30 October 2006

Canberra missing out on the movies?

| johnboy
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Richard Mulcahy has the lunatic notion that Canberra is somehow missing out on the chance to snap up Sydney’s lost movie production.

Sydney’s share of film production in the past year has dropped from 80 per cent to 47 per cent according to reports, and red tape and location fees are being cited as factors contributing to the decline. It is a real pity that Sydney’s ‘grab for cash’ through high location fees has not been seen as an opportunity by the ACT Government to encourage the use of the Canberra as a location for film production. With excellent light, low traffic levels and proximity to Sydney for technical expertise, Canberra should have been chasing this business that Sydney has enjoyed for many years.

Yeah, right. Try no international airport, no skyline to speak of, an exchange rate less favourable than competing destinations, and no buzz whatsoever. But hey, let’s throw money at consultants who can report failure in a few years time.

Making things easy for locals to make films on the other hand, is a very different matter.

[Thanks to IBN for the head’s up]

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We have a National everything else why not a movie studio ,a quote from the movie Field of Dreams ie. Build It And They Will Come ,and they have already started Sharp FX special effects workshop and School has moved from QLD .There is already a lot going on in Short Movies ,so why not expand using the large pool of local talent in the Arts and as for as locations in the area we have some of the best in the country that is when we are not in drought

C’mon Morgan, you know Bearcage Productions, the Production Hub, EoR Media, by George Productions and several ‘cottage industry’ independents are out there too…

NRS Group are pretty successful too!
From there, the well is dry…

Canberra has at least one successful movie company, Ronin Films. They own Electric Shadows and make of educational videos.

i was talking about the outsourcing fee.

can’t get backhanders from an industry that isn’t really an industry – in Canberra at least

Well the cyncial and devious minded might wonder if it isn’t a way to slip a mate a bung and gratefully accept some sort of backhander down the track.

If that sort of thing happened in Canberra…

outsourcing a film office… seems strange to outsource something that you would think is the role of government… what would the argument be for getting the private sector to do it? all the glory of supporting the arts without being reponsible for it?

It’s myth that you need to get people’s Ok to film or photograph them in a public space.

Going inside private property is a different matter, however.

Actually this article puts me in mind, is there any red tape to walk through in order to do your own short in Canberra?

Can you just go shooting as long as the people and organisations in the frame say ok?

… But, in the present environment, when he can do just as well using the policy of “hey, I’m not John Stanhope”, why does he need to bother?

Shallow politicking from Mulcahy. In pointing the finger at the demise (and now mooted outsourcing) of ScreenACT, he’d have been more useful researching WHY this Govt Office bombed out, and then giving us a model of how his Party would do it better.
-That’s what you’re paid for, Dickie, to come up with intelligent ideas for intelligent solutions.

Build a movie studio on the Arboretum site?

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