ANIMATORS AND THE ART OF CASUAL AGGRESSION

One night, late last year, I was accosted by a passive aggressive animator.

I took it in good humour, given the stakes of the entire interaction were so low. But still, it left an impression.

Animators are an interesting bunch. Combine the beauty of artistic flair with the OCD-inducing nature of their vocation and then, in some cases, a 'I'm a unique snowflake of genius' arrogance, and you'll understand why they can sometimes be a bit...prickly.

Not all bad, of course. And when you stumble onto a group that are simply passionate about their craft, there is a righteous joy to their work.

And yet.

So, there I was, enjoying an innocent beer with some work colleagues, when a twenty-thirty something started rolling a cigarette and speaking in our general direction.

There is a nonchalance to hand-rolled cigarettes that implies a status level of mature cool. That cachet is hard to maintain, however, when one chooses to wear a DC comic superhero t-shirt and drink cider in the smoking section of a local pub. This fact seemed entirely lost on him.

"What are you guys up to tonight?" he asked, maintaining his cool by not making eye contact, while helping himself to my friend's cigarette lighter. Groovy.

We exchanged pleasantries, and he ingratiated himself into our gathering. We're not a precious bunch, so we opened the circle and welcomed this new line of conversation. Eventually, predictably, we came to the subject of profession. Filmmaking, of varying degrees was mentioned on our side. His face lit up.

"I'm a CGI animator", he glowed.

What followed was actually exceedingly pleasant. He asked about the kind of films we made and we inquired about his animation work. The discourse appeared to be heading in a positive direction.

And then, the conversation turned to animation's relationship with filmmaking at large.

Quickly, our new acquaintance's perspective became more domineering. Animation is the present and future, we were told. Actors would be irrelevant, we were informed. Everything would be a digital recreation straight from the vision of the creatives and the animator, we were enlightened.

In the midst of his pupils-dilated, spittle-infused diatribe, I politely disagreed.

Yes, animation had created incredible work and advanced in ways that almost defied imagination.

He nodded, puffing his latest cigarette.

However, I added, there are many benefits to the organic process of working with actors, to develop a character for a film, that have nothing to do with 'control'.

He laughed. A small pointed laugh.

And we both know, I pressed, that there are still limitations to what animation can deliver in film, with regards to what audiences will accept.

A louder laugh. Agitation as he stubbed out the last of his cigarette. A swift rejoinder.

"You're not up to date with your knowledge of CGI."

Ouch.

I tried to explain that I had been researching this extensively recently, for a specific purpose. He wouldn't have it. A few moments passed of simplified chatter, as he gathered his possessions, and he politely took his leave.

My two colleagues and I shrugged at each other, as another of life's bizarre moments passed us by. We finished our drinks, and I headed to the bar for another round, via the gents.

When I finally approached the bar, I passed our animator friend and the posse he had clearly been killing time waiting for. He called me over.

As I arrived, I instantly noted that he was significantly, almost overbearingly, more sure of himself. He quickly introduced me to his group, fellow animators, and then launched into the reason he summoned me.

"So this guy," he started, pointing at me, "says that CGI is still limited, for films".

The group mumbled disapprovingly. Our animator friend was buoyed by the tacit support. He smiled a broad smile and scanned the faces of his friends.

"I know, right?" he trilled, thumbing at me incredulously.

I started up in my own defense, explaining that I was from a more traditional filmmaking background, but that I could see the amazing potential of animation. His posse seemed eminently more reasonable. They listened to my perspective, thoughtfully.

Our animator friend didn't like where this was heading. He interjected.

"There's nothing that can't be replicated with CGI, right now"

A clear message on his face: Check. Mate.

I replied innocently, as a broad question to the group.

"Can CGI perfectly replicate a photo-real human actor and their performance?"

His face dropped on a dime.

The posse, again demonstrating a tact that was genuine, grinned and politely replied: "No."

I smiled my own broad smile at our animator friend. Storm clouds in his eyes.

I shared this smile with his posse, and stepped away.

"Have a good night everyone."

I turned for the bar again. A perfect ending.

Except.

Our animator friend power-walked around the table and cut me off. He even tried to grab my arm to spin me back to the group. Wounded pride is clearly a powerful motivator.

He started up with a new line of attack. Spittle again. Something incoherent about my understanding of the latest animation software and hardware. He looked to his posse, expectantly.

They shrugged and changed the subject.

Our animator friend scowled into my face, one last time, then sighed disappointedly and shuffled back to his place in the group.

A free man at last, I finally made my pass at the bar, rejoined my friends, and didn't give him another thought. Until now.

I reflected on our peculiar animator friend, and his posse. I considered them in the broad spectrum of people I have met since I started making films.

I remembered a producer on my first gig, when I was volunteering on a TV pilot shoot. Having spent multiple days toiling for this guy, with no pay, he turned to me and said, "You need to change your whole personality. It's totally wrong."

Nice.

While that feedback bothered me momentarily, I soon realised that he was simply a guy that liked to lord over people, in front of others. For good measure, my suspicions about this particular producer's ego trip were later confirmed by a multitude of people that had worked with him.

And, in that moment of reminiscence, I realised that I was being unfair to animators en masse.

In any group of practitioners, there is THAT person. The one that even the other animators roll their eyes at. The one who jumps into unwinnable arguments, with people who don't really care in the first place, so that he or she can show someone up and validate themselves in a group setting.

Until it backfires spectacularly, of course.

Then the instigator turns passive aggressive, while you simply want to buy a beer for your friends.

They become a cautionary tale: make sure you are following this path for the right reasons, because pride comes before the fall.

Or: that you shouldn't judge an entire group by their one outlandish pariah.

But most of all, and I really mean most of all, for the love of all that is sacred to you, there is one insight you should take from this tale above all others.

Don't be THAT guy.

People have long memories, and it's a smaller world than you think.

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WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?

So, where was I?

Momentum can be difficult to sustain between years. Let's start fresh.

Now, I'm not about to belittle us both with boasting. What follows is simply a statement of fact.

There are few better ways to start off the year than for your film to win at The Australian Academy Awards (AACTAs).

Before you get clever, the Oscars are in February. We received word in the first week of January, which is legitimately the start of the year. Our film, 'Chip' had won one of the short film awards at the AACTAs.

And then, a peculiar thing happened.

In the midst of our elation, and with our focus very truly on a tastefully small, but meaningful, celebration, the same question bombarded us from all sides.

'Where to next?'

We had literally won the award that day. I tried to handle the inquiry tactfully, with something like:

'To the bottom of a bottle of champagne, if I'm honest.'

But still the question followed us.

I suppose it's a fair query. These awards are truly only useful in the sense that you leverage them for a greater purpose. As much as you or I might watch the milestones, most people are only really interested in where the bus is heading.

That being said, not even twenty-four hours to feel warm and fuzzy about it?

More voices joined the refrain. 'What happens next?'

By this point, days later, I had a more carefully constructed answer. Something about drinking with possible collaborators at the AACTA Awards events, and garnering more interest in our projects. It seemed to be the requisite mix of humility, ambition and pragmatism.

But as it always does, life provided a very different answer.

I was innocently checking social media. Catching up on the triviality. A familiar face appeared.

'Vale Mark Juddery'.

