In Australia we've fallen into line like sheep to create our own
version of Jersey Shore, The Only Way is Essex and Made in Chelsea.
There are
others, but you get what shows I'm talking about. Our version is called THE SHIRE. Named after an area of of our most beautiful coast.
These people are plucked from obscurity and some are very typical
young adults who, filled with the inexperience, insecurities and passions of
being young, do and say stupid things and make poor decisions for our viewing pleasure - and that makes great
TV.
These are the idiot years in our lives.
At twenty, I remember being stopped with a group of friends on a
road trip up Australia's east coast by police who had a drug tip off to look
out for our car. They found us on our way home. The dope was in the door panel
and screwed on tight and the only trouble we got in was when we were asked if
we were carrying "gear" and we pointed to our tennis racquets. They
ticked us off for being smart mouthed.
Almost from that day forward I've stayed
clear of drugs. Not for any valid reason. They never really did a lot for me
and when my ex was heavily into party helpers and would then spend the rest of
the week bitching at me, I decided drugs simply weren't for me.
My point is that we all do dumb stuff when we are young and many
of us, most of us, go on to have more than respectful lives. So I'm not down on
all these people within the spate of reality shows that are now rating so well,
in fact I'm making the point that we would all, at that age, come off as
irresponsible and stupid to some degree.
These people, if they play their opportunity well can turn
their reality stardom into a cash cow that can carry them a lifetime. Dare I
say the word Kardashian? So we should remember these people are not just being
filmed for entertainment, but because they agreed to have their lives
documented because they too see an enormous opportunity for wealth, fame or
both.
When one of these reality stars prove themselves to be the
worst amongst us, what should be do? Obviously this makes great viewing and we
watch in awe and with hope of seeing there demise in the same way that well
constructed drama characters draw an audience who love to hate.
Is this fair or just? Don't these people still end up getting
huge rewards for being disgraceful? What is a producer's responsibility to the
viewers over assigning such rewards and what are the viewers responsibilities
to validating them?
The new show in Australia is called the Shire. A few weeks
ago two female cast members of The Shire - Vernesa Toroman and
Sophie Kalantzis - were involved in a suspected knife attack outside a cafe in
Rhode and then just last night another cast member of the The Shire was charged
following an alleged homophobic attack that also involved two other cast members. Daniel
''Folkesy'' Folkes, 24, was arrested shortly before midnight after allegedly
urinating on a man while the two other cast members, aged 27 and 28, abused the
man with homophobic insults.
If I was producing this show I'd follow these arrests within the show through a
narrative of these people going to the court to face charges and their and
their family and friends thoughts and views on what they'd done. The moment
charges were proven I'd be filming the meeting between the cast member and the producers
of the show and airing their termination. At least it would show the producers
understand that there's a line to being young and stupid and just like in the
real world - if you cross it - you pay a severe and very real price and being
young and silly is no excuse for committing serious crimes.
I recently had a screenplay listed as a semifinalist in the PAGE 2012 International Screenplay awards. I have had to withdraw my entry because I either misread the rules or failed to read them at all. To confess, I have entered a number of competitions before, some with success, and I guess I got a little casual about entering assuming the better known competitions like PAGE were similar to Scriptapalooza in their eligibility requirements. They aren't and it's a lesson I've learnt.
August 16, 2012
Dear
Scott,
CONGRATULATIONS on advancing to the Semi-Final
Round of the 2012 PAGE Awards contest!! We received over 5,100
entries this year, and you had some fierce competition from your fellow
contestants, so you should feel very proud of this achievement. At this
stage of the process, there are two subjects I need to discuss with
you... #1. ELIGIBILITY According to the rules of
our contest, in order to be eligible for one of our prizes, you (and your
writing partner if you have one) may not have individually or
jointly earned more than $25,000 (or the foreign equivalent) as a screenwriter
and/or television writer, effective as of the date you entered your script in
the contest.
