Spinning out of control
Surely, there’s no way a simple interview request could result in an investigation by the Independent Commission Against Corruption? Think again. Filmmaker James Ricketson says “in the Alice in Wonderland meets Kafka Comedy of Errors that is the NSW government, such things are not only possible but par for the course!”
This is his story…
“If you have any evidence of corruption you should bring the material to the ICAC’s attention,” writes the bureaucrat. “ICAC has been established specifically to deal with allegations of corruption involving public authorities or public officials.”
This helpful advice from the office of the Director General of Industry and Investment NSW is but the latest chapter in the ongoing saga of my attempt to conduct an interview with Ashley Luke about Screen NSW’s Aurora initiative. This has been going on since Feb this year – an earlier chapter in this story can be found here.
Had I inadvertently framed my interview request in such a way as to put the fear of God into the three levels of NSW state bureaucracy, I wonder. I re-read what I wrote to Ashley Luke in Feb, looking for a clue:
“This next week I will start work on an article about the Australian Film Industry. Would love to talk with you or whoever the relevant person is at Screen NSW about the Aurora initiative.”
Most readers will be aware that Aurora is a screenwriting workshop run by a NSW tax-payer funded film body. I was curious to know Ashley’s thoughts about the effectiveness of Aurora. Do such workshops produce better screenplays than those produced by writers working alone? A valid question, I would have thought. Screen NSW felt differently. Bring on the spin doctors! Who knows what the outcome of a free range interview about a screenwriting workshop might be if it were to slip beyond the control of Screen NSW’s funded spin doctor!
If you continue to point out to the Sultans of Spin that lurk at all levels of the NSW bureaucracy that the Emperor has no Clothes on you eventually wind up (if you are fool enough to bother!) writing to the Premier of NSW. Surely, I think optimistically to myself, just as the proverbial buck stops at Kristina’s desk so too should the spin! And I am not disappointed. I am assured by the Premier’s office that my interview request and my inability to have it dealt with appropriately at any level (including the Minister for the Arts, Virginia Judge) will be looked into. Great!
A few weeks later I receive a letter from Mr. Sheldrake, Director General Industry Investment NSW in which he writes: “I will be appointing Mr.Steve Griffin, General Manager, Rural Assistance Authority and Ms Wendy Sharpe, Executive Director, Policy, Governance and Communications, Industry and Investment NSW, to review Screen NSW…communication policies.”
It is reassuring to know that no less than General Manager of Rural Assistance Authority will be “investigating these issues” but nothing comes of it. Perhaps he is tied up dealing with a drought! Or a flood! As for the Executive Director of ‘Governance and Communications’, Wendy Sharpe must be flat out communicating with others because I never hear back from her either. Weeks pass. Months. I send more emails and letters and eventually get a response not from Steve or Wendy but from David Swain (who, it seems, is Richard Sheldrake’s sidekick) with his recommendation that I go to ICAC if I have evidence of corruption. I try to wrap my head around this idea! Is spin doctoring a form of corruption? If one draws a long bow, I guess it is – ‘spin’ being a euphemism for ‘lie’. Could the people of NSW run a class action suit at ICAC against the government of NSW?
Six months down the track there are half a dozen bureaucrats involved in this ‘investigation’ as to why I am not allowed to have a chat with Ashley about Aurora. One of them, surely, will find a way to resolve it! Virginia Judge? Tania Chambers? Richard Sheldrke? The easiest way would be to allow me and Ashley Luke to have a chat – free of the preconditions laid down by Screen NSW’s spin doctor. I’ve never met Ashley. I hear he’s a nice bloke. He may have no objection to engaging in a free wheeling dialogue with me. I don’t know. It’s not his decision. It’s in the hands of others further up the food chain but in this pass-the-parcel game the music never stops and no-one winds up with the parcel!
Perhaps the fear is, at all the bureaucratic levels now involved, after going to so much trouble to make it impossible for me to talk with Ashley impossible, that it would be a sign of bureaucratic weakness to now agree to my request; a tacit admission that the matter should and could have been dealt with appropriately back in Feb.
I decide to give Mr.Sheldrake (probably also a nice bloke) the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps my letters to him, sent electronically, have been lost in cyberspace! I send him a hard copy of my last letter by snail mail.
A week later it arrives back in my post box with a return to sender sticker with the ‘not known at this address’ box ticked. I check the address on the letter from Mr.Sheldrake. Yes, I have sent it to the right address. Just a bureaucratic cock-up, I decide. Just to be sure I send it to Premier Keneally’s office. A week later the letter arrives back again. ‘Not known at this address.’ Curiouser and curiouser I think to myself! Has Mr Sheldrake resigned? Retired? Died?