Mark was one of the first people I met when I started pursuing filmmaking. He was a freelance journalist and author of humorous novels. We drank tea and chatted at a Screen Producers' event for emerging filmmakers. From then, we just stayed in touch.

He traveled a lot. A perk of being a travel writer. I started making films and slowly finding bigger audiences. We would catch up whenever there was time.

Eighteen months ago, the big C hit. He thought he could beat it. He assured us he had no intention of succumbing, but every intention of milking as many free lunches from his diagnosis as he could. Many of us gladly obliged.

Things went quiet. That's the way it is. If you've known anyone affected, and you statistically are likely to, it's this period of silence that signals the struggle isn't going well.

And then, he was gone.

He was given a proper farewell. The chatter quietened down. Life went back to normal.

But that question persisted. Every time the subject of the AACTAs came up.

'What next?'

We received our AACTA Awards invitations. Suits were pressed. Fashionable friends consulted. We knew that we faced a week of late nights and hangovers, but that's why god created 24-hour McDonalds.

The day before our first AACTAs event, my phone rang. The voice of a good friend. He sounded unsure of himself.

His mother, Lisa, had passed away. An extraordinarily kind lady, who had been a positive influence to me through those formative years post high-school. An important personality, whether she knew it or not.

The next morning I stood, in my AACTA Awards grey suit, and I listened to my friend farewell his mother. I paid my respects and got in a cab.

Thirty minutes later, I was on the red carpet.

Momentum is a powerful thing.

I navigated the week, hearing that same question from film and television industry people, over and over again.

Until it was quiet again. Just me and my contemplation.

I thought about our terrific start to the year.

I thought about Mark.

I thought about Lisa.

I thought about what any of our conceits and achievements mean in the broad sweep of it all.

And I thought about that question. That question which can either undermine or fortify your resolve, depending on how comfortable you are with your answer.

Does any of it really matter, if our life simply ends in a flicker? Like magnesium. Bright, intense and then nothing?

As you embark on this year, facing choices and consequences you couldn't have imagined, I want you to know the answer to this important question.

Yes.

Yes, the milestones all matter.

'What happens next?' is an important question. It's a meaningful question. Something that you should ponder before this year has well and truly gained forward momentum. Because you are in a position now to make choices that will shape your experience for 2015, and possibly beyond.

But always remember what Mark and Lisa imparted.

Goals are fine. Achievements are a validation.

As long as you savour the journey too.

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'PLANET OF THE APES'

One balmy night in July, Vali and Sugriva trundled up the stairs to their local cinema.

They had excitedly purchased their tickets and a bucket of popcorn large enough to wear as a crash helmet.

As the other patrons filed into the expansive theatre in Myrtle Beach, California, Vali and Sugriva took their seats.

"Should they be here?" someone asked their chaperon. "I'm not sure this movie is the right influence for them."

Other cinema-goers peered over.

"They'll be fine", replied the chaperon.

The concerned patron continued.

"I'm not sure we should be teaching them how to take over the world."

Vali and Sugrivam, you see, are chimps. Great apes, who were taken to watch 'Dawn of the Planet of the Apes'. The story even made 'Good Morning America'.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GbQUWgKjnqM

Slow news week, I guess.

And yet, despite all of the American goof-ball charm inherent in this kind of story, there was a strange undercurrent of paranoia.

The cinema patron, concerned that the content might gives the chimps delusions of world domination.

The Good Morning America hosts, who picked up this same theme and made an awkward 'we were all thinking the same thing' on-air joke about giving the chimps 'ideas'.

The power of perception over reality. We live in a peculiar time in that regard.

Perception has overtaken reason, logic and data as the key driver behind so much decision making. In a world saturated with information, we return to our gut instincts more than ever.

But why?

Are we so overwhelmed by the amount of evidence that is available, that we just choose to ignore it?

Or is it simply that we prefer a reality that we can easily categorise with rhetoric, past judgements, and cliches?

The Australian national broadcaster, the ABC, recently received a $254 million (over five years), funding cut. The perception put forward by the politician in charge of this decision, was that this funding reduction could be achieved through efficiency savings and back office staff reduction; with no impact on the television and radio programming the ABC provides.

The reality?

According to a leaked efficiency audit on the ABC, these cuts could only ever affect programming, because the organisation was so incredibly lean in the first place.

And yet, when asked in public, the 'perception of inefficiency' was still the explanation given to justify the funding decimation.

I wish this were the lone incidence.

According to numerous op-eds (like this, this, this and this) on child psychology, particularly in the United States, children watching violent screen content are at risk of becoming numb to violence, with a chance of displaying increased aggression themselves. This view has been enunciated for over 30 years.

And yet...
'Several scholars (e.g. Freedman, 2002; Olson, 2004; Savage, 2004) have pointed out that as media content has increased in violence in the past few decades, violent crimes among youth have declined rapidly. Although most scholars caution that this decline cannot be attributed to a causal effect, they conclude that this observation argues against causal harmful effects for media violence. A recent long-term outcome study of youth found no long-term relationship between playing violent video games or watching violent television and youth violence or bullying'

Again and again, the perception and reality gap appears around us.

The news tells us we live in a grim and violent world yet, empirically, this simply isn't the case. The review of a new book by Steven Pinker 'The Better Angels of Our Nature', encapsulates it quite nicely:

'Pinker demonstrates that long-term data trumps anecdotes. The idea that we live in an exceptionally violent time is an illusion created by the media’s relentless coverage of violence, coupled with our brain’s evolved propensity to notice and remember recent and emotionally salient events. Pinker’s thesis is that violence of all kinds—from murder, rape, and genocide to the spanking of children to the mistreatment of blacks, women, gays, and animals—has been in decline for centuries as a result of the civilizing process....

...Again—and it bears repeating—violence is on the decline, with occasional bumps along the way. Think of global warming. Yes, some years are cooler, but the overall trend is that of a warming Earth. The analogy applies to violence of all kinds. Compared with 500 or 1,000 years ago, a greater percentage of people in more places more of the time are safer, healthier, wealthier, and freer today.'

But that story wouldn't sell newspapers.

Are we devolving in that sense? Away from enlightenment?

The feat of creative imagination is a gift of evolution to humanity. This gift is what makes us capable of such incredible accomplishments, through the ability to dream and deliberately visualise something yet to exist.

Read that sentence again in your head, with the voice of an old person. Now read it again, like you are yelling the words in your mind.

How is that possible? Incredible, right?

The power of that grey mass between your ears.

Power that should be used to imagine where needed, and analyse where there is evidence and fact to guide us. Not the other way around.

We have come so far and yet, in so many ways, we're all still just apes, staring together at the screen.

Is that the best we can do?

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A WOLF IN SHEEP'S CLOTHING

Never trust the advice of someone paid to be wrong.

"But how can that be?" you ask.

Because, in times of great change, there are two diametrically opposed forces at work. The surge of those who welcome change, and the vested interests of those who wish to maintain the paradigm.

And always, ALWAYS, it comes down to money and power. The ones who want to retain it, and those who don't have it. The people who abhor revolution, and the people who seek transformation.

Interestingly, the tactics of the change averse have become extremely sophisticated. Flat out resistance is now archaic and useless.

Today, they come as innovators.

They disguise themselves as futurists.

They opine as forward-thinking luminaries.

