Miracle Fish, a great artistic achievement, but not as golden as Oscar
Producer Drew Bailey told Encore that Australia’s short film hope at the Oscars Miracle Fish has only earned him approximately $1,000.
Bailey said that despite all the success Miracle Fish has had in the festival circuit – screening at more than one per week – the filmmakers had earned about $1,000 from it because making a profit with a short film is particularly difficult, and although they have won prize money, most of it has been offset by entry, submission and postage costs.
“We would have spent around $10,000 in entering the film into competitions and different festivals […] But on the other hand, there is a market for short films, especially in Europe in terms of television sales,” he added. “If you can exploit that and get a good distributor, you can do really well.”
According to Bailey, the project was turned down by government funding bodies before it was privately financed by Qoob.tv.
“When we got into Sundance and needed post-production, Screen Australia helped us out, but it had previously been turned down by government. It’s a difficult thing to do; you’re either doing it for free, or really struggling to find a place to fund it,” he said.
Miracle Fish was made in conjunction with Nash and Joel Edgerton’s Blue Tongue films. The synergy between director Luke Doolan, Bailey, David Michod and the Edgertons is strong, working together and performing different roles across each other’s shorts and features. Their efforts seem to be paying off, with their previous wins at international festivals crowned by this week’s Sundance win for Animal Kingdom, and Fish’s Oscar nom. Is this the beginning of a new Australian film power group? What are they doing that it seems like they can’t do wrong? Bailey, who has worked as assistant director in a number of these projects, says there is no clear answer to that.
“We’re all good friends and we just enjoy working with each other and on each other’s projects. But they’re all very different films. Nash’s shorts have been renowned for being short sharp comedies; David’s are haunting, introspective films; and Luke is dark and brooding. We’re all very different filmmakers and there’s not one strategy that comes together.
“When we’re not working, or between jobs, we’re just thinking about what we can do for ourselves, and unfortunately in the Australian film industry that ends up being quite a lot of time, so you spend time doing development,” said Bailey.
The filmmaker said he’d like the collective’s recent success to translate into financing offers to make features, but he is aware that it might not be the case.
“I hope it makes people interested in working with us, but you’re only as good as your last work, and it only takes one of us to do something that no one else likes and then we’d all be back on square one.”
Bailey, Doolan and writer Matthew Dabner are currently participating in Screen Australia’s Springboard short film program with their sci-fi thriller Cargo. Following the two development stages, three out of the five participants will receive funding to produce a short film.
But Bailey does not expect any post-Oscar favouritism towards their project.
“People knew that the film was winning awards when we started. We may have an award-winning short now, but if the one that we propose to them is rubbish, then we’re going to have a hard time convincing them we can turn that into something good. Hopefully it won’t be rubbish, but a great script. “
If selected, Bailey expects to be shooting the Cargo short by May, followed by the feature shortly after.