In the meantime I have written to Virginia Judge to suggest that she step in and resolve the issue. She writes back to let me know that her hands are tied; that it is now in Mr.Sheldrake’s hands. I write to Tania Chambers, CEO of Screen NSW in hopes that a face to face conversation about this and other matters might resolve it. Tania writes back to say she can’t talk with me until Mr.Sheldrake has completed his investigations. But Mr. Sheldrake is showing no signs that he is conducting an investigation. So I send my letter to Mr Sheldrake in the post a third time, via the Minister, Virginia Judge.
I wonder if it will arrive back in the mail yet again with a Return to Sender sticker on it! If it does, I guess I need to engage legal counsel and approach ICAC to determine whether or not spin doctoring is a form of corruption?
I know James Ricketson, his determnation and wild manner is a result of frustration, in this case, frustration with authority.
I say go for it James, persistence has been, is and always will be, the weapon we independant producers must wield if we are to prevail!
I’m another like James and I put my hand up to say that some of those, I repeat, some of those who have landed a nice job within the bureaucracy, have never been in our shoes, as some behave and reason as if they know nothing of what a film maker’s life can be like – and they certainly don’t know the craft. So we have to take matters into our own hands sometimes. The main thing to be vigilant about is the taste of sour grapes. I know the industry is tough. I don’t mind “practical-tough”, but it shouldn’t be “stupid tough”! John “bloody” Meagher
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Hands up everyone who’s happy they live in Victoria.
Persist, James. And keep us all entertained.
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Guys, I am going to stick up for Screen NSW and the team. I declare my interest that I have recieved minor fund from Screen NSW (on the public record) I have found the the team responsive and flexible. To attack the organisation like this is unfair and unwarranted. James, you are a producer, too.Have you been an applicant? Do you understand the process? .If so, you might like to review your attacks.
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Stuart
My ‘attack’ has nothing to do with my being a producer or an applicant but to do with my desire, as a journalist (another hat I wear) to enter into a dialogue with Ashley Luke (or anyone at Screen NSW, for that matter) about the pros and cons of screenwriting workshops such as Aurora. it is odd indeed that you should refer to my asking of questions as an attack. Given that we all acknowledge, in our different ways, that the one area we fall down in badly as an industry is in the development of good screenplays there cannot, in my view, be too much dialogue. The lack of desire on the part of Screen NSW to enter into dialogue about this is a worry. That you, as an experienced filmmaker, should see the desire to engate in dialogue as an ‘attack’ is likewise a worry!
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I think you are simply wrong abut the4ir willingness to enter into dilaogue and be accountable. But t think going to and fro in this arena will not help much so I won’t keep adding to it. Suffice to say, I don’t disagree (and I don’t think that the Screen NSW people or anyone else would disagree) that a process of analysis and debate is valuable. I do think it shold be kept on a professional level. The emotive language of your article detracts from proper debate in my view. Why not suggest that someone from Screen NSW presents to the NSW chapter of SPAA.They have done before and would, I assume, be happy to again. How do they choose? Who does the choosing? Fair questions but I have never found them hard to get answered. I am a journalist too. All my life. But this sort of public whipping of peo-le who are public servants and cannot individually defend themselves is out of order.
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Stuart
Imagine this: I am running a screenwriter’s workshop for a government funding body. You, wearing your journalist’s hat, request an interview with me for an article you are writing in which you seek the thoughts, opinions and feedback from various stake-holders – directors, producers, screenwriters and film funding bodies. I don’t respond to your request. Instead you get a series of emails from the publicist of the funding body I work for saying, in effect, that no interview with James Ricketson is going to take place? What do you do next? Do you just give up and write nothing because James Ricketson, in his capacity as a public servant, is not able to respond?
Your suggestion, if applied elsewhere, would result in the death of investigative journalism and of that form of journalism that seeks to give voice to different perspectives on any topic in the interests of public debate.
How would you, wearing your journalist’s hat, ever get to publish anything even vaguely challenging or controversial if you gave up researching your article or decided not to publish it on the grounds that those you are writing about are not in a position to respond? Screen NSW has been in a position to respond for months now! How long should I wait? How long would you wait?
You and I are engaged in a dialogue here. We have different opinions. Good. Let them be aired for anyone interested. This is all I sought to do in seeking my interview with Ashley Luke regarding Aurora.
I would be delighted to know what you would do if you were in my journalistic shoes! James Ricketson won’t answer any questions. The tax-payer funded organization he works for uses its publicist to stonewall? What’s Stuart Scowcroft’s next move?
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OK. Let’s put me in those shoes. James Ricketson won’t answer my question. So let me re state it.
Have you been an applicant to the Aurora workshop? If so, how many times? Have you been successful or not? Let’s have full disclosure here. Every journalist declares interests for the sake of transparency.