But don't be fooled. It's a ruse.

In the modern age, the greatest trick the wealthy have pulled is convincing the proletariat that the rich have a stake in shared prosperity. Magnanimous terms like 'job creators' were developed to sell the trick and, ultimately, people bought it en masse.

"Don't tax the rich!" exclaim the poor and middle class. "They need more money to create jobs for us!"

Sounds absurd when articulated like that, doesn't it?

So it is in the world of film and content creation.

The entire landscape of producing, distributing and monetising films and screen content is tectonically shifting to an audience dominated world. And, as the continents drift slowly apart, the same two camps have arisen once more. Those who welcome new models and new ways of engaging audiences; and the 'old guard' who want this whole reformation to just slink away and die.

As if that was an option.
So, instead, the resistors wade into debates over new or revamped ideas for the film and screen sector. Despite the raging scream of their inner monologues, these detractors present themselves as supportive of new models.

And then, they proceed to Trojan horse the entire narrative.

The recent discussion about flexible pricing for Australian films is a perfect illustration of this strategy.

Faced with the disastrous results for Australian films at the box office this year, innovators have suggested a flexible pricing solution. The logic is that, when faced with the choice between a $210 million budget film (Transformers IV), and a $2.5 million Australian film (The Babadook), audiences would like their expected production value, and therefore expected film experience, reflected in the cinema ticket price.

When all films are priced equally, the innovators argue, people will always go for the biggest 'bang for their buck'.

The response of the entrenched players was to be expected.

Paramount Pictures MD Mike Selwyn tells IF. “Cinema is good value entertainment considering the quality of the infrastructure in Australia.”

Because that is what you think about before you buy a cinema ticket, right? The cinema infrastructure?

But Mr Selwyn wasn't the only pundit to shuffle from the woodwork.

It is also difficult to envision how to convince anyone that the best way to communicate the value of a product — in this case Australian cinema — is to say it’s worth less than the others.

A productive approach for Australian producers is not to denigrate their products by bunging on a discounted price tag, but to experiment with interesting distribution strategies.

So says Luke Buckmaster of 'Crikey', who's overall point is that 'Australian cinema needs innovative ideas, not cheap tricks'.

In order to encourage the discourse, you will need to put aside Mr Buckmaster's glowing logical deficiency in missing that flexible pricing IS an 'experiment with interesting distribution strategies'. You will also need to ignore that he has confused 'intrinsic artistic value' with 'economic value'.

Forgiving these oversights, however, you are still left with a nagging question: how exactly is his alternative, keeping the current pricing models that aren't working, innovative? By definition, doing exactly the same thing as we have always done is the antithesis of a new idea.

But that's the parlor trick, you see. Suggest you want to see new experiments in distribution, but then oppose real innovation in the same breath.

My favourite response, however, was the pulpit address by Hopscotch/eOne's very own Troy Lum. For the uninitiated, Hopscotch/eOne is one of the big film distributors, supposedly the guardians of audience engagement. Staring down the charge of the flexible pricing brigade, Mr Lum reiterated a well-worn defence of the current model:

EOne MD Troy Lum opposes any lowering of ticket prices, arguing that would devalue Australian films in the minds of moviegoers.

“Once you start playing with prices you are saying ‘our cinema is worth less than other kinds of cinema,’” Lum told C J Johnson, host of ABC radio’s Movieland.

Johnson had suggested eOne’s Son of a Gun might have sold more tickets if they were cheaper than US blockbusters. Lum responded, “I don’t believe you get a lesser experience out of Son of a Gun than an Avengers 4. It’s a different experience.”

Take note, 'The Avengers' was made for $220 million. I can't locate a budget number for 'Son of a Gun', but the average Australian feature budget is $11 million.

'The Avengers' made $54.4 million at the Australian box office. 'Son of a Gun' made $69,000.

And this box office discrepancy is all without, according to Mr Lum's logic, the audiences being told that 'Son of a Gun' was worth less through a lower cinema ticket price.

How did they get to that conclusion on their own then, I wonder?

And so, the cautionary tale for you is this.

The powerful will say anything to retain their status.

Beware the agendas.

Read between the lines.

And remember, only those on the side of the audience shall endure.

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LOVE THY AUDIENCE, PART 2: A LESSON FROM UNCLE DREW

What follows will make a lot more sense if you have read the previous Tales From the Opening Act: 'Love Thy Audience, Part 1: The $21 Hamburger'

Do you ever get so caught on a problem that you give yourself a dull ache trying to break through?

I seem to be having a lot of those days of late.

When did everything get so complicated? So many things that used to just work, don't function properly anymore.

It's one big purple haze, and I'm here, stuck in the middle with you. Both of us with perplexed looks on our faces.

Only it's not just us.

I heard a story from the recent 'Screen Producers of Australia' Conference. A panel of experts, many from the Unites States and overseas, were talking about the changing business and distribution models for film and television. Someone asked them, 'do you know what the business will look like in three years?'

Blank faces. Silence.

How did this happen? How did our, so-called, experts become so lost?

Has the world changed so irrevocably, or is it us?

Strangely, I think it's neither.

What we seem to be learning now, is that we simply weren't previously paying attention to the little details.

Remember when you were a child and the drink machine was always magically full? Just because you don't see the strings, doesn't mean the puppets are moving on their own.

And so it is with our confusion today.

For better or worse, audiences were once forced to sit through endless advertisements on television. A young couple were coerced to visit a cinema to see the latest movie. To hear the song you wanted on the radio, you had to endure a torrent of mindless chatter and hours of bad commercials.

Do we honestly believe this is how the audience wanted it? That they wouldn't have skipped every advertisement and interruption from their desired content if they had the chance?

That creators were allowed to ignore the desires of the audience, their experience, for so long is a testament to how restricted audiences were by the means of distribution. Captives, figuratively speaking.

Then, the internet happened.

Viewership exploded. People watch more than they ever have.

But not the way we want them to.

And this dilemma, this confusion around the inability to force audiences to behave how we want, is where we are today.

So, through all this technological disruption, what has changed exactly?

Nothing.

Execution is still the key. Those who consider the audience experience as they create content will be rewarded with viewers. Those who don't will fail.

But this dichotomy of winners and losers has always been the case. For every 'Avatar', there was a 'Heaven's Gate'. The internet has simply swollen the need for flawless execution, because so much content is now available and competing with each other.

Same as it ever was.

And herein lies the rub for content creators. The audience's desire for content hasn't faltered, nor has the need to consider the audience experience in your creative process. There is, however, a fundamental change that needs to occur for everyone to prosper.

You, content creators. You need to change.

You need to shift your entire way of thinking. You must end your slavish devotion to the 'supply side'. Just because audiences were once dictated to, doesn't mean that's the way it is supposed to be. We live in an 'on-demand' world now, and audience demand is the golden egg.

If you want to thrive as a content creator, there are three key lessons you must learn.

FIRST, the old vernacular doesn't apply anymore. Just ask Kevin Spacey:

http://www.businessinsider.com.au/everyone-in-the-tech-and-tv-industries-is-passing-around-this-speech-by-kevin-spacey-2013-8

If you don't have the time to watch this, you should make time. If you are terribly bereft of any spare moments, however, I will illuminate the key point.

