and Disney+, which have no such obligations. It’s a debate that will continue more hotly than ever now that everyone looks ahead to a recovery that may be slow and painful. Like the rest of Australia’s economy, the screen industry is currently surviving on life support. Injections of relief have come in many forms, from small-business and creative-industry grants to rent-relief and screen-agency initiatives. Navigating such emergency options is potentially a mind-boggling full-time job in itself, though without the full-time income. For individuals, there have been the federal
124 • Metro Magazine 205 | © ATOM
This spread, L–R: Wentworth; Mystery Road, which screened as part of ‘We Are One’
JobSeeker and JobKeeper payments, though many fall through eligibility cracks due to the specific conditions of employment so common in the film and TV sectors. Screen Australia and other agencies have ‘pivoted’ (a term used to exhaustion during lockdown) to support activities that can be done in isolation, especially scriptwriting and development, upskilling and postproduction. Across the board, applications for funding are, at the time of writing, still being processed and, sometimes, fast-tracked, with a view to getting things ready to shoot as soon as restrictions are lifted. Filming protocols are being developed in association with the Australian Film Television and Radio School (AFTRS) to ensure safer working environments. Already, there is much talk of how entire film crews might live and work in temporary quarantine situations; of how meetings once considered essential as face-to-face events might now be conducted online; and of smart scheduling to shift risky intimate scenes to the end of a production timeline. Each of the State-based agencies have delivered their own targeted response packages. Screenwest, for example, announced a A$2.5 million sustainability package to repurpose existing funding and enable survival through hibernation. Similarly, Screen Queensland announced more than A$3.3 million of reallocated funding, and Create NSW announced A$700,000 for new screen projects, along with $1.5 million to be delivered over ensuing months. On a national level, one of the biggest bright spots was the announcement by the ABC in late April of a new A$5 million ‘Fresh Start Fund’ to provide urgent support for independent Australian producers. Spread across five strands, this covers multiple genres including drama, comedy, children’s shows, factual programming, music and the arts. This was a historic gesture from the ABC, which has never before run such a large national program justified entirely as a support measure. It underlined again the key role the public broadcasters play in maintaining the health of the sector. As with any life-threatening situation, the COVID-19 crisis has prompted much soul-searching within the industry, and given rise to a plethora of live-streamed panels and talks. The questions are big: What are we here for? Who do we serve? And how can we survive and adapt to such sudden shocks and downturns? In many ways, this crisis has seen a coming together in our national screen industry. We are now so isolated from the rest of the world, and we must work together to fight a common adversary. In the long run, this disaster may turn out be productive and galvanising. Filmmakers are known to be creative, economical and agile problem solvers, and so they will have to be in the months and years to come. One thing’s for certain, as the nation hunkers down in front of its small screens: there’s never been a greater hunger for entertaining, inspiring, relevant stories that transport us out of our own little living rooms.
scope
screen industry views
OUR INDUSTRY ON LIFE SUPPORT Rochelle Siemienowicz The Coronavirus hit the Australian screen industry like a badly scripted disaster film. It was 12 March when Tom Hanks announced via Instagram that, while working Down Under, he and his wife, Rita Wilson, had tested positive to COVID-19. Then came the shutdown of pre-production on that film, Baz Luhrmann’s untitled Elvis Presley project, at the Gold Coast’s Village Roadshow Studios. In the weeks that followed, other film and television productions fell over like a row of dominoes. Physical-distancing restrictions meant that both big and small productions stalled indefinitely, leaving thousands of producers, actors and crew members stranded and debt-ridden. Also affect ed were the distributors, exhibitors, publicists and audiovisual- equipment-hire companies – all those other parts of this fragile gigbased industry that annually contributes an estimated A$3 billion to the Australian economy. In dollar terms alone, the losses due to COVID-19 were huge. Reporting in mid April, Screen Producers Australia (SPA) said that 119 productions had been affected. With budgets ranging from A$50,000 to A$50 million, these included Hollywood blockbusters like Marvel Studios’ Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, soaps like Wentworth, Indigenous