Australia’s big push

It is the one that got away. Australian scriptwriter Stuart Beattie wrote a film about a hitman who was couriered around Sydney by a cabbie. That script became “Collateral,” helmed by Michael Mann and starring Tom Cruise and Jamie Foxx. By the time cameras rolled in 2003, “Collateral” was set in Los Angeles.

If the Australian government’s film incentives prove effective, then the next generation of topnotch Aussie scripts will be set Down Under. They will be helmed by Aussies, star Aussies using Australian accents, and - here’s the rub - they will be made with an appropriate budget and reach a worldwide audience.

Already, as a result of the Post Production and Digital Effects offset, Rising Sun Pictures will deliver a US$5 million chunk of the effects for Warner Brother’s “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.”

Producers, and to a lesser extent scribes, are homebound and have long been agitating for more attractive tax breaks to enable the Oz-based biz to grow beyond a cottage-industry that occasionally spouts a hit.

The feds answered their demands by overhauling incentives. Now producers, scribes and helmers must step up.

The incentives - 15 per cent offset for foreign productions, including effects packages worth more than A$5 million - are designed to enable Aussie producers to attract foreign coin to make their films. There is also a 40 per cent offset for local films and 20 per cent offset for local television skeins.

Caroline Pitcher of Aussie lobby organisation, Ausfilm, said the incentives has ignited a flurry of interest from the U.S. and Europe. The foreign production incentive, upped from 12.5 per cent, made Australia more internationally competitive for footloose productions with, say, Europe, Canada and New Zealand.

George Miller’s production company regularly works with WB, while Fox backs Baz Luhrmann’s Bazmark and Hugh Jackman’s Seed Prods.

“The U.S. market is really grateful for it, it is making a difference and keeping us in the game,” said Pitcher.

The results are showing. The Aussie film and TV production business has halted its freefall and surged into the black with new figures showing a 68 per cent increase in production expenditure last financial year.

An Australian Film Commission survey of the 12 months to June 30 shows local and foreign production amounted to A$625 million (US$538 million), compared with US$319 million the previous year - well above the five-year average.

Year-on-year the figures jump around too much to argue for any particular trend other than general growth over time.

Fox’s romantic epic “Australia,” helmed by Baz Luhrmann with Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman, skewed the survey because the production’s entire budget was included for the year it began shooting. So while most of “Australia’s” spend occurred since July, the entire budget is included in the previous financial year.

Production is almost as likely to take place on a computer as on a backlot and 88 per cent of all business occurs in the eastern states. The release of figures for the last financial year was delayed by the federal election. But they reveal a production upswing was already under

way when the former government signed off on its budget relief package for film and TV producers.

The four-year plan provides US$248 million to help Australian producers attract private investment, increase equity and build production companies, rather than chase funding. The race for better equipment, more talented staff and higher service levels is building pressure in a competitive industry.

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