Pretty soon, everything will be plugged into the big internet pipe. Your TV. Your computer. Your tablet. Your phone. Even your fridge.

So, what is 'television' when it is actually delivered over the internet to a tablet?

What is a 'film', when the project is entirely shot on a digital video camera? What is a filmmaker who doesn't call "action" on a single roll of film?

It's actually no longer helpful for content creators to think in these historic terms. The terminology limits a creator's thinking about their work.

Is it any wonder that the most innovative and successful work available is the content that has started to ignore these traditional demarcations? Binge watching content, like 'House of Cards' on Netflix, has become a real phenomenon.

So, forget the old terms and the preconceptions they came with. Now it's all 'content' or 'visual storytelling'.

Long Form. Short Form. Interactive. Mobile. Serialised. It's about the audience's experience of it. That is all that matters.

SECOND, making can't be the prize.

If you are a supply side thinker, you are elated to simply have completed your film.

Whoop-de-doo.

Your parents and friends may be thrilled for you, but if you are not looking to find an audience with your creative work, you have engaged in a self-congratulatory exercise and wasted a lot of people's time.

Harsh but true.

And sadly, the current focus of many creators seems to be on the 'achievement' of making a film, despite completely abysmal audience numbers. This paradox is particularly true in Australia, where the total Box Office share of Australian films is at an almost record low of 2.18% whilst we simultaneously celebrate an increase in how much is being spent on making content.

We're like a child making an ashtray for a non-smoker, then asking for a biscuit. It's nonsensical.

THIRD, it's not enough to interrupt, you must want to be desired.

Supply side thinkers are interrupters. What you desire as an audience is not important. A supply side creator wants to interrupt your life and force you to view their work in the way that they choose.

Interrupters need to take a lesson from 'Uncle Drew'.

For the uninitiated, 'Uncle Drew' is a character created by NBA basketball superstar Kyrie Irving. Using hours of latex application and make-up, the 22 year-old Irving is transformed into the 60 year old 'Uncle Drew', who then travels to a suburban, outdoor basketball court to play pick-up games against unknowing opponents. When the seemingly grandfatherly 'Uncle Drew' begins to reveal his considerable athletic skills, the results, and the reactions from his opponents, are quite hilarious.

57 million people have watched 'Uncle Drew' Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3.

That may seem only mildly remarkable, in this Youtube era, but the success of 'Uncle Drew' is noteworthy.

Because 'Uncle Drew' is all branded content for Pepsi.

Yes, you heard me correctly. 57 million people CHOSE to watch a Pepsi advertisement.

Even the people at Pepsi were amazed:
"The success of 'Uncle Drew' changed the way all of us at Pepsi now think of digital marketing," said Adam Harter, vice president of consumer engagement at the company. "It comes at a time where advertising is going from the interruptive model of trying to get your attention while you are watching something that you want to watch to a model that is more inviting, where people actually want to watch the engaging content that you produce."

At last, clarity through the haze of confusion.

The world seems so bewildering, but so little has actually changed.

You must love thy audience.

You must think about their experience in your creative process.

And you must stop thinking from the 'supply side', including the terminology you use.

Because you have a choice, in this 'on demand' world.

Will your work be the audience's desired viewing?

Or will you be their interruption?

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LOVE THY AUDIENCE, PART 1: THE $21 HAMBURGER

So, you're a creative genius.

You know it.

You are an unbridled creative force of nature.

You don't have to listen to anyone.

Right?

Wrong.

So very, very wrong.

There is a common misconception among creative types. The creative thinking gurus will bamboozle you with confidence building diatribes about 'protecting your creative vision' and 'the singular focus of the auteur'.

Hogwash.

Any person creating something, no matter whether it's food, frocks or films, must think of one group in the process. Not 'should'...'must'.

The audience.

The poor, mistreated and often neglected audience. Forced to sit in a barely-cleaned, musty cinema to watch a film they could be viewing comfortably at home. Overcharged for everything, from the tickets, to the popcorn, to the bucket of ice pretending to be a soft drink, in the process. But trumping all that is how bad 'Let's be Cops' turned out to be. What a dreadful way to end a night out.

And they paid for this experience.

You can ignore advice from your friends. You can disregard the pleasant supportive one-liners from your family. You can even overlook the professional feedback from your peers and colleagues, if you wish.

But discount the audience at your peril.

"The audience are idiots!" you say. "Like Henry Ford said, if it was up to the audience, he would have made faster horses, not cars."

And it is this disdain for the audience, this swollen sense of pride, that is at the heart of the misconception amongst many creatives. They honestly believe the audience has no part in the creative process except showing up for the finished product.

So I tell them: I bought a $21 Hamburger.

Whilst I admit this is a confusing start to an explanation, their short term bewilderment is necessary.

You see, the core of the problem is that many creators confuse the valid question of 'how to execute an idea' with the issue of 'making bad artistic choices by second-guessing the audience'.

The argument goes that the creator should ignore the wants of the audience, and lead them instead to something they didn't even know they coveted. Something great. Something transcendent. In this scenario, making your creative decisions based on guessing the audience's desires is a mortal sin. You must follow your storytelling instincts, instead. The audience will come to you.

And so I tell them again: I bought a $21 Hamburger.

At this point, I will either lose the creator entirely, or they crack and want to know what on Earth I'm talking about.

So, I continue: how did McDonald's know WHAT to make. How did they know to make their first hamburger? 'White Castle' already existed, so how could they be sure that audiences would respond to their new idea?

The answer is, they weren't sure.

The founders of McDonald's went out on a limb based on what they thought was good. That uncertainty is part of the natural risk of creating something. They went with their instincts on WHAT to create.

But the question of HOW the audience will consume their product is different altogether. They could have set up a food truck, a diner, or a five-star restaurant. McDonald's knew they needed to consider their audience and the experience they wanted them to have.

And so the McDonald's hamburger restaurant chain was born. Today, they still serve their ultra-fast $3 cheeseburger.

But I ate a $21 hamburger.

It was delicious through every mouthful. Far superior in taste and experience than the McDonald's version, albeit seven times the price. And there wasn't an empty seat in the restaurant.

Not everyone will pay $21 for a hamburger, for higher quality ingredients, of course. The purveyors have considered their audience, executed an experience that matches, and their audience have responded.

Can your film only be watched in imax? Are there no female characters? Is it just as good on an iphone as a cinema screen. Is it a horror film? Do I get to watch it all at once or in weekly tranches? Will it be a Transmedia experience? Will it be a 90 minute film or a 4 hour epic?

All of these questions are answered by considering your audience, particularly the experience you want them to have. The audience has this important part to play in your creative process.

Love thy audience, for they will help you determine how to execute your idea.

And execution is key.

Otherwise you're just another hamburger.

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THE MOST IMPORTANT FILM SCREENING I EVER HAD

People have a peculiar quirk when it comes to their professions.

If yours is a tactile profession, no matter in what social context you tell someone, they will always think to ask you for a favour.

Doctor?

"What should I do about this mole?"

Mechanic?

"My car has this strange rattling sound. Should I be worried?"

And yes, even as a filmmaker the requests come. Usually one of two.

"Can you cast me in your next film?"

...or...

"I have an old VHS tape lying around that I want to keep. Can you help?"

