Screen Australia to axe 12 staff and support for industry training programs after budget cuts
Mason
Screen Australia has announced how it will save more than $5m this year with measures including lowering its maximum investment in films to $2m, cutting 12 full time staff members and shedding $500,000 from marketing support.
The publicly-funded body which provides grants to Australian film and drama producers was handed a $25m cut to its budget by the Federal Government over four years in May’s budget, and has undertaken a review of its processes to find where it could make the savings.
Training funds are also set to be cut with $400,000 stripped from the Talent Escalator program, whilst there will be a “transition away” from direct funding for screen resource organisations, with a move to commission them to do professional development activities handled in house.
Whilst this may look like a disaster, it was inevitable.
The old model is dead. In fact, it’s a rotting corpse.
Focusing the agency on digital, transmedia, gamification and most importantly expanding the application of the Producer rebate towards the brave new digital world is an absolute necessity, less we face extinction.
trying to put a positive ‘spin’ on the budget cuts is nice but the cuts will decimate local support so necessary for very new and emerging talent – those just learning their craft, in favour of those who already have a profile. How sad.
independent film making in Australia is dead and has been for some time. It just hasn’t had a decent burial.But that artist and creative visionary George Brandis gives me enormous optimism and euphoria for the future, And Mr Mason is just the man to keep the bullshit boilerplate press releases coming on how productively the film industry is adapting and evolving. If you put all the FFC and Screen Australia press releases end to end Tasmania would be as rich as Qatar,
Yes it may well hurt the agency, but re-focusing , offering up greater returns to producers, investing in developing digital delivery pathways, taking a tactical rather than strategic approach and looking at business and audience development by “abolishing” a redundant marketing department can only be a very very good thing.
Maybe don’t hand out the 40% to films like Gatsby is a better cut.
I hope that Graeme will take advantage of the cuts in staff to get rid of some dead wood. Indeed, with the right staff working within SA huge savings could be made in the assessment processes that now see so much money flowing out of SA to external assessors. Hire good Project Managers, let them make decisions based in their talent and experience and be responsible for both their successes and failures. Short term contracts for experienced professionals who, after their stint at SA, go back into the industry they came from. The less professional film bureaucrats the better.
@ dunno: “Maybe don’t hand out the 40% to films like Gatsby is a better cut.”
This is incorrect. The 40% that Gatsby was entitled to isn’t funded by Screen Australia – it is the 40% Producer’s Offset that is funded directly from the Tax Department.
Screen Australia merely administers it – any money that is paid out doesn’t come out of Screen Australia’s budget .. so even if they had refused to permit the payout it wouldn’t have saved them a cent.
Sorry Mac – your right. But you get my point… it’s all tax payers money, and it’s really sad to see things like the talent esculator get cut but we are paying for 40% of Hollywood films in producer’s offset and 15% of VFX budgets. The government needs to actuallt have an agenda.