The moment I realised my mistake I wrote to them and withdrew. I have earned more than this, over a fourteen year career, from writing scripts for Australian Serial drama - 'Neighbours' and "Home and Away'. Who would have thought writing for these shows would rule me out of getting a significant break with a screenplay. They are certainly worlds apart and writing for serial drama (Soap) leaves a writer with a lot of bad habits and so much still to learn about writing a screenplay. But they are the rules so apart from my own embarrassment at entering when I shouldn't have, I abide by them.
It is, like many others, a competition of vital importance because it gives new writers an opportunity to break through with a great idea and a well written script.
I wish we had something similar in Australia.
Most of our Film and TV projects are funded in part or in whole by government funding bodies. That's our industry - that's how it works. And the people who judge and grant these funds to projects try to select work that is, firstly - a high standard, secondly - worthy of funding in story, social commentary and cultural significance.
The result is a lot of wonderful films and very few commercial successes. It seems most people would rather watch something that entertains through adventure, suspense, inspiration or laughter than witness of depressing slice of life, a dark or tragic recreation of a true story or a story that meanders slowly around in depth character studies. It's the 'Arthouse Vs Commercial' debate. Is it more important to produce 'The Piano' than 'Dumb and Dumber'?
The Piano = World wide box office to date 40 million
Dumb and Dumber = World wide box office to date 127 million
So where are our commercial writers? Where are the extraordinary new voices? And why has making films and television in Australia lost any comparison to being a business? Have we ignored the idea that entertaining people and attracting the largest audience possible should be the first entry at the top of those very worthwhile list of criteria objectives?
I can only go on my own personal experience to explain why there are not more success stories coming from the hundreds of trained writers being graduated every year from very reputable writing courses around this country.
Over a fifteen year career as a writer I have won an Australian Writer's Guild award for theatre. I have been nominated for another for serial drama. I have been script producer of Neighbours for two years, Senior story editor on Home and Away for another two years. I have set up drama shows for Fremantlemedia in Indonesia, Poland and Russia and worked in their London office in world wide drama development. I have story edited over 500 hours of produced television drama, I have edited over 200 hours of produced television drama and personally written around 30 hours of produced television serial drama.
The Australian film and television funding bodies don't consider I have gained enough experience as a writer to apply for funding towards a film or TV project that I have written and created.
To put this into context, imagine if the patent office changed their rules and stated that in order for any inventor to APPLY for a patent for their newly thought up and created invention, they had to sign over all their rights to that invention to a manufacturer with the means and experience to make the invention.
That would be outrageous. Anyone can see such a thing would be totally unfair to the inventor and unjust. That inventor may have spent years working out how to make the new product work perfectly and now they have, they are being asked to sign away their rights just to submit it for an application for a patent. It is a ludicrous idea and would never be allowed to happen - right?
In Australia, I and any writer who doesn't qualify under their strict standards as an 'eligible writer' must option their rights to the project to a producer of appropriate standing and then have that producer apply for funding, under their name, towards getting project funding.
Imagine you've been working on a screenplay or TV concept for years. It's now ready to go forward, but just to apply to receive funding you have to sign over your rights, usually for two years, to a producer. Then if the funding isn't granted - and only about 10% of submissions do get funding - the producer retains the rights to your project and you cannot submit it or take it to anyone else until those rights lapse, because you no longer own the rights to your own unfunded project.
What if you've written something incredibly time sensitive around current topical trends or fashions? Now the project is sitting in someone else's drawer and the chances of it being the original voice on a subject when you finally get your rights back are unlikely, in fact, the timing for such an idea may have passed by completely.
I don't see why each of the funding bodies, either individually for their state or in combination with the Australian federal funding body, making it nationwide, can't run competitions or at least a single competition like Scriptapalooza or PAGE or the Nichols Award - for any writer who falls outside their 'suitable experience' criteria.
Combine resources between all the funding bodies, making it state based with finalists being forwarded to a final from all states and create one large competition that would pay for itself through entry fee and feedback services. Part of the package for winners would be exposure to funding body readers and possibly even development funding. Certainly granting funding, 'provided' a suitable producer is found - would give a writers at least some clout to choose a producer and have them take the project on, given there is a guarantee of funding when they did.
