It’s a unique industry, so I think a unique approach is needed. Sure, just about every industry could claim to be unique – but film and video production is so diverse in the skills its practitioners posess, so difficult to break into, and based so much on a “feast-or-famine” existence that I really think standard approaches to protecting/supporting “workers” in the industry barely apply (except safety stuff, I’m all for tough safety regulations that are rigourously enforced).

* They need proper
* agreements to cover interns, they
* need a workshop agreement to cover
* AFC and state agency projects, and
* they need to stop gouging student
* productions to cash out residuals
* which the actors are often
* embarrassed to accept from some
* impoverished tertiary joint.

I agree. Nothing is more galling for many people than having to accept payment up front for a job when others of similar talent and experience are receiving dramatically less or nothing at all. Obviously pay scales should reflect talent and experience, but what about the absolute newbie willing to work for nothing just to get those elusive first credits? Are we really going to say no because we think it’s the thin end of the wedge (the thick end being reduced pay for all)?

* VCA
* for one.

Students shoots seem a no-brainer for complete flexibility in pay, but I’m thinking of bigger shoots, where established industry folks are getting award wages or near to it – can there be no credited workers working for free in this situation? Such a situation is a great chance to learn for those willing to work for free, why kill it off? Maybe we should just call all these workers “work experience” people (but give them credits). It all seems awfully tough to me (the union and eventual PFTC approach that is).

* They need a bit of creativity, but
* they have resisted this with
* misplaced defiance..

Agreed – though the fact that the film had government investment does complicate things a bit (there is an established policy there – I think it’s misguided, but it does exist). But they did over-react. Also, I’ve heard similar complaints about people working for free on 100% privately financed projects too, and that just seems silly to me – if people are willing to work for free for a credit, then who are unions or the government to say no? Is there potential for abuse? You bet, but preventing free work from happening at all seems extreme.

* if things
* keep going like they are, there
* won’t be an industry to get
* trained into soon.

It is a bit bleak in Qld at the moment (thank heavens for corporate and training work).

* And I fear
* Latham doesn’t think that a few
* films will help his outer suburb
* battlers up the ladder of success.

Alas, he’s probably right. It’s another uniqueness of filmmaking as a business – when a film is shooting it spends all sorts finished and packs up, it’s GONE, having no further impact on the local economy. As for crew members, do we really want filmmakers forced/encouraged by governemt policy/incentives to hire people based on them coming from a “battler” area? (I think that’s what you meant?) Come to think of it, I wonder what the demographic background of most regularly-working people are?

* And Howard got us into this mess
* in the first place.

Not sure how you come to that conclusion, this problem predates Howard in my view (and Keating, and Hawke, and Fraser, and…). Sure, the government should have stepped in during that regrettable 10Ba mixup a while ago (with Moulin Rouge etc). Investors need as much certainty as possible, and I believe that that ATO change of heart, where they removed some films’ 10Ba certification many months or years after they were complete, really put a moxie on certain types of investment.

But other than things like that I don’t think any politician is the problem, nor do I think they can provide the solution either. Let’s face it – most Australians do not like most Australian films – this is the primary cause of problems with the Australian film industry (as an employer and any other way you want to look at it). After all, if Australians supported Australian films more at the box office and on DVD/TV/etc, there would be more steady work available. Plus Australian films rarely travel to other markets in any significant way. Generally speaking, we don’t make crowd-pleasing films, and this dries up the pool of film investors. You know, I’ve actually heard people talk about this problem as if it’s a problem with the audience rather than the films? There’s a lot of denial out there.

And to that basic self-sustained employment problem we can add the recent shift of American shoots away from Australia to elsewhere for numerous reasons – from our improving dollar to NZ offering both better government incentives and better private facilities (WETA just plain rocks). So that’s another source of employment dying (well, for below-the-line crew anyway, Americans almost never use Australians above-the-line).

Together these two things result in Australian crews being out of work more often than many would want them to be. I can see no way that any Australian government can fix the problem with Australian audiences being turned off by Australian films, and only very limited ways they can help with getting more foreign shoots to come here. So until we start making films that more people like and are willing to recommend to their friends, things won’t get much better.

But maybe I’m just pessimistic!

Skev