You can react in any number of ways to this perceived intrusion. You can gripe about 'everyone wanting something for nothing'. Or, you can make a polite joke and move on.

There's even a notorious screed from a Hollywood screenwriter entitled, simply, 'I will not read your f**king script.'

But, what if?

What if you actually decided to help?

Say, for example, a person you're close to asks innocently about some very old 'Betamax' tapes in their possession.

Instantly, this is trickier than the usual request. 'Betamax' lost the home video wars to the VHS tape many, MANY years ago; and pretty much disappeared as VHS reigned. Yes, just like the iPod did to the iRiver. There can often be only one winner in the luxury tech world.

At this point, you will ask yourself the inevitable question: is this request going to be so complicated that it's not worth the effort?

You can turn back, of course. No-one begrudges an unfinished favour, particularly a complex one.

But, what if?

What if you push through the convenience barrier?

And then you find out a little more about the request.

You hear the story of three little girls in a van with their parents. A 10 year-old, a 7 year-old and their baby sister. It's Christmas and they are on their way home from a family outing. Music is playing in the car, amongst the chatter.

Suddenly, a drunk driver in front of their van swerves into oncoming traffic.

An oncoming truck changes direction, to avoid the drunk driver, and veers into the opposite lane.

There is nothing anyone can do. The truck and their van collide head on.

Tearing metal. Chaos. Then quiet.

The three little girls wake up in hospital.

I wish I could tell you the story of a Christmas miracle. That through some quirk of fate, or miraculous intervention, there were no casualties to this tale.

But I can't.

From that point on, all the little girls had was each other.

Through years of anguish and pain. Through healing and, ultimately, to prosperity.

Until one day, many years later, the 10-year old and I sat quietly together. She's 31 now, but you can still tell it's her. The same big, inquisitive eyes watch the world; taking it all in.

I cued up the newly digitised video, extracted from the old 'Betamax' tapes.

And we watched her parents, alive and smiling, for the first time in 21 years.

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GENIUS, FAME...AND FORTUNE?

"The sadness will last forever."

"Lord help my poor soul,"

"My wallpaper and I are fighting a duel to the death. One or other of us has got to go."

They read like the epitaph of the damned.

In a way that's not far from the truth. But, in actual fact, these utterings are the last attributed words of Vincent Van Gogh, Edgar Allen Poe, and Oscar Wilde.

Today, these people are considered creative geniuses. In their own time, sadly, they lived difficult lives and died destitute.

Modernity is a bizarre thing. People like the Kardashians have convinced the masses that being famous is your ticket to riches. The very idea that you could be a creative success today, in terms of the quality of your work, and not also be dripping with ostentatious wealth seems like insanity.

Hilariously, this fantasised view of fame and fortune has actually flowed into the collective consciousness. In a 2007 American study for the book 'Fame Junkies', a group of 650 American teenagers were asked a series of questions about their future desires and aspirations. One of the many questions asked was:

'When you grow up, which of the following jobs would you most like to have?'

There were 5 possible choices of career. Of the 310 girls who completed the survey, the results were quite telling:

'9.5% chose “the chief of a major company like General Motors”;
9.8% chose “a Navy Seal”;
13.6% chose “a United States Senator”;
23.7% chose “the president of a great university like Harvard or Yale”; and
43.4% chose “the personal assistant to a very famous singer or movie star.

What’s more, among both boys and girls who got bad grades – and who described themselves as being unpopular at school – the percentage who opted to become assistants rose further to 80%.'

Oh dear. Even simply being near fame seems like a career goal.

But this intrinsic belief that fortune follows fame was not always the norm.

Nikola Tesla paved the way for alternating current (AC) power and radio, among many inventions. Ultimately, Tesla was shafted by Thomas Edison, made some bad investments in his own projects and died, in the New Yorker Hotel, without two pennies to rub together.

Herman Melville will forever be remembered for his epic seafaring story 'Moby Dick'. While he was alive, however, Melville fell into disrepute as a writer, was forgotten as an author for thirty years, and finished his working life in a 19-year stint as a low-paid customs inspector for the City of New York.

Socrates. Gutenberg. Meucci.

All celebrated as geniuses today. All expired with pockets full of only lint.

Today, aspirants are almost incredulous at the idea that you could be a creative genius, even one with some notoriety, without a pot of gold for good measure.

The very notion that you might pursue your vocation for passion, not for enormous profit, is met with aggressive disbelief.

But consider this.

The celebrated Hollywood producer, Ted Hope, wrote a terrific article a few years ago, attempting to demystify salary expectations for independent film producers. He illuminated a formula for what to expect in producer fees per film, accounting for the level of experience of the producer, and the size of the budget.

One example was an 'early career producer', overseeing a US$10M film. How much do you think such a heavy responsibility should fairly receive in compensation?

According to Mr Hope, US$36,363, annualised.

Keep in mind, the average time a producer will live with a film is five to eight years. Over five years, that's a meagre $7272 a year.

Ouch.

To be fair, a huge commercial success of a film can lead to a significant payday. The first 'Paranormal Activity' cost $15 million to make and made an enormous $193 million at the box office. Like any career, there can be droughts and deluges in the film and content industry.

The limbo you never hear about, however, is the world between these extremes.

Would you be satisfied with a creative life if it only paid you an honest wage?

Can you even imagine a career as a raconteur, if it doesn't come with a private jet and a luxury car?
If the only future you can imagine, as a filmmaker or visual storyteller, is one where you have struck gold, there is one more vital question you should ask yourself.

Is this path right for you?

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SHIA LABEOUF IS A CANNIBAL

Though I can't often understand the virality of many Youtube sensations, this one is deserved.

It's quite possible you have no idea what I'm talking about. The world doesn't revolve around singular sensations anymore. Millions of people can be having water-cooler conversations about something, while the rest are blissfully oblivious. It makes you wonder why so many pundits are still complaining about the possibility of globalisation creating a monoculture.

For the uninitiated, a new Youtube video has hit on the elusive success of virality. It's a live version of the 2012 Rob Cantor song, 'Shia LaBeouf' which tells the fictional, spoken-word horror story of a survivor. The villain in the story is, hilariously, a homicidal, cannibal version of 'Hollywood superstar Shia LaBeouf'.

Well produced, and terribly funny, this is actually worth your time to watch. There's even a bizarre surprise ending: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0u4M6vppCI

The question with these kind of celebrity-driven anomalies, is always how much was the star themselves in on the joke. In this case, it's very clearly 100%.

Which begs the question. Why?

The song itself was written and released in 2012 by Mr Cantor. Now, suddenly, two years later it receives the epic, celebrity-endorsed treatment.

Why now?

Some are saying that Mr LaBeouf is trying to rebuild his reputation by parodying the extreme behaviour of his recent past. To show he can laugh at himself. After all, how many people, famous or not, can claim to have been arrested at a performance of the musical, 'Cabaret'?

Like Charlie Sheen before him, could this be a way to restore his credibility, his creative street cred, by endorsing a humorous lampooning of his past?

I don't buy it.

LaBeouf recently starred in 'Fury' with Brad Pitt, as well as reprising his lucrative role in the 'Transformers' movie franchise as recently as 2011. Maintaining enough career momentum to star in films doesn't seem to be an issue for him.