I am sure the administrations, both state and federal, will argue it is in the 'too hard' basket. But many very worthy Australian writers have their careers in that basket at the moment so it's worth trying whatever can be done to change that. Crying, 'too hard' or arguing amongst separate bodies seems petty and short sighted. Such a competition would allow great ideas from Australian writers of both Film and TV to be tabled. These lost writers currently have no outlet for their hard work or even their ideas. They have no opportunity in their own names to seek funding, or gain the sort of attention the overseas competitions bring to a someone in need of a breakthrough towards attracting an agent to their career or a producer to their project.
I am not taking a swing at our funding bodies for their system. I just think it can be improved. At the moment, the same names, deemed experienced enough to access funding, are accessing it over and over again. If they are making viable Films or TV then why the need to keep dipping into the publicly funded trough - and here of course is the rub?
Australia's film and TV industry is not an industry at all. It is a tax payer funded sheltered workshop where products not sustainable in any other business model are propped up and continually produced by the same experienced fund's applicants and offered for sale.
We are a small nation. Maybe that's the only way it can be. Although I am betting that without the funding - if producers and networks had to produce products on a profits basis alone - without the added funding body support, there would be far more incentive to look for and consider ideas from anyone, regardless of experience or standing.
Success and failure would come down solely to a producer's intuition about what an audience will like and the quality and strength of the words on the page. Who wrote those words on the page should be entirely immaterial.
Perhaps the criteria is in place because without it the funding bodies would be swamped with far too many applications to consider. If this is so then it's a weak excuse. Name one business in the world that limits opportunity because its difficult to assess all the opportunities on offer?
Every year in Australia around one hundred new students graduate from higher education with the skills needed to write for film and TV. Maybe ten a year get the opportunity in their lifetime and of them, half will fail because the one or two opportunities they do get come to soon, because they clashed with someone personally or they fall foul of any other of the many variables that can easily derail a career in one of the most egocentric industry on earth.
So how do we move forward? My honest advice to any aspiring Australian writer - in order of the success I've seen from each method:
1/ Get yourself to America or the UK and start knocking on doors for that big break. Anywhere but here. The moment you have anything worthwhile on your resume you'll have the option to come back home where you can write your own ticket.
2/ Become a writer/director/producer and build up from short films to gain the needed credits until you are in a position to apply for, or seek out funding for your own projects.
3/ Become a lawyer, an accountant, a marketing specialist and join a production company - (PA is also acceptable). Then (and this is the tricky bit) slide across to production in a senior position. (Ignore the complete lack of experience or training in production - it's not applicable.) Next, commission your own idea.
4/ Find an entry level position, learn, work hard and gain promotions, piss no one off along the way, be patient and hope one drunken night you meet a producer you click with who knows good from bad but can't write it themselves. Then show them something of yours and if they like it - grab onto their coat tails and never let go!
I lived in Russia for two years. I lived right on Tverskaya, building number Seven. I was stopped by police probably two dozen times over those two years as I walked the underground passes to cross the street between Pushkinskaya and Tverskaya metro stations. But that's because the Russian police are so efficient - possibly the world's best force.
In their defence, they are massively underpaid and living in the world's most expensive city so it was no surprise they kept stopping me for being foreign in a built up area. I was their foreign ATM machine. They'd poke my chest a few times as they looked over my passport and I would dispense 500 roubles. It was like a game in the end and quickly stopped being intimidating and became more of an eye rolling running gag.
It was warm down there in winter and large groups would be huddled around drinking the world's best vodka. I learnt quickly never to try and out drink a Russian. They start young
And if you try to keep up - you will not survive. One of my friends once told me his doctor had told him his heart would begin to miss beats if he didn't have his first beer before midday. Hmmmm. Give me the name of that doctor.
The is a picture I took of the food store near my home. I am pretty sure it is known as Gastranomie No. 1 by Russians and I am not sure what it once was. The guilded everything makes me suspect it may have been the Tzars food hall. Anyone know? But it was here I learnt to love the Russian character and my Russian friends. I took a new close friend to this store. He wasn't wealthy, in fact he was very poor and often went without because he simply couldn't afford three square meals a day. I told him he could buy anything he wanted and as much as he wanted. There was so much food, everything high quality, some fresh, some beautifully prepared and cooked. Pies, cakes pastries. What did my friend Alexis want? He bought four large baked potatoes.
