A Canberra Filmmaker's Frustration

Hellman said :

Hey LSWCHP
Don’t involve yourself in things you know nothing about.
Look up the difference between ‘Arts’ funding and ‘Business Development’ grants.

Do you really think that a governments business is only for roads, schools and Doctors etc? What a boring little numpty you must be.

I really f&$ckin hope you aren’t working for the ACT Government. But if you are how about setting up a Philistine Taskforce. You would be right at home then wouldn’t you?

I normally don’t bother taking issue with trolls who’ve obviously been taking angry pills and spraying spittle over their keyboards as they type, but sometimes the temptation is simply too great.

Don’t involve myself in things I know nothing about?

I know enough to well understand that we have limited resources in our community, and if there’s a spare $40-50K lying around, I’d prefer it to be spent on something useful, like resources for a school library, rather than on supporting pretentious clowns making soi-disant “art” that nobody (except perhaps their mums) wants to see.

As for my employment, no I don’t work for the ACT Government. Unlike these “artists”, who spend their time bleating about how little money they’ve managed to suck from the community, I’ve spent the last 20 years working for a local company building useful things that people want, and living off the proceeds of our sales.

And I would have to say that overall, the tone of your post indicates that you’re a bad mannered, vulgar and ignorant person. If you actually do represent the ACT film community in some way, then god preserve us all from ever being subjected to your work.

Hellman said :

Hey LSWCHP
Don’t involve yourself in things you know nothing about.
Look up the difference between ‘Arts’ funding and ‘Business Development’ grants.

Do you really think that a governments business is only for roads, schools and Doctors etc? What a boring little numpty you must be.

I really f&$ckin hope you aren’t working for the ACT Government. But if you are how about setting up a Philistine Taskforce. You would be right at home then wouldn’t you?

Are you serious?
I hope he is running for Chief minister. Why the ACT Council err Government should be paying people for a ‘career’ they couldn’t fund themselves is beyond me. As P. Keating said “Get a job scumbaaaaaggggggggg”

I am a well known spanglebox* maker, my work can be seen in many spanglebox galleries. I would like the ACT government to pay me to take a year out of my mundane day to day job in order for me to spend a year making high quality spangleboxes for the Canberra community.

*For those of you not familiar with spangleboxes, they are; “bright yellow invisible statues, made of organic unicorn hoof, often lemon scented and reminiscent of rhubarb leaves. They only become visible at an ocean depth of 460 fathoms. They keep bears away from kittens, but not tabby kittens”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/spangleboxes.

Hey LSWCHP
Don’t involve yourself in things you know nothing about.
Look up the difference between ‘Arts’ funding and ‘Business Development’ grants.

Do you really think that a governments business is only for roads, schools and Doctors etc? What a boring little numpty you must be.

I really f&$ckin hope you aren’t working for the ACT Government. But if you are how about setting up a Philistine Taskforce. You would be right at home then wouldn’t you?

Like AF, I don’t have a lot of sympathy for this. Why should the ACT government be in the business of providing *any* money for people to make films? Their business should be roads, schools, doctors etc.

It seems to me that many artists feel entitled to live off the public purse. If the art is good, people will pay to view it or buy it.

Always amazes me why filmmakers think the world (and that’s not just governments) owes them a living.

Last year, I attended a talk by Adam Elliot, the Director of the oscar winning Harvey Krumpet animation movie. Adam took great delight in explaining how, right from day one, he had received endless amounts of money from state and federal governments to fund his work – and as long as they keep giving it to him, he will happily go on spending it. That oscar should be at parliament house (any of them!).

While I sympathise with filmmaker as he/she is obviously passionate about making movies, the fact is that we live in a competitive world and not everyone is going to get a slice of the available support – no matter how large the pie happens to be. The trick is to get on the front foot and get smarter. Whinging about his/her experience with the ACT film office isn’t going to help anyone.

Filmmaker I would be applying internationally for one of the U.S big girls or boys to read your script OR approach an author with excellent contacts overseas, whom, after reading and viewing your filmmaking script and segments, is able to pull a few strings and set up a meeting for shared funding. Is this allowable?

Waiting on government or Filmmaking Society funding has proven a waste of time for you all.

Is it worth trying internationally?

make a film about it

I’d say they are just as entitled to that money as any other film maker… but you are right, $45,000 is a paltry sum to share around film makers, when stupid public artworks (and yes, some nice/good ones) get such a major amount spent on them…

The original poster should rethink his comments. Turnover does not = profit.

Are you complaining about Bearcage, by any chance?