I have been an applicant and not been successful. You have been a producer for a long time. Have you applied to Screen NSW for money for any of the programmes and specifically, have you been an applicant for Aurora. If you won’t answer that question, I agree, it is a real worry.
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Stuart
I have applied to the Aurora program once and been knocked back but I fail to see what this has to do with my writing of an article about the Australian Film Industry! Are you suggesting that Screen NSW, by virtue of my lack of success with Aurora (one time) is thereby justified in refusing to enter into a dialogue with the film industry (through a journalist) about a tax-payer funded initiative!
I have been both successful and unsuccessful in my applications to Screen Australia for funds also. Which of these gives me the right to write an article (and hence ask questions) and which necessitates that I make full disclosure!? I have been writing occasional pieces about the Australian Film Industry for more than 30 years and never once mentioned my own films or my personal relationship with funding bodies as they are irrelevant to the context of what I was writing!
I have heard back from Richard Sheldrake. The news is good and bad.
In my correspondence with Premier Keneally I mentioned a couple of other concerns that I have – to do with the anonymous nature of Screen NSW’s assessment processes. Not just me, I should add. The Writers Guild shares these concerns and has been lobbying also. Mr Sheldrake, referring to a Review his department has undertaken, writes:
“This review has now been finalized with recommendations made to improve:
– The availability of information to potential applicants
– Consistency in the assessment process and
– Communication and feedback to both successful and unsuccessful applicants
Screen NSW is being consulted on the implementation of these recommendations and you will be further advised when this process is completed.”
This, to me, is good news. Hopefully there will now be a debate amongst NSW filmmakers as to how the assessment process can best serve our industry and culture. A public debate – with different views aired and considered. The same applies with AURORA. A lot of money is spent on this particular initiative. David Michod speaks highly of his experience with Aurora and insofar as the initiative helped enhance the screenplay for ANIMAL KINGDOM it is to be praised. But are AURORA and other intensive workshop initiatives providing us with better screenplays than the individual efforts of screenwriters working alone or in conjunction with a director, producer and/or script editor?
The bad news is that Mr Sheldrake does not address the issue of my requested interview and (what I consider to be) the farcical lengths that Screen NSW has gone to, to make this interview impossible. C’est la vie.
NSW screenwriters (and other filmmakers) may well be aware that it is possible for them to obtain copies of assessments of their projects through FOI (GIPA) legislation. The Premier’s department is recommending to Screen NSW the following:
“I confirm the Review includes a recommendation that such documentation should be made routinely available to unsuccessful applicants without the necessity to make an application under the GIPA Act.”
In terms of transparency and accountability this will be a positive step in the right direction.
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James, well done for making your thoughts public. Encore, well done for printing them. James, you are making a stand on a system that we know is the death of the Australian film industry. It still amazes me why sloppy producers who comment on sucking up to the funding bodies the way they do don’t understand what’s really happening. Screen Australia, Film Victoria, SPAA are all part of this corruption. There is no transparency here.
So as an example of why our industry is not worth putting tax payer money into is this: Recently after opening my New York, LA and Mexico offices of Wingman Pictures, I received a total of 20 scripts from all across America. After 4 weeks and $140 Million dollars we have several of those in production between now and March, major deals with the studio’s being signed all with A-list cast and crew and I did this from the comfort of my Ballarat home.
You will hear a lot more about my company’s massive success in Hollywood in the coming weeks and what you will notice is that there is no Australian films to be seen. Why? Because the Australian industry don’t support it’s writers or filmmakers. It has taken me 15 years of trying in Australia only to be shoved away or hidden. Three weeks in the U.S and my company slate in triple the years Screen Australia budget for ALLLLLLL AUstralian films.
To all directors, producers and writers…. my advice is this. Move! Screen Australia can’t even address the issues of internal boys club hand outs let alone supporting the writers who could literally bring together some great works.
Like always, I have always said that I want to build a new industry here in Australia. Well I’m doing it. We have several films shooting in Australia (Smallest budget is 7 Million U.S) all with A-List cast and yet our funding bodies couldn’t care less.
My suggestion is this. If you are an accomplished writer, contact me at mattnorman@wingmanpictures.com and send me a script that has nothing to do with Australia (as the reality is that International investors don’t go near Aussie productions because they are all aware of the issues here) and if I like it and my development team think it’s a goer then we’ll talk.
We’re looking for writers that write. Not directors that want to make their film. Writers that try to make a living out of writing. It needs to be based in ANY country in the World except Australia. To make life easier, Base it in the USA. Don’t send through re-hashed garbage or ideas of films that have been done a million times. Also don’t be scared to write without thinking of the budget. In this country I have learnt that you should never write a script that will cost over $200,000 to make as the chances are it will never get made.