kids series Little J & Big Cuz, and reality TV shows such as The Block and The Bachelor. The damage to the sector, according to SPA, would be more than A$2 billion, affecting over 30,000 employees, freelancers and contractors. Like every other part of the screen industry, television broadcasters were affected too, not just because a crippled economy meant less advertising revenue, but also because undelivered content left gaps in the screening schedule. There were only so many completed shows that could be pumped down the pipeline. Acknowledging this, the Federal Government announced that it would grant tax breaks to commercial free-to-air TV broadcasters. In addition, they would be excused from honouring quotas on local drama, documentary and children’s and preschool programming for the rest of the year, with an option to continue into 2021. Local subscription-TV company Foxtel was also relieved of expenditure requirements on new Australian drama. This removal of local-content obligations played directly into a longrunning and pre-existing battle between Australian producers, who see regulation as essential to the very survival of the industry, and the ailing broadcasters, which say they can’t afford expensive local drama and kids shows, especially when competing with international services like the mammoth Netflix, Apple TV+ and Disney+, which have no such obligations. It’s a debate that will continue more hotly than ever now that everyone looks ahead to a recovery that may be slow and painful. Like the rest of Australia’s economy, the screen industry is currently surviving on life support. Injections of relief have come in many forms, from small-business and creative-industry grants to rent-relief and screen-agency initiatives. Navigating such emergency options is potentially a mind-boggling full-time job in itself, though without the full-time income. For individuals, there have been the federal
124 • Metro Magazine 205 | © ATOM
This spread, L–R: Wentworth; Mystery Road, which screened as part of ‘We Are One’
JobSeeker and JobKeeper payments, though many fall through eligibility cracks due to the specific conditions of employment so common in the film and TV sectors. Screen Australia and other agencies have ‘pivoted’ (a term used to exhaustion during lockdown) to support activities that can be done in isolation, especially scriptwriting and development, upskilling and postproduction. Across the board, applications for funding are, at the time of writing, still being processed and, sometimes, fast-tracked, with a view to getting things ready to shoot as soon as restrictions are lifted. Filming protocols are being developed in association with the Australian Film Television and Radio School (AFTRS) to ensure safer working environments. Already, there is much talk of how entire film crews might live and work in temporary quarantine situations; of how meetings once considered essential as face-to-face events might now be conducted online; and of smart scheduling to shift risky intimate scenes to the end of a production timeline. Each of the State-based agencies have delivered their own targeted response packages. Screenwest, for example, announced a A$2.5 million sustainability package to repurpose existing funding and enable survival through hibernation. Similarly, Screen Queensland announced more than A$3.3 million of reallocated funding, and Create NSW announced A$700,000 for new screen projects, along with $1.5 million to be delivered over ensuing months. On a national level, one of the biggest bright spots was the announcement by the ABC in late April of a new A$5 million ‘Fresh Start Fund’ to provide urgent support for independent Australian producers. Spread across five strands, this covers multiple genres including drama, comedy, children’s shows, factual programming, music and the arts. This was a historic gesture from the ABC, which has never before run such a large national program justified entirely as a support measure. It underlined again the key role the public broadcasters play in maintaining the health of the sector. As with any life-threatening situation, the COVID-19 crisis has prompted much soul-searching within the industry, and given rise to a plethora of live-streamed panels and talks. The questions are big: What are we here for? Who do we serve? And how can we survive and adapt to such sudden shocks and downturns? In many ways, this crisis has seen a coming together in our national screen industry. We are now so isolated from the rest of the world, and we must work together to fight a common adversary. In the long run, this disaster may turn out be productive and galvanising. Filmmakers are known to be creative, economical and agile problem solvers, and so they will have to be in the months and years to come. One thing’s for certain, as the nation hunkers down in front of its small screens: there’s never been a greater hunger for entertaining, inspiring, relevant stories that transport us out of our own little living rooms.
