Filming in Australia?

[Mike Garrick]

Pawel, one thing this thread has shown me ...is don't even bother trying to sell a Nature doc. concept to Aunty : )

 

[Ruff]

I can see both sides, and I know the frustration of missing out on work at home when an entire crew comes to town. But, I guess the best way to look at is is swings and roundabouts... sometimes it's a good results, other times not so much. I do see that if producers consistently bring in out of towners, then they reach the point where the locals won't help them out of a jam, or are not available to them for the smaller jobs.

I have been fortunate enough to be flown to overseas locations for work that no doubt a local could have done, and I am very grateful for that experience. I feel that it's only fair that others get to come visit my amazing home town and have the same experience.

 

[Ivan Kovax]

+200

Mark, this is the exact reason why I really started my career in Japan, and was possibly more successful than I could ever have been were I still in Sydney. The handouts, the unions and the commission... i see the the purpose of them, theoretical, and if I had done rather well in Sydney I may even have a different outlook... but in practice we have all seen what happens. I would love nothing more to move back to Australia at this point to work, but Japan is treating me very well, and I simply am not sure enough if I will be in the same comfortable position there in Oz when I return? So for the time being it is gonna be TOkyo for me... but I sure do miss Bondi... I lived right next to the cliffs.

Ivan

Ps. I may not be going to NAB... I am having to sort out some travel logistical issue... grr

Unfortunately Pawel... I think I work the big wide world a little more than yourself and I see massive benefits from those draconian countries you speak of and there are many of them...
I see how they take a lot of the work from Australia, NZ, US, Europe without even trying. Because Australia (and NZ) does not make it easy for the world to come play in its back yard, its as simple as that.
If know work comes into AUS because of non flexibility from unions.. then know one gets paid... simple math.
Why make it hard for people to come into AUS... How big do you think Australia is in the film world... We are tiny, very very tiny in the world with a big land mass...

If a small crew come in from the US just to shoot a couple of heads in the back of a conference hall... Even if they hire a few batteries., a tripod, local runner... maybe a gaffa for simple lights, a hotel, food... taxis, etc etc etc... at least they are spending something instead of nothing if they are refused entry. Them what happens is a conference member with a 5d shoots the heads and emails the shot back to them..

I have Aussie crews knocking my down looking for work... Starving! and its not because a BBC doco crew want to shoot a colourful lizard in the desert with there won crew or to shoot a few heads at a conference...
Its because there is know benefits for more work to come here. No tax insentives. Crews that charge 8hour days then double time on saturday sundays... No flexibility with Visas for smaller jobs.. expensive locations.... Local council permitting always made hard to manage... not enough good actors in the country that don't have accents..
The dollar is absolute crap at the moment so shooting here is expensive... Not being able to shoot with over seas actors and haveing to replace them with Aussie actors that you don't want portrayed in your film... because its an American film of an American traveling to AUS being chased by an American CIA assen as a scene in the movie. You as a producer are not wanting to make an AUSSIE content film other than use a few Aussie locations, you just want to find a cost benefit or a location that may suite that part of your film... but its to hard becuase you do not forefill MEAA requirements so you take the film to a country that wants you to shoot there and BOOM! Australia misses out again.

Hence why all our great crews of Australia are starving...

A producer like myself take work offshore for the reason is because the world is heading into a financial depression (probably in it all ready) Budgets are being slashed globally.. So when I get a job in from China, Spain... Indonesia, India, US where ever! ... And I really want to shoot it in AUS, I can't... becuase I cannot bring in the Indo actors, or the Inidan Actors.. Some of the production key crew... Visa's are then not issued... So the whole job then ends up going to South Africa with open arms...

This is what a global producer does... they hunt the world looking for bargains to get a well produced TVAD or FILM done and made... Why do you think an AUSSIR FILM like MAD MAX has gone to Africa...

I can sit here for quite a while typing reasons why Australia & NZ is not worth shooting in at the moment... and its not because I don't love these two countries because I do, it's just because Australian officialdom, unions and one eyed inexperienced producers sitting on film boards have made it to awkward and difficult to shoot here. Making it to hard to get the production values you want or need... FACT!

