Taking the temperature: Section 1 – State of the industry
Results from Encore Magazine‘s industry-wide survey into the mood of the sector and the EncoreLive panel discussion that followed.
Is the screen industry your main source of income? If not what percentage comes from your screen work and what is your main source of income?
Yes: main source – 67.4%
No: my income comes from other activities – 30.3%
No response: – 2.2%
Comments:
“The screen industry was my main source of income for 32 years. Today about 5% of my income comes from screen industry, 5% – music sales, 5% writing website copy 85% social and market research interviewer”
“Aproximately 50% screen industry, 30% computer game industry 20% live music events.”
“Stage performance, hospitality.”
If you could change anything to improve both the screen industry and your personal situation, what would it be?
Comments:
“Create larger incentives for local and overseas productions.”
“I would make funding approvals more transparent, so that people understand WHY they are being rejected, and can learn from that and improve next time instead of just getting resentful.”
“Start properly funding genre movies that make money. Establish a format to encourage private investment. Have gambling taxes redirected to the arts, as in the UK.”
“There should be a law that states each distribution house (theatre) has to have a percentage of local content per month that they have to fill… Just Like Australian TV content ruling.
Location: Where do you work?
NSW – 46.8%
VIC – 28.8%
QLD – 13.1%
SA – 3.3%
WA – 2.6%
TAS – 1.1%
NT – 0%
ACT – 1.4%
NZ – Less than 1%
Other – 1.1%
No Respsonse – Less than 1%
Given that only two-thirds of our respondents maintain the screen industry as their main source of income, should people now entering the industry expect a sustainable career?
Chris: I guess it depends what part of the film industry. With producers, everyone is a producer the minute they have an idea and hand it to somebody else. And like the mafia nobody ever leaves – So once you’re in the film industry no one is ever going to say ‘I’m going to leave the film industry’, you’re just not in it until you’re working on something. But I think to get into the film industry you either have to have a really good idea and ignore some of the rules at the top end, or at the bottom, choose one of the trades that isn’t dying out in order to have longevity in it.
Lisa: I think this question touches on a really significant problem and that is, I’ve done a survey of about 150 people within the film industry in Victoria, mainly around women’s participation but one thing I found how poorly remunerated it was. 57% of people in my survey earned under $55,000 and 37% under $35000. So in terms of sustaining an industry and a career there is a lot of unpaid work and a lot of people are doing a lot of other things other than working in the industry. Another thing that I wasn’t looking for but found in my survey was the third highest employer was academia and teaching in the industry. It was a surprise because no one thought it helped you get into the industry or do better in the industry but when I cross-tabulated I found that people who had training were more likely to apply for grants and other flow-on affects so I think it’s a real problem that it’s making it difficult for people working in the industry.
Peter: It’s a pretty fragile and volatile industry. When the dollar was at a low level and we did have a good flow of international production coming into the country it meant all the big grip trucks and units were employed with Australians and that meant that they were subsidised to working on lower budget Australian productions so they were earning very good American dollars on big productions and were much freer to give time at greatly reduced rates to local productions. Now we’ve lost a lot of those international productions which means those very experienced, high-end workers are scrambling for work themselves and no longer able to give the time that they would’ve given before as subsidised salaries into lower budgeted films. This is what I love about our country; we’re in drought for ten years; Mad Max: Fury Road is in development for ten years and then finally it’s going to get up. Then it rains, the desert turns green and the whole production is stopped waiting for the desert to turn brown again. But when the production was stopped it was at the point where people were beginning to move to Broken Hill and everyone who were looking at 12 months of work were told, ‘Sorry, maybe in another 12 months’ and everyone had to go home again. In that sense it is very fragile and volatile and you’d have to be halfway mad to be coming into the industry now if you’re thinking about making films for cinematic release. But there’s lots of opportunities with so many more platforms opening up.
Tony: Also the ability if you can, certainly in the technical areas, and talent as well, is to oscillate between film and TV because obviously television is a much more consistent employer than the feature film industry – particularly with the incredible success of the television industry. You might want to leaven it with advertising or you might come into it through completely different way, say a digital interface. If you’re coming into the industry you have a very clear sense of what your tolerances are.
You can make The Jammed, and everyone can work for nothing or virtually nothing but whether you’re able to, either yourself or with the colleagues you’ve taken on your adventure the first time, replicate that a second or third time it becomes harder to do that and you have to make life –choice decisions if you’re looking at a life time career in the production industry.
Lisa: I think it’s particularly bad if you want to get funding from a screen agency who pretty well don’t offer anything for entry level people and the things they did offer have gone; new writers funds, and that sort of thing. We’ve got potential talent who are not getting opportunities that have been there before. I don’t know if it’s the aging industry holding them out but you wouldn’t do it if you didn’t really want it.