Another time, during a minus twenty degree blizzard style day, I asked another friend if he'd ever want to move away to another country. His reply came in his deep booming voice - "No, I love Mother Russia." I did a double take because it sounded like a line of propaganda from a film - but he meant every word. Russia was and is a special place and I will always love my time and my Russian friends and always smile when I see a Russian, like so many I met and had wild times with.
They had character and spirit and were all universally cheeky and naughty from time to time. That's the Russian character. Like Ivan Ukhov...
He just won the high jump at the Olympics - and he looks like he just doesn't care. Flowing hair and a bit of attitude, during the final he lost his singlet and had to jump in a ratty old Tee-shirt with the number from his sports bag pinned to the front of it. Then the commentators started talking about his infamy on Youtube. Apparently he turned up drunk and competed at a major competition I had to look it up.
The story goes he had just been dumped by his girlfriend and drank his sorrows away. Blind drunk, hardly recovered, he turned up to compete. That's just so Russian. My only surprise on seeing this footage is that he didn't do better. I have seen Russian's do remarkable things when drunk. I would have thought he'd have jumped a personal best. But his effort still made me laugh! Respect Ivan! And congratulations on showing us that you can be an elite athlete, win a gold at the Olympics and have just as many hiccups in life as the rest of us.
The only winner from these Olympics will turn out to be the viewing public. It's a subject the internet based platforms are not raising. Perhaps they are taking advice from Bonaparte who said, never interrupt your enemy when they are making a mistake. The media, from reports around the world, are collectively putting their foot in it and they seem to be doing nothing more than congratulating themselves in the process as the older generations continue to bolster their bottom line.
Ten years ago I attended a media conference in London where a speaker from Vodaphone claimed they intended to be the largest broadcaster within 30 years. It seemed an extraordinary hope, but now I am thinking it was extraordinary only because it hugely overestimated how long it would take.
The viewers have tasted 'On Demand' content because the laws and safegaurds, even contracts to re-broadcast, didn't cover any internet platform until only recently. People don't want to wait 6 months to see episodes of their favourite show. They want it now! And they can get it. The Olympics and other events like it are being packaged and scheduled to suit networks and bring them the highest paying rewards in a world that is now ten years gone.
Are they not paying attention? Last night I stayed up to watch a live broadcast of the hammer throw. During the competition the commentator had to keep reminding us the cheering and gasps of the crowd were for something else going on in the stadium. I jumped online and watched that other thing because the crowd made it very clear it was far more exciting than what my free to air channel and my 16 Olympic cable channels were offering.
The reason democracy is such a cherished concept is because it allows for popular choice. The reason democracy breaks down is because it stops being a genuine democracy as money and power take away those foundations. The internet is the ultimate democracy. It is me's-ville. I log on and I am in my cyber world where my clicks dictate what I want and what I get.
At the moment the content users of all entertainment are being offered a genuine choice. They can choose what they watch and when they watch it as individuals. And the 'suits' who control today's media, using ideas from a decade or more ago, are trying desperately to stop this revolution. Good luck!
The Olympics the networks are giving me, are offered as recorded material. That's fine in truth. London to Australia is half a world away. When most competition starts in London it's 11pm in Australia. When it finishes we are just waking up. So I would never expect anything but recorded material to run during the day. But the material is served up, packaged and puffed out to include magazine style editorial pieces on stories about athletes home life and the many interesting features that London offers as a city. A few of these are fine, but my network seems to think they can treat me like a fool and deliver the material I am longing for when and how they want to, not when I want it. And they string their material out to keep me watching for as long as possible.
They are turning the Olympics into the highlights of a few sporting events alongside some sort of magazine styled variety show.
Viewers don't complain any more because they have become smarter. The young are tech savy and finally have alternative choices, like jumping to TunnelBear and similar, a site that creates a false read from your computer to make it appear to be in the country of your choice. My computer is currently in London having a jolly good time watching the BBC's wonderful live coverage of the Olympics. "Chip, chip, old boy. I'm off to a London rubbiddy dub dub for a Byte," my computer said to me and then left my home country.
