Australian high-concept, possible, but not on TV

 Packed to the Rafters creator Bevan Lee says his comments about high-concept projects in Australia were specific about television, not film, and sustains that such series would be “a high risk venture”.

At last year’s SPAA Conference, Lee said high-concept shows most likely “couldn’t succeed here”, and a project like HBO’s show True Blood – about vampires “coming out of the coffin” in small town Louisiana – would be “laughed off screen” had it been set in a country town in Australia.

Encore then asked Leon Ford and Nicole O’Donohue, writer/director and producer respectively of Australia’s first superhero film Griff the Invisible, what they thought about this argument.

“When I made that comment regarding high-concept projects and Australian production, I was talking specifically about television series,” Lee told Encore.