ALL-ACCESS PASS? FILM FESTIVALS GO VIRAL Adolfo Aranjuez In recent months, we’ve seen an uptick in the use of the word ‘unprecedented’ (see: the opening lines of emails, contextualising hooks in press releases, etc.), and it really has been apposite for capturing the situation faced by the global festival circuit. Indeed, when the City of Austin cancelled SXSW in March – a pre-emptive measure to stave off the spread of COVID-19, which would be declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization a week later – it was the first time in the event’s thirty-four-year existence that it wouldn’t run. This blow to the arts scene followed the postponement of the Hong Kong International Film Festival in mid February; soon after SXSW, several other big events were called off in earnest or under the guise of indefinite deferral: London’s LGBTQIA+ film celebration, BFI Flare; the New York film festival Tribeca; Denmark’s documentary showcase CPH:DOX; our very own Sydney Film Festival (SFF), also a first in its sixty-seven-year history. But it didn’t take long for the world’s festivals to mobilise in response to their dire context. In the same breath as its cancellation announcement, CPH:DOX unveiled plans to offer some of its slate through virtual channels. Tribeca initiated ‘A Short Film a Day Keeps Anxiety Away’, a series delivered via its website. Both the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) and the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam, despite having safely taken place in September and November, respectively, made their past programming available online. A conglomerate of festivals – including Sundance, TIFF, SFF, and those at Berlin, Tokyo and Venice – even partnered with YouTube to present the free digital showcase ‘We Are One’. Cannes, ever the conservative stalwart, proclaimed in April that it would not, under any circumstances, buckle to the actions of its confrères. As festival director Thierry Frémaux sneered, ‘Films by Wes Anderson or Paul Verhoeven on a computer? […] Why would we want to show them […] on a digital device?’ By May, however, it had publicised the program of its industry component, Marché du Film, which would be delivered entirely online, and, later that month, scrapped the physical edition of the 2020 festival altogether (with its film slate to be dispersed among other festivals and screening opportunities). On local shores (not that shores have much meaning these days, it seems, with geographic boundaries made redundant by web-based hyper-connectivity!), Tasmania’s Breath of Fresh Air Film Festival was the first to migrate to the online space, doing so in late April. Within a few weeks, SFF, the Human Rights Arts & Film Festival and the Melbourne International Film Festival – which, full disclosure, I now work for – had revealed their own schemes for online infiltration. I’ve only recounted highlights here, because to give a Book of Genesis–style account of streamed-festival timelines and lineages would be not only excessive for our purposes but also, really, very
boring. And more is likely to follow, depending on what unfolds postMay (when I’m writing). Suffice it to say a lot has happened, and each digital evolution has its own scope, schtick and justification for existing. Common wisdom tells us that making something available online is inherently good. In the realm of film, this allows viewers to procure the content they want whenever they please, usually for cheaper (as overhead costs don’t cause prices to balloon) or for free (courtesy of infrastructural mechanisms like advertising revenue). Assuming optimal construction of the platform itself, there’s increased synergy between the online festival catalogue/guide and the online viewing box, too, not to mention the ability to pause, rewind, fast-forward and – if ‘tokens’ are offered rather than strict one-off ‘tickets’ – even rewatch films. Depending on geoblocking and licensing parameters, it anticipates a significantly expanded reach as well, with audiences no longer constrained by physical travel to and from theatres. It’s also perhaps a relatively unspoken truth that, in many contemporary societies, for whom the world exists just as much online as it does in physical form, internet access – much like food or mobility – has become a basic human need. And, like all necessities, it is tied to imbalances in access, accumulation and use. While Australia may be ranked fourth globally in the 2020 Inclusive Internet Index (which measures overall availability, affordability, relevance and readiness), only 88 per cent of our population has an active internet connection, as determined in 2018 by Statista. That’s around 2.6 million Australians disconnected from the web – a figure that, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, is skewed towards migrants, the elderly and the unemployed. The 2017 Measuring Australia’s Digital Divide report additionally identifies people with disabilities, Indigenous communities, low-income households and regional populations – groups that are largely already disadvantaged – as being left behind in the online stakes, and cites disparities in internet literacy as a significant area of concern. (I’ll resist the urge to broach inter-country metrics beyond the damning discovery that Australia is ranked sixty-fourth in the Ookla Speedtest Global Index, which assesses internet speeds in 174 countries. Yikes!) Making festival fare available to stream is, of course, a commendable move towards sustaining the screen ecology both here and abroad. In terms of the production pipeline, it keeps the sector alive by enabling filmmakers and crew to continue creating work. From an exhibition standpoint, it ensures that audience engagement isn’t interrupted, and provides comfort and inspiration during what has undeniably been a difficult time. In among all that, though, it’s important that we pay attention to the differing circumstances of our viewing communities. Audiences don’t form part of a homogeneous monolith, and festivals can’t simply offer virtual facsimiles of their events and expect a large-scale take-up. As critic Lauren Carroll Harris tweeted early on in this streaming foray, ‘The rush to […] just “put the work up online” makes no sense […] Digital arts and digital programming is its own unique context.’ Lest we’re faced with a ‘deluge of very mediocre, un-thought-through art presented digitally’, as she put it – and possibly inaccessible work, too, I might add – it’s vital that festivals think deeply about the hows, whys and what-ifs of their digital offerings. Social distancing and lockdowns have certainly challenged our assumptions about cinema-going and cinema-viewing, and their repercussions post–COVID-19 remain to be seen. Will streaming become an ongoing alternative, or remain ancillary to physical theatres? How can we guarantee that the internet’s promise of egalitarian spectatorship is actually realised? More fundamentally, once we’ve returned to the ‘real’ world, how can we ensure that obstacles to access (prices, schedules, sensory input, architectural issues) are addressed so as to facilitate equitable film patronage?