No, there is a larger issue of credibility that Mr LaBeouf appears to be trying to solve with 'Shia LaBeouf'.

His penchant for plagiarism.

Many people don't know, but LaBeouf was lambasted in the creative community at the end of last year for stealing ideas, scenes, and even dialogue for his acclaimed short film 'HowardCantour.com'. The film screened for a year in many prestigious festivals, including the Cannes Film Festival during Critics Week, before LaBeouf was finally caught out.

The worst part is that LaBeouf stole exclusively from the graphic novella 'Justin M. Damiano', written in 2007 by respected comic artist and writer Daniel Clowes; of which LaBeouf hypocritically claims to be an enormous fan.

Not so much of a fan not to steal from Clowes, however.

The response from the creative community was, of course, white hot outrage. There is almost no greater treason amongst creatives than the stealing of ideas. Leeching from our own ranks is, rightly, forbidden

You can only imagine, then, in your wildest of imaginings, the response when one savvy journalist realised that LaBeouf's apology for plagiarism was ALSO plagiarised.

Yes, you heard me correctly. LaBeouf plagiarised his written apology. For plagiarism.

A part of me wonders if LaBeouf is clever enough to do something so outrageous as a commentary on creativity itself. Or is it simply, as another commentator put it, that Shia LaBeouf is '...just a fuc*ing as*hat?'

And this was the atmosphere in which LaBeouf made the recent decision to endorse Rob Cantor's two year-old song. His reputation as an artist had taken an almost irreparable beating. Still able to pursue acting, yes, but a pariah as a content creator.

An exposed ideas thief, desperate for a way to seem credible again within the creative community.

How hilariously ironic then, that the vehicle he chose to redeem himself, for feeding on his own people, was a song about him being a cannibal.

That's almost a story in itself.

Which is, truthfully, the saddest part of this whole cautionary tale.

The world is so beautifully rich and dense that it will gift you a story, if you are willing to listen.

And yet somehow, with all of his resources and access, Shia LaBeouf became a cannibal instead.

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MANNERS IN THE BOWL

Sometimes you blink and a week has passed quick as a shadow.

Particularly when you are completing a film, or have a film about to screen in a festival.

The end is in sight. It's been a slow trudge until that point. Then you exhale, your screening is over, the celebration completed, and it's Monday again.

Back to normal. No more events. No more films.

Like The Antenna Documentary Film Festival, which just played it's last film for 2014. Our film 'Chip' screened on Saturday and was over.

But I will take something with me from the overall experience. A peculiar moment in time.

It was at the opening night party of the festival. There was a boisterous crowd in the hundreds. Drinks were flowing. I was searching through the crowd for a more comfortable spot to linger, with my two companions, when I came upon someone I had some professional dealings with. Nothing too in-depth, but enough to recognise the face and know the name.

For clarity, let's call the person, who's also a filmmaker, 'Snappy'.

I paused for a moment, on our pilgrimage through the teeming mass, and said a quick hello to Snappy.

Snappy smiled oddly. An awkward exchange ensued. It became clear that Snappy didn't remember me.

Fair enough, I am a fairly generic-looking white guy after all.

Our party was continuing on our trek for a better drinking space, so I quickly reminded Snappy how we knew each other, exchanged a pleasantry, then took my leave.

Seemed fairly innocuous.

But then, when I was supposedly just out of earshot, Snappy made a snarky comment about being 'bothered by people'.

I didn't hear it. Pity.

Unfortunately, Snappy obviously didn't realise I was with the two people who were trailing me. In a moment of synchronicity, Snappy's outburst perfectly coincided with the moment the last of our little troupe brushed past.

Now, you may be hoping that one of us stormed over there and explained to Snappy exactly how little class such an interaction displayed.

You will, in that case, be disappointed.

I could only really laugh, in truth. Bemused that people still thought this kind of pretentious nonsense was a new idea. Like no-one had ever thought to act like an entitled prick before.

Hilariously, this wouldn't be the only time we would be within arms length over the course of the festival. The festival experience can be like a fishbowl, in that sense. You may be hoping that Snappy discovered manners in the time between our interactions.

You will again, I'm afraid, be disappointed.

'How can that be?' you ask. 'Surely, in a medium as collaborative as filmmaking, a person like Snappy would have their pretense eroded?'

You would hope so. You would also be mistaken.

It happens in filmmaking circles, as it does in the wider world. People forget that we are always in a fishbowl.

Sure, the size changes. The glass walls of the bowl can be so distant they no longer seem to exist.

But they do.

Even a fish in the ocean will hit a wall eventually.

And what people like Snappy forget is that, since we truly are all in the same bowl eternally, we are all in this together.

Ever notice that the people at the Oscars are roughly the same group of people every year?

How long do you think those creative and business relationships would last if everyone behaved like Snappy?

So, never forget.

Whatever work you do, you are joining a community that will oscillate around you over time. You will see the same faces. You will hear the same names. The person you met in passing today, could end up being a professional who becomes your greatest creative partner tomorrow.

Or at least they might, if you can do something as simple as being polite.

There's few things sadder than a lone fish in a tiny bowl.

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LOCAL, LIVE OR GREAT

There's a red moon again tonight.

I know all the hype already happened about the main lunar eclipse, a week ago, but there it is. Hanging low, almost at the city skyline, a red-tinged oblong. When a whiff of cloud sweeps past, it looks like a gothic painting of modernity.

But the world has moved on. In the twenty-four hour news cycle, stories get churned and burned quickly. Nothing lasts, not even something cosmic or beautiful.

It's bizarre then, in this world where simultaneously everything and nothing is important, that there is so much coverage of the same events. So much repetition.

A simple Google 'News' search for 'lunar eclipse news stories October 2014' brings up 141,000 results. If you drop the 'News' requirement of the search, it records 27,300,000 results; and fifteen pages deep the search results are still about the 'blood red moon'.

I am sure there were small moments of nuance in each of these reports, but was there any perspective on the lunar event so radical that it differed markedly from the other 140,999?

Moon. Red. Eclipse. Rare event.

That's about it.

So why so much coverage of the same thing? How, in this world where we can all read the same news story instantly, from the same single source, do so many offshoots exist?

Because they're localised.

Where is the best place in Sydney, Mexico, Azerbaijan, blah...to view the lunar eclipse?

What is the cultural perspective of Spain, Qatar, Japan, etc...of a 'blood red moon'?

Each one, while essentially touching on the same thing, speaks to the audience in that region.

Yes, I know it's counter-intuitive, at first, but in a slowly homogenising world the local perspective is suddenly relevant again. It is the unexpected by-product of a world becoming more beige: there are huge, faceless, mass stories and stories that occur in the street outside your window.

Niche and mass. Tent-pole blockbuster films, and small films that are suited to you and people like you.

This was not planned. This was not strategic. The reinvention of local is part of a humanistic wave that few expected. It was a predictable return, we are still just people living in communities after all, and yet it has crept into the consciousness; like social media once did.

And there is some zealotry behind a movement like this. That underlying fear of being made 'expendable' by the globalised machine means any supposed panacea is heralded as a savior.

But it is not the messiah.

If your work is generic and derives no value from what you, personally, bring to it, then you will always be in the shadow of someone willing to replace you for pennies less.

The real question is, why would you subject yourself to doing that work in the first place?

