Drama numbers up as Offset reaches $128m
Screen Australia’s 2009/2010 Drama Report has been released, with total expenditure at $731m (up 2 percent from last year) and the production of 37 features, 36 TV dramas and 12 foreign projects.
CEO Ruth Harley said the industry is “in a solid position thanks to the introduction of the Producer Offset”, which she defined as “the Australian screen industry stimulus package that we didn’t know we needed to have”, with a value of $128 million – but she also warned next year the numbers might go down.
The current report includes the $169m injected into the industry by high budget US films The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader and Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark. Harley said that the total expenditure in feature films might drop in 2010/11, because there has been a reduction in high budget local films and an absence of foreign production during the current financial year.
PDV-only work contributed $9m to the local industry, with work on Sucker Punch, Iron Man 2, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, as well as one UK and one Hong Kong project.
In terms of TV drama, expenditure is at a 10-year high, and while the average cost per hour of adult drama has increased, the actual amount of hours produced has gone down.
Children’s drama fell to $53m, which Screen Australia explains as “a balancing of increased production in the previous two years”, predicting a rise next year.
Unfortunately, foreign TV production was down, with only two series (from Korea and France) shooting in Australia.
According to Harley, television is “the big success story” of the year, so Government will continue to support the sector.
This year’s report includes a section on how the Producer Offset has been cashflowed since its introduction three years ago. The agency found that this year has seen “significant private investment support” for the first time, with 40 percent of Offset finance cashflowed by banks and other private sources – including film funds dedicated to cashflowing the Offset, providing 15 percent.
In 2009/10, 99 percent of features accessed or are likely to access the Offset, while 46 percent of eligible TV drama hours (under 65 episodes) used the Offset.
The full report can be downloaded here.
What was the ROI on this massive expenditure of $731M?
Why is that we have only heard of 2 or 3 aussie productions at most for the claimed 37 features? Where did they go?
Why want marketing used more effectively to create more awareness about upcoming Aussie productions, or is it just a common thing that is considered irrelevant in the Aussie film industry.
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