The standard response for years from networks and show creators has been, if you don't like us, turn us off. We would have, but we had no other viewing choices - now we have lots. The revolution is upon us! We are moments away from having a large screen TV that is connected to the internet and not tuned in to receive a broadcasting channel that we're forced to accept. And the networks that had it so good for so long will soon become the cassette tapes of the broadcast industry. Forgotten somewhere in an old box and occasionally watched for nostalgia and nothing more.
The first week of the Olympics in Australia has been extraordinary. On the first day an Australian women's relay team won a gold medal and the media and the nation were jubilant. Then we saw the long slow decline of so many aspects of our modern society, in all it's ugliness, when no more gold came our way.
Disaster, fail, poor sports, embittered competitors, media dissection, endless excuses and questioning of coaches, of funding, or the athlete's character. And all this while nine incredibly gifted young athletes from our country won silver medals and four more won bronze, not to mention a high number who made finals and then just missed being on the medal dais by the narrowest of margins. As well as those who looked so humbled by simply being in that first heat of their event and wearing a tag that made them an official Olympian, a tag they could keep for the rest of their life.
Eric the Eel - Sydney 2000 Olympics.
I'm sure everyone is proud of all of them, even those belittling their performance, but why do commentators need to voice personal opinions, during events, about the lack of an athlete's work ethic, or that the performance of the team is somehow less than it has been in the past. They are dissecting the funding received and looking at Australian coaches being lured away to train other athletes from other countries as reasons for not winning gold. No-one has yet suggested an athlete didn't win gold because they didn't have the natural ability to match that of the winner or the other athletes ahead of them.
Australia is a country of 24 million people. In some Olympic competitions we have punched well above our weight. Very rarely if ever, that I can remember, have we fallen below. This year we are about were statistics would place us if one of those geeky maths guys ran the Olympics and took all factors of wealth, opportunity and populations sizes into consideration and then assigned medals from his calculator. That's an Olympics I certainly wouldn't care about, at least, on my statistics, I would be 71.483 percent recurring less likely to care about it.
Australian Olympics Medal Tally
2008 - 14 gold, 15 silver, 17 bronze - 46 medals
2004 - 17 gold, 16 silver, 16 bronze - 49 medals
2000 - 16 gold, 25 silver, 17 bronze - 58 medals
1996 - 9 gold, 9 silver, 23 bronze - 41 medals
1992 - 7 gold, 9 silver, 11 bronze - 27 medals
1988 - 3 gold, 6 silver, 5 bronze - 14 medals
Maybe, just maybe, the Olympics have some lessons for us. Extraordinary lessons, astounding ideas that have never been thought of by anyone before in human history:
Winning isn't everything. Anon.
I want to be able to say: I gave it all I could, I gave it my best. Anon.
Don't judge those who try and fail, judge those who fail to try. Anon.
If you are not big enough to lose, you are not big enough to win - Walter Ruether.
People succeed when they realise their failures are the preparation for success. Emerson
It seems I am wrong - many people have thought these same things, many times before - so why is the media acting like a top floor executive and only caring about the bottom line?
Once again it's because the news has become entertainment. It's big business to attract viewers and keep them watching. They do this with proven formulas of emotional back stories that tug at our hear strings and by creating controversy. Then they elevate the personality of correspondents they own and these correspondents allow themselves to be swept up in the world of celebrity, forgetting what it means to be a journalist and a reporter.
I have some favourite Australian reporters across many fields. These are people I trust and admire. When it comes to sport Australia is blessed, but all too often you can see the drift of a great journalistic mind being slowly chipped away and perverted as to what their role is by aligning themselves with a network who own them and push them towards being the story as opposed to reporting on it.
I'd like to see them all keep their conjecture to themselves and report on what is in front of the. If a person is at the Olympics they've already won. If they win a medal they're extraordinary. If they don't, it doesn't reflect badly on anyone and needs no excuses or derision from anyone.