No, your work needs to be LOCAL, LIVE, or GREAT.

That is the work that endures. The work that defines you. The work that is needed in this rapidly changing world.

Local, in that your work meets the needs of someone within a certain niche or locality. That locality can be as big or small as you like, a whole country or one town, but it will ultimately exclude a group much larger than itself; and in doing so will always be relevant to those within.

OR

Live, in that your work can only be really experienced properly in a way you define as the creator. Of critical importance is that you are not using the delivery format to hold your work hostage, creating a false scarcity to raise the price, but that experiencing it the way you prescribe makes it the best it can be.

OR

Great, in that your work is so unique, transcendent, and so absolutely incredible, that it rises above the cacophony of content and publicity in the system (usually via word of mouth) and reaches a huge audience. Of all three, this is the hardest to achieve by far.

There is a fourth option, of course.

Cheap.

Simply be the cheapest provider of your kind of work for as long as you can be.

But in a globalising world, where production and jobs can so quickly be moved to the lowest rung, how long can you stay in that free-fall before you hit bottom?

Who wants to live with the threat of being replaced looming, like a red moon hanging low in the sky, over your shoulder?

Local, live, great, or cheap.

What are you going to aim for?

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SPORTS

Last night, along with 4.6 million others, I watched the 2014 NRL Rugby League Grand Final.

While it's far shy of the 111 million viewers of the NFL's Superbowl, the Grand Final is our best effort to emulate the American sporting behemoth.

I always get a funny reaction in film circles when I talk about watching sports. There is either total indifference, or outright disdain.

I can understand the polarising reaction. Sports generally receive a vaunted status that can irritate many artistic types, as well as being direct competition for audience attention.

But I watched the Grand Final anyway. It was thrilling.

There is little by way of comparison for the tribalism that sport can engender. So many narratives. So many emotions.

And this Grand Final had a particularly storied air to it.

Two teams, the Rabbitohs and the Bulldogs, that had a canon of history. The Bulldogs had fought their way back to the ultimate contest after losing the 2012 Grand Final. The Rabbitohs were the reformed under-performers, now with their hint of Hollywood glamour, owned by Oscar winner Russell Crowe.

The Bulldogs were playing as the heavy underdogs, known for their gritty style. The Rabbitohs were the fairytale, having been excommunicated from the competition in the early 2000s, won their way back via the courts, and were now in a position to end their forty-three year run without premierships.

But there was something else to all of this spectacle, for me.

I grew up in Western Sydney. Some of my fondest memories were Grand Final barbecues; huge social events that brought together different families to break bread, tell stories, and then cheer on the main event. The game was important, of course, but years later I realised what made these events special was community.

We had our tribe.

One of the families in our tribe are passionate Rabbitohs supporters. The sporting team has become a common thread through the lives of everyone in their family unit, from the father and mother, down through their children, and to their grandchildren.

A year ago the patriarch of this family passed away after a long battle with cancer. There were many heartbreaks that came from such a loss, but one in particular was that he would never see the Rabbitohs become champions alongside his children and grandchildren. The 43 year wait would never be ended.

I was with this family last night as the Rabbitohs fought their way to triumph. I saw what it meant to them. I could feel the catharsis of the victory, and the sadness that their father, husband and grandfather was not there to see it.

And today, they could join the larger community of Rabbitohs fans to celebrate their heroes. Their extended tribe, all experiencing this sporting event on a very personal level.

This emotional reaction to sports baffles many people. Fundamentally, sporting competitions are just an annual repetition of similar events, after all.

And yet, sporting teams can build communities of fervent supporters; tribes of interconnected fans and audiences who feel the successes and failures of their team, over generations.

Why?

The zeitgeist. Because there were 4.6 million other people who were experiencing it simultaneously. 83,000 were live at the event.

Because fundamentally we are social animals. Even the most introverted of people still exhibit a need for community.

This is the same intrinsic human trait that brings together fans of a particular TV show, or a musician. It created the 'Beliebers'.

So, whether you are a sports fan or not, the challenge for your work is the same.

Can you build a tribe?

Or, more importantly, can you create a community around your work and make them feel something?

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FREE WAS NEVER FREE

You've been lied to your whole life.

"Free to air", "Freeview", whichever pseudonym you prefer. They're all a fallacy.

We have all been raised with this artificial floor on our concept of the world. A foundation fit for a fool's paradise.

"The world just gives me free entertainment whenever I want!"

When put like that, does it seem too good to be true? If not, I have a bridge to sell you.

This blatant mislabeling wouldn't be an issue, if not for the fact that the customary idea of "free" has totally skewed any discussion around creative content. The concept of "free" content, free shows and films on broadcast television or free songs on traditional radio, creates a distortion in your perception of value.

The impact of this misconception is not hard to imagine.

How can any subscription service or ticket price seem of value against "free"?

How much more easily can traditional broadcasters maintain a faux moral high ground, particularly when trying to avoid their local content quota obligations, while they claim to offer a "free" service to the public?

And the most damaging of all, what intrinsic value do audiences place on screen content when it seems to be given away for "free"?

Is it any wonder people download content they find for "free" online without guilt? Paying for content is actually the anomaly. "Free" is the status quo.

But the wind has changed.

With the advent of Google and Facebook's "free" services, inadvertently, people have started to understand value propositions that don't involve traditional payment.

In a world where you can "pay" for your email, internet search, and social networking services with your personal details, what else can you pay for without cash?

The standard length of a traditional half-hour television show is twenty-two minutes, without advertising breaks.

Assuming you watch the entire show, you gave eight minutes of your life to advertisers.

Eight precious minutes of your existence. Never to be returned.

In the USA, the average person watches five hours of television a day. That equates to 1825 hours a year of television viewing.

In Australia, the average person watches thirteen hours a week of television. That equates to 676 hours a year of quality time spent with the tube.

Using those figures, and the accepted conventions for advertising to content ratio, the American gives away nineteen full days of their life to advertising. The Australian gives away seven full days.

But you wouldn't sit for seven, 24 hour, days watching advertising, right? That would be insane!

So let's say you approached the task like a standard work day. Eight hours a day of watching nothing but advertising.

That means the American gave the advertisers 57, eight-hour, work days. The Australian gave a less generous 21 days.

But wait, you wouldn't sit for seven straight days a week watching advertising, right? That would be insane!

So, amending the average viewing habits to match a five day, eight hours-a-day, working week, how does your schedule now look?

The American gives eleven working weeks, almost three months, to watching advertising. The Australian gives four working weeks, a full month, to the advertisers.

Yes, you heard me correctly.

To get your "free" content on traditional sources, whether American or Australian, you paid with at least a working month of your precious time.

Imagine if you instead took a second job with those hours.

"Free" has never been free. Ever.

Now that we can move beyond that absurd distraction, can we start the vastly more important discussion of what price is "fair" for content?

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HOW LONG UNTIL?

How long until all screen content is delivered by an internet connection, even to televisions?

How long until a teenager is China is more important to Hollywood than you?

How long until cinemas can no longer raise their prices to maintain their profit margins?

How long until DVDs and Blu Rays stop being manufactured?

How long until teachers get paid more than sports stars?

How long until sports stadiums start shrinking to accommodate just enough people for atmosphere in the broadcast coverage?

