Screen Australia finalises changes to Story Development funding
Film, TV & Online projects will now seek story development funding under low or high budget strands.
- Published by David Knox
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Screen Australia has today announced that new development guidelines have been finalised for film, TV & online projects, following two months of industry consultation.
The Generate Fund is for lower budget projects with an emphasis on new and emerging talent, or experienced talent wanting to take creative risks. There are no eligibility requirements for this fund, however applications will need to be competitive against the criteria and in line with the aims of the fund.
The Premium Fund is for higher budget projects of ambition and scale from successful screen content makers. The commercial viability of the project, and the path to a significant and clearly defined audience is a key focus of this fund.
The new guidelines have seen the budget threshold amounts change to $1 million per hour for TV projects (formerly $800,000), and $3 million for feature films (formerly $2.5 million) to allow greater creative flexibility for applicants.
The other significant change is that applicants will now have three months to submit their second stage materials for a project, rather than submitting immediately after a successful stage 1 application which was the case previously.
Screen Australia will be seeking stories for both funds that reflect gender equity as well as the diversity of people and experiences from around Australia, all of which are important culturally, creatively and economically.
“Industry support for the proposed guidelines was overwhelmingly positive, and the final model includes tweaks based on feedback. We particularly received feedback regarding the submission of second stage materials, producer fees, funding allocations, and budget thresholds,” said Nerida Moore, Senior Development Executive at Screen Australia.
“These new guidelines empower Australian screen practitioners to develop the best stories, for the best platform with a more streamlined application process.”
“Where and how Australians watch screen content is changing and these new development guidelines give Screen Australia the flexibility to help creatives take advantage of these new opportunities. We expect to see an increase in the diversity of screen stories being told and a larger pool of content makers telling them.”
More info is at Screen Australia.
5 Responses
While the smaller budgets for producers to try something a bit riskier is welcome, the bigger problem still remains: they want projects that reflect gender equity, diversity of people and experiences, all with a cultural sensitivity. Unfortunately, this narrow mindset doesn’t see us produce anything of any real interest to people, and very little hope of resonating outside of Australia.
Stranger Things or Game of Thrones would never be commissioned here because they’re not about equity, culture and experience, they’re about great story telling first and foremost, and that gets looked over here for bland remakes, bio-dramas or quirky family yawnfests.
Evil Dead was made for $350k, Clerks for $27k, but throwing $800k at an hour of boring TV? What a waste…
I’m not aware of GoT being govt funded, if it was it would doubtless have to meet some cultural criteria where it is derives such. But it’s not a great analogy in any case, chalk and cheese. We’ve seen movies in the genre of Stranger Things, and TV has had recent genre pieces such as Kettering Incident, Nowhere Boys, Picnic at Hanging Rock.
I’ll ignore the political commentary – but it’s worth noting that your quoted $350K for ‘Evil Dead’ was in 1981 US dollars. That’s about $1.2M in today’s AU$, or a little over AU$14K/minute.
Either way, it’s more than the AU$800K/hr (~U$13.3K/minute) figure you’re complaining about…
You kinda just proved my point. If you’re comparing today’s dollars there’s not much difference between a full length out there cult movie, and 1 hour of genetic tv, however I’m not here to argue, I’m here to bemoan Australia’s funding dilemma: they want risky projects but want it on charter. It’s hard for writers and producers to really go nuts when you have to tick government boxes along the way, and unfortunately there’s no other way to get funding here. I see David’s point with a few decent productions getting made, which is great, but hardly the norm.
And for the record, this directly affects me and my writing. I’m working within the constraints I have to, but it’s frustrating watching the rest of the world create great content and we’re resigned to the fact Australian content is sub par and homogenised.
And I’m not really disagreeing with you – there’s certainly structural issues around expectations from all sides (except maybe, as you suggest, writers & viewers!).
David’s highlighted that before: writers want to write stuff viewers want, viewers want to view stuff writers want, but the connection is indirect and has its own distortions. TV/film distributors want sure-fire wins, funders want returns, etc.
I guess it also pays to remember that – hard as it is to believe – we see the cream of o/s shows but little dross. I’ll be the first to admit the UK makes a lot of tripe, & there’s absolute **** made by US studios – but we don’t see it. That skews perceptions too, to where in trying to make only good stuff we instead lean towards making a lot of by-the-numbers box-ticking stuff – because picking the Evil Dead/Clerks outliers is hard…