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caption Doluptae con rest ablo. Itat liberovit autem as sinctum
Above: The audience-free 12 March 2020 episode of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert
WHEN TELEVISION LOSES ITS (STUDIO) AUDIENCE Liz Giuffre We might not often think of ‘live’ television as something that relies on an assembled audience. Actually, there are probably few times when we think about a collected audience watching television at all, except perhaps for the groups put together in the matrix-like combination of Gogglebox or else through hashtag trends on social media. At worst, the canned laughter of mainstream sitcoms comes to mind – in all its clichéd glory. The need for physical distancing across the world has changed the way the arts have operated everywhere. In the worst cases, performances were stopped altogether – and, interestingly, these were often choices made by artists themselves worried about the welfare of their audiences. Often, individuals and very small teams chose to sacrifice their income to protect their audience’s lives, and did so well before they were legally required to do so. It was leadership that generations to come will admire. Where the show has been able to go on, it’s been without an audience present, and, in the case of television, this absence has shown the important role that a studio audience plays. In Australia, ‘shiny floor’ reality show Dancing with the Stars tried its best to forge on in a business-as-usual manner. The nickname ‘shiny floor’ is an industry term used as shorthand for a type of light entertainment for a general audience, with the shiny floor there to literally make the sets (and stars) shine and create a party inside the screen to reflect out to the viewers at home. Accordingly, the tassels remained as Dancing with the Stars continued over its season’s final two weeks; but, with no studio audiences, it soon became clear just how much performers need energy to give energy. Meanwhile, contestants like the eventual winner Celia Pacquola played with the situation as best they could, encouraging audiences at home to ‘social disdance’ and play along at home with the hashtag #DanceLikeNoOnesWatching from the 15 March show onwards. The idea was to ask viewers to film themselves dancing alone too, with the best entries making it to broadcast. It was a cute fix.
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Internationally, the loss of studio audiences made for much bigger changes. In the United States’ biggest COVID-19 epicentre, New York, programs The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon and The Late Show with Stephen Colbert were the first to film on empty sets, on Thursday 12 March. In each case, the result was funny, but not quite for the intended reason. Fallon appeared sombre and confused but did his best, pushing through with the nice and steady persona he’s cultivated to make for something that felt a bit unpolished but still fit the brief. In contrast, Colbert seemed quite dishevelled, off the mark in both the staging (literally) and the content – obviously thrown without the anchor of his regular in-studio support. The video of his monologue that was later posted to YouTube said it all in the thumbnail, which was simply labelled ‘Without a Net’. Over at The Daily Show, host Trevor Noah literally sang farewell to the studio audience he would miss from now on. The next day, The Hollywood Reporter noted the strangeness of the situation with an article on the suite of programs affected, simply noting how they had ‘fared’ given the circumstances. In the coming days and weeks, television continued to be produced where possible. The loss of the live audience had been replaced with ‘at home’ editions made on mobile and streamed devices, while ‘socially distanced’ panels presented in studios that were clearly reduced in size. Fallon’s and Colbert’s shows began again as mini experiments in the first weeks after the lockdowns, and the roughness of these showed the skill that each performer really has. Raw, dishevelled, with family/pets interrupting and with scripts barely buffed, they offered fun distractions, granting permission for our lives at home to be the same as before in some ways, even if – unavoidably – still very different. Other regular live television has also continued with necessary changes. News and panel programs clearly show hosts positioned at a safe distance from one another, forcing camera operators to adopt wider angles and set designers to cope with the challenge of ‘doing something’ with the 1.5 metre gap between people on screen. It’s also meant a need to deal with varying technical quality and control over how guests appear – with all guests appearing remotely, usually from home, and usually with a lessthan-ideal internet connection (as well as limited capacity to move away from the ‘up the nostril’ camera angle). Despite this, the show is going on, and adaptation is happening swiftly. Changes in audiovisual quality are becoming less jarring over time, and games like ‘What is that book in the background?’ are adding an extra layer for those of us watching at home. While we don’t have an in-studio audience to help provide energy, broadcasters are continuing to keep us connected and remind us that, even if this is not ‘life as normal’, it is still life. Television remains, as Raymond Williams famously described it, both a ‘technology’ and a ‘cultural form’.