How long until someone actually completes research on whether young people have dwindling attention spans?

How long until Google does something 'evil' with it's huge cache of user data?

How long until there is no longer a need for 'middle men', like Rupert Murdoch, in the screen entertainment industry?

How long until multiplex cinemas stop being built?

How long until you have to ask my permission to try and sell something to me?

How long until the arts is respected as a genuine career and genuine economic benefit?

How long until the arts is considered too expensive and all economic support infrastructure is
dismantled? 

How long until major decisions for a country, like joining a war, are put to an electronic vote?

How long until the current 'Western' economies are forced to adapt to compete with the rising
economic powers?


How long until music albums are all free, except for the hit singles you have to pay for?

How long until your job fundamentally changes?

How long until our society is equal enough that race, gender, sexuality, nor any other unchosen characteristic, matters? 

How long until all media is engaged with via some form of subscription service?

How long until a new form of visual storytelling, replacing film and television altogether, is created?

How long until the death of long-form screen content?

How long until we no longer use fossil fuels?

How long until television content production reaches a peak where audiences are overwhelmed and the bubble bursts?

How long until cinema ticket prices start falling to resuscitate audience demand?

How long until we colonise nearby planets? 

How long until technology enables a lifestyle where you only have to work if you choose to? 

How long until a person can make an entire film, good enough for mass audiences, on an tablet?

How long until scripts aren't even written anymore, and producers expect a rough mock up of the film instead?

How long until visual effects and animation tools are cheap, accessible, and intuitive? 

How long until audiences expect to pay one price to go to the cinema, get the home version, and receive memorabilia from the film?

How long until crowdfunding isn't just a less embarrassing way to ask your friends and family for money?

How long until holograms become another tool for visual storytelling?

How long until Facebook is replaced with something else?

So many unknowns. Only one is more important.

If any of these could seriously disrupt your future, and the answer wasn't "never", how long until you begin to adjust?

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OA FILMS NEWS - Merry Xmas!

From us to you...

OA FILMS NEWS - Our founder, Pete Ireland, in the press.

It's been a busy year, but there have been moments to stop and consider the landscape, perhaps even navel gaze.

Here are a couple of those musings which have ended up in the trades, from our very own Pete Ireland.

http://www.screen.nsw.gov.au/news/screen-nsw-talks-career-pathways-with-emerging-producer-placement-pete-ireland-full-interview

http://www.screen.nsw.gov.au/news/10-tips-to-make-the-most-of-screen-forever-sessions-pete-ireland

Enjoy.

Please.

OA FILMS NEWS - 'Dedo' is ready for the world...

I'm like a kid at Xmas about our new film DEDO. We're excited about showing it to audiences.

More news at www.dedofilm.com

OA FILMS NEWS - 'Dedo' our new film, has wrapped!

It's been a huge few months, getting this film in the can. But we did it.

25 crew. 8 cast. 70 extras.

Huge.

We are now well into post production, and more news is to come. Keep up to date at https://www.facebook.com/dedofilm?fref=photo

More soon!

OA FILMS NEWS - Launching our new film 'Dedo'

It begins.

Thanks to Metro Screen and Screen Australia, we have been funded for our new short film 'Dedo'.

To get the ball rolling, we have launched a new Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=386721951537965

...and a new website at www.dedofilm.com

Check them out for updates!

POWER AND STORY

Why do we even tell stories?

What could be a more pointless exercise than stringing together loose data points into a narrative thread?

For what? To make a simpleton smile? A teenager unplug?

A senseless exercise in vanity.

Take TEDxSydney, which ran last week. An entire day organised around giving speeches, on subjects very few people know of, or have the temerity to pretend they care about. Who really benefits? The audience, sat for hours in stupor, or the egos of the talking heads?

It started at 8:30am. Who in god's name thought that was a good idea?

And the last speech finished at 6ish. A whopping ten hours of rabble. Uncivilised.

Global warming. Poetry. Toilets for the third world. Disability. Blah, blah blah.

Mercifully close to the conclusion, the last speaker of the day walked briskly to the stage. A young female kickboxer and UFC trainer. What could we possibly desire to absorb from this person? Who the hell is Nadine Champion anyway?

Then Ms Champion began to speak.

She articulated the desire of a fighter. Not for violence but to truly learn who they are. Unequivocally.

The years of struggle and training, under a neurotic and sometimes cruel sensei, were narrated eloquently.

Wisdom was imparted, but with a subtle hand, through the insight of her years of mastering the physical, the mental and the emotional. Of balancing mind and body.

We were captivated.

And at this point, when it seemed she might conclude gracefully, like a figure skater who sweeps to a final pose, Ms Champion looked out to the Opera House crowd, and instead evocatively described her greatest battle. With cancer.

We journeyed through the emotional and physical turmoil of chemotherapy. All of us, collectively, were with Nadine in her moment of greatest vulnerability, recounted so vividly; breaking in to tears when weakened and alone in the hospital.

We saw courage, or at least thought we had. We were wrong. That was to come.

Suddenly, Ms Champion peered into the faces of her audience and issued a challenge. To herself. A man appeared. Dressed in martial artist's apparel.

Carrying a thick wooden board.

Breaking boards, we were told, is the way that martial artists demonstrate their skill, strength, and self-belief. For Ms Champion however, 18 months of dealing with cancer meant that she had not performed this action in some time. Not since before her treatment began, in fact.

But she was going to do it live, now. Unrehearsed. Through her fear of failing in real time, on stage. Past any doubt that she may no longer be able to complete this feat.

Nadine took up her stance before the wooden board. The man holding it out braced himself.

Wait.

She turned back to the crowd. "If you're in this with me" Nadine said, "if you're willing this to work for me...can you hold your hand straight up..."

2000 hands, the entire audience in attendance at the Opera House, raised in unison. Nadine began to cry.

..."and hold it there as I try." she forced out through tears.

The board was raised again. Nadine took up her stance. Her breathing became regulated.

Absolute silence reigned. In this cavernous, crowded room, we were all in the moment together.

Nadine gave a sweeping arm movement. And another. Each becoming more controlled. More fierce.

The pace increased. The will for her to succeed was palpable. The crowd's arms raised and held with purpose.

She struck out. A yell. The crack of wood.

The board splintered in two.

And the audience...erupted. Cheers. Applause. A standing ovation.

Nadine cried. Overwhelmed. We cried with her.

This was a glimpse of true humanity. A sliver of time that we, the people in that room, shared with Nadine and each other. Magic.

That's the power of a story.

It's true, like so many of life's conceits, storytelling may at times seem utterly pointless. Impractical.

Until...

Lighting strikes.

Alchemy. Miracle. Or, Magic.

The name is irrelevant.

Something is awakened in you. A stirring in a place that is outside of reason. Beyond the verifiable. Metaphysical.

You suddenly understand beauty. And suffering. And joy. It makes you want to call someone close to you, just to be connected. To feel.

It is the moment in time that you first feel elation from a poignant song, or are crushed by the ending of a film. That you cry over characters in a beloved book, or are moved to leap from your seat at the end of a performance.

One such moment happened last Thursday.

And it will be with me, for the rest of my life.


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For those of you interested in seeing Nadine's talk, you can see a sample of it here, or the full talk here (scroll right to the end of the faces and click on Nadine Champion).



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