Mathematics and logistics Pawel.. those are the two things that make the film & TV machine move. if you have heavy logistics and the math does not work out to suite your budget... then where do you go.... every where else that wants you. Maybe you forget about the competing nature of the rest of the world.

So the question is to you why can't Australia get at least a little bit from some of these projects, at least get a chance to bring a job to AUS... so at least the Hotel, taxi driver, rental house, a grip or gaffa get some work from it... Why do you think it has to be 60, 70, 80% % Australian run and then loose the whole bloody job to the other competitive markets. Then all those crews get nothing.

Time to smell the truth about financial global realities. The world is smaller than your think... Australia is even smaller... Don't think Australia is a FILM making power house, its not... It needs to flex to suite the world market place, not stand on its heals and go backwards.

People need to pay bills here, there is no need to make it hard or expensive for people to bring work here...

Enough said.
I'm not going to prolong this... I have my say with political leaders and film commissions of this county. I'm afraid its a dead augment and Australia loses unfortunately....

So back on Topic. Luke... Get a visa and try to spend some money while your here...


PS... I Like some of your under water work Powel.. looks very nice

 

[Pawel Achtel]

I think we slightly side-tracked.

We were discussing the visas, not the unions. My point was that Australian Immigration let people to enter the country and work on tourist visas even if they are fully aware of the breach. I don't think it is right. But I also don't think that the unions do the right thing either.

As in Luke's case, I'm happy to assist getting through the red tape with the union (MEAA). (I'm not a member, just know the people). But I also suggest that coming on tourist visa is not the way to go. You may be lucky and get away with it, but I would rather help you jump through the hoops and get your filming done on proper visa than take the risk. There are hundreds of cases, like Luke's,where the system creates more obstacles than they should. And, at the same time, where they need to do something right, they do nothing at all...that's why it is called "goverment" :mad2:

 

[Brigham Edgar]

I also travel to many many countries every year working on a variety of productions and can honestly say that 95% of the time I enter countries on a tourist visa to work, even if I have a carnet with a couple hundred thousand dollars of gear with me. Last year alone I worked in around 15 countries and only 2 needed visas...and really only because I was an Australian entering their country, not because I was working. Most couldn't even car less about a carnet and sign it off over the cup of tea as it falls in the 'all too hard basket'. Suits me fine, and I'm very happy it's this easy to travel OS and shoot otherwise the very temptation of getting local crew would do me out of work.
Another side to the argument is that 90% of the time the producer or director wants to employ me on the job, not someone they don't know and to not know what they are going to get. Getting at least key crew in easily is essential and I have always found this is the biggest starting point and then sourcing fixers, gaffers, sound, runners ,etc etc locally is the best of most cost effective measure.
Every genre and job is different and I understand the importance of all these valid points of view but keeping things as easy as possible for foreign productions commissioned overseas in the first place is essential to our struggling industry. Coming from Queensland it is vital it is kept as open and hassle free as possible as overseas productions just walk away in a heartbeat. Hell, Terranova only barely made it here because of tight union and government restrictions and provided a big long form series to hundreds of local crews while having all the key crew from overseas. Queensland is a gold mine of locations and crew but sits dormant for long periods of time due to expensive crews and permit restrictions...in the end we lose out, no two ways about it.
And only this week a major international tvc was shot here with all key crew brought in from OS under tourist visas and the 30 local crew and equipment employed locally. I also have a UK client that shoots docco's in is part of the world and I have had to 'massage' my rates and conditions to suit them to keep the work in the Asian Pacific region otherwise even though they love my work it ends up being more cost effective for them to use their local English DP, but they would never risk their produciton on someone local for just the unknown results unfortunately unless budgets pushed them. This is also why we all get flown around our own country to work rather than saving airfares and accom by employing a local to the location. They trust and know what they are going to get. We employ fixers, soundo's and runners etc locally but always key crew are brought in and it's extremely easy and every country welcomes us with local arms.
It's a hard one to keep everybody happy on this one but it is vitally essential that we keep Australia's doors open to foreign production in every way and just work on keeping it as attractive as possible to employ locals and facilities whenever they can. I don't like seeing the system rorted or work going to overseas or even