BREATHING SPACE: NEGOTIATING GAME MAKING COMMUNITIES OF PRACTICE April Tyack Game development communities depend on persistent shared spaces for a sense of continuity and stability. In the absence of a larger sense of collective experience associated with Triple-A game development, Australian game makers in particular benefit from having spaces to discuss their craft with like-minded people – places where they can feel understood. Melbourne’s Bar SK was one of these places; but on 21 March, it closed its doors for the last time. The venue was well known for hosting game showcase events that more closely resembled exhibitions – curations of locally developed games with a particular theme, often alongside custom arcade-style controls or keyboards with nonessential keys ripped off. In its final series, Bar SK showcased eight pinball boards styled according to local craft-brewery branding. The bar also ran events comprised entirely of student games – giving many their start in the industry – and partnered with RMIT for the exhibition Artworld Videogames, which flew in developers from New York City to run masterclasses on topics of their choice. In short, Bar SK was more than a place in Collingwood where you could drink craft beer and play some cool videogames from local developers. The venue was integrated across so many sectors of the scene that it became a hub; it was somewhere that people could talk about the practice of game development, meet peers and mentors, and feel part of a community. The groups, spaces and events that have emerged in other cities serve similar purposes: Game Dev Brisbane runs monthly presentations by local industry professionals; Squiggly River Game Collective provides opportunities to showcase less commercially focused works; and the yearly Global Game Jam (which I have helped organise locally) connects developers across cities in making games with a shared thematic core. These are community-led events, often organised by (at maximum) a handful of people. Yet it’s these infrastructures that bestow each local scene with its own character – a particular affective relation to a collective, in which everyone’s separate game projects are, regardless, indicative of a shared project of identity. These game developer collectives are what Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger have termed ‘communities of practice’: groups that share a foundational enterprise around which their members coalesce. Australian game making communities represent sites of learning, where group members develop a common language, define normative behaviours and contribute to other group members’ professional development. In other words, it is in these groups where the work of becoming a game maker is collectively performed. Communities of practice work well as sites of learning and development when their constituents can contribute varied experiences and ideas to the group, and when approaches to thought and action can be freely introduced – but in ways that deploy pre-existing ideas and language to remain comprehensible. A recent example can be found in the suite of online presentations run by the Interactive Games & Entertainment Association (IGEA) since January, which aim to help Australian developers upskill in areas that range from independent publishing to merchandising.
Conversely, however, communities of practice can ossify and grow stagnant when new members are ignored at the boundaries, and when the maintenance of social capital is given priority over the progress of the group. These scenes signal the possibility of mutual commitment, engagement and development, while actually obstructing each one. Australian game development communities are known internationally for their openness and knowledge-sharing – even so, the industry isn’t entirely immune to these issues. Co-working spaces, for example, are zones of collective knowledge that inherently exclude developers for whom renting desk space is financially infeasible. Community wellbeing is likewise threatened in the context of a lockdown, in which essential physical spaces are made inaccessible and events are cancelled or moved entirely into virtual locales. The bars and cafes used as meeting places – sites of collective energy, structuring and facilitating sociality – face increasing precarity. These spaces are not so easily replaced. It also remains to be seen how game making communities, however dedicated, will weather these conditions without the shared physicality of being in the world. On the whole, it seems unlikely that we’ll ‘snap back’ to business as usual when restrictions have been lifted, as the Prime Minister has hoped. But even while these circumstances suggest some cause for concern, the situation also represents a new opportunity for community boundaries to change – an opportunity to reconsider ways of practising inclusion, difference and growth. The events of this year demonstrate how fragile our community infrastructure can be – whether it’s the bar a few suburbs over that runs indie-game nights, or the organiser who posts the event details on social media every month. The continued existence of Australian game development communities is largely contingent on just a few dozen people who decide to make something happen, and stick with it long enough to see it flourish. Considered another way, though, this fragility is a kind of strength: just one person can start and maintain a collective. At a time when community infrastructure is increasingly tenuous, there’s an even greater opportunity for anyone to step up and start something new.
••• Rochelle Siemienowicz is a writer and critic with a PhD in Australian cinema. She is a journalist for screenhub and was co-host of the longrunning film podcast Hell Is for Hyphenates. Adolfo Aranjuez is an editor, writer, speaker and dancer. He is currently the Melbourne International Film Festival’s publications and content coordinator, and Liminal’s publication editor; he previously edited Metro and Archer. His essays and poetry have appeared in Meanjin, Right Now, Screen Education, The Manila Review, Cordite and elsewhere. <http:// adolfoaranjuez.com> Dr Liz Giuffre is a senior lecturer in communication at the University of Technology Sydney as well as a freelance arts commentator and journalist. April Tyack is a postdoctoral researcher in computer science at Aalto University, and served as vice-president of the Australian chapter of the Digital Games Research Association (DiGRAA) from 2018 to 2020.
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