25th SPAA Conference: securing the future, today

As the Screen Producers Association of Australia hosts its 25th Conference, we take a look at the event’s past, present and future.

It may have started as an experiment, but the SPAA Conference is now arguably the main screen event in Australia, providing producers – and indeed the rest of the industry –a chance to discuss their achievement, challenges and ideas. In 2010, one of the main discussions will be about finding mechanisms to secure the future of Australian independent television and multimedia production.
One of the highlights is the participation of Lord David Puttnam, C.B.E in a special discussion on The Future of Public Broadcasting in the Digital Landscape. Puttnam will be joined by managing directors Mark Scott (ABC) and Shaun Brown (SBS).
“He is regarded as the architect of all the progress that’s been made in the UK domestic film and TV sector, with his efforts to establish independent production quotas and to convince Government to introduce minimum terms of trade between the independent sector and the broadcasters,” explained executive director Geoff Brown.
Puttnam’s experience will be particularly useful as Australia prepares for its analogue switch off in 2013 and the industry wonders where content regulation is headed, and what it means for independent
producers.

“The conference will get everybody’s minds focused on these big policy issues which will be decided in the next three years.
“We want and expect Puttnam to give the delegates, Government and the broader Australian society a sense of the importance of retaining a space in the new digital landscape for local stories to be told,
regardless of what that space is – traditional TV and cinema, multimedia, etc. – and to define the proper public policy settings for the next 10-25 years, to ensure democratic digital landscape. “
According to Brown, there is a real risk that there will be less Australian content on our screens, if the transmission quota for a single analogue channel is spread out across a number of digital channels:
“Even with the modest increases SPAA has asked Government to impose on the multi-channels, if you’re running six multi-channels 24x7x365, we’re going to see less Australian stories in the total schedule. We’re looking for mechanisms to try and balance that content regulation,” explained Brown.
The Conference will also look at new media platforms and how the big players in this sector can be motivated to commission Australian content. For this, SPAA is proposing an ‘enhanced’ Producer Offset.
This model would see direct subsidy reduced, and an increased 40 percent rebate for television drama, documentary and multimedia projects.
“We think that is the future for the industry, and it could be attractive enough for the networks, with whatever profile they have in 10 years time, to want to commission Australian programs regardless of the content regulation. That’s what we’re going for.”
THE NEXT 25
This month’s SPAA Conference is a special one: the event’s 25th anniversary. According to Brown, the first conferences were “an experiment” to see whether there was a community of producers with a common interest. He wasn’t there in the beginning, but legend says they were “quite lively affairs with ideas constantly thrown around and very vigorous debate”. And, of course, they confirmed the existence of a community that wanted to work towards long-term goals in terms of policy and industry discussion.
Over the years, the conference has had several homes including, in the beginning, Leura and Thredbo. It also grew in attendance, with some years reaching more than 1,000 delegates, and others where
registration had to close early because they had exceeded the venue’s capacity.

“It’s grown because the Conference has proven to be the focal point for the entire producer, investment, distribution and broadcasting industries to come together and talk about the big issues impacting us,” said Brown. “It’s a bit of a domestic market; nothing that you can compare to MIPCOM, but it’s a one-stop shop where the networks can come and see what’s available and canvass that talent.”
Some issues are constant, such as engaging with audiences – the theme of the 2009 edition – and will always be addressed at some capacity in the program.
Other issues have changed; in the early 2000s the free trade agreement with the US and its implications for the screen industry were the hot topic (Brown recalls Minister for the Arts Simon Crean vigorously participating in that debate).
Another important debate that took place in the last decade was the technological direction the film industry was taking, with the participation at the then new Australian Centre for the Moving Image of George Lucas and his producer Rick McCallum, to demonstrate the value of High Definition.