We have several major investors, studios, distributors working very closely with us and we are happy for the sake of giving Aussie writers permission to shine, have a look at their scripts.
For those that think it’s impossible… think again. I’m doing it every day. Australian films aren’t taken seriously in the U.S unless it becomes a cult classic. Screen Australia are to blame on this because they are the ones that choose which film to hand out at major festivals, which films to add to their catalog and which films to fund. The boys club are the only ones getting this TAX payer money. Across the board, if you want to make a career out of it then pull up your sleeves and be honest in what you want to achieve. I stake my own career on it everyday.
Aussies filmmakers like me who just wanted to tell Australian stories and to help give Australian’s jobs etc need to take a big step back and look around for a moment. The only films being made are indi films that are self funded. When funding is thrown at people, they are the same old people every time. So do as I did and GIVE UP. Not on your career, on trying to stay loyal to a country that spits on your face for decades because they can.
I’m looking for outstanding writers with International appeal. If that’s you then come and say g’day.
If only our funding bodies were as honest as I am being. Maybe… MAYBE we would have something worth selling to the international audiences. The SPIN that our funding bodies like to weave when one of our BIG films sells in America is that we have a great film industry succeeding overseas. When you see it written that a film has sold overseas from this country, go find out how many screens, what was opening weekend? The honest truth is that most Aussies films get released straight to DVD and if they are lucky enough (or helped by screen australia) to get a theatrical release then it usually open on several crap screens with total box office of $40k. hmmmm awesome industry we have….
James, as always Im proud of you for being one of very few willing to WANT change.
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Matt, there’s no shortage of filmmakers (producers, writers, directors and others) who want change. The problem is that many do not want to bite one of the few hands that might feed them and so keep their complaints private.
William Goldman was speaking truth when he wrote, “No-one knows anything.” We are all, in our various capacities, (including film bureaucrats) trying to second guess what audiences will want to see in two years time. Given that there is probably only one Australian filmmaker whose guesses are almost always right (George Miller) the rest of us need to be a iittle humble and not to presume that we are necessarily right in our judgements.
Unfortunately film funding bodies all too often work on the presumption that their judgements are invariably correct. So certain are they of their judgements that they need not engage in dialogue with filmmakers – despite the wealth of evidence that they are wrong more than they are right.
Other than open dialogue and debate about all aspects of our industry I think it important also that there be mechanisms in place whereby the bureaucratic decision-makers are assessed on the basis of their track record. At present they are not.
Screen NSW’s refusal to enter into a dialogue with me, wearing my journalist’s hat, is just a symptom of the larger problem we have as an industry.
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Yes agreed. Maybe we should setup a proper film forum that discuss the real needs in this industry and invite all of them to be a part of it. Give them equal time to tell their side of the story and then quiz them on their actual ability to deliver. After that we ask them why they have a track record of dodgy deals being done with the same people and getting away with Murder by film every year. Then we should put them in a woodstock and throw tomatoes at them until they resign.
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This mini-drama has reached a conclusion of sorts. It transpires that NSW state government policy does not allow conversations or dialogue of the kind I had hoped to have with Ashley Luke. All questions must be submitted in writing an will be responded to in writing.
On a positive note, this was communicated to me in a lengthy telephone conversation with the very pleasant Director of Communications, State and Regional Development and Tourism – Mr Peter Cripps. We engaged in precisely the kind of dialogue (tossing around ideas) that it is not possible to have with Screen NSW about the Aurora program. A strange state of affairs but there you go!
On another positive note, a letter from Mr Richard Sheldrake, Director General, Industry and Investment. This will be good news for screenwriters who wish to know a little more about why their projects were knocked back:
“Screen NSW has been consulted on the recommendations and will implement the following processes to enhance its current assessment practices:
– Screen NSW will provide a letter outlining the reasons for a funding decision to all unsuccessful applicants and provide assessment sheets upon request.
– Screen NSW will include references to its Feedback, Review and Formal Complaints Procedure in the formal notification of funding decisions to unsuccessful applicants.
– Screen NSW will implement a process whereby a sample of recommendations for one genre of development applications will be dual blind assessed every six months.
– Screen NSW’s web page will be reviewed to ensure it allows easy access to available assistance measures by potential applicants.
I believe these changes will assist Screen NSW in its communication with applicants and to deliver its funding programs in a more transparent manner.”
Thank you, Mr Sheldrake
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I’ve obviously come a bit late to this discussion but I like Matt Norman’s suggestion of a forum organized by people actually earning a living (or trying to) making films – to which the bureaucrats who make up the rules by which the industry must operate would also be invited to attend. Everyone should be there on equal terms with no one group occupying the stage, making pronouncements, then inviting the ‘audience’ to queue up behind a microphone to ask questions. Everyone present there on equal terms to discuss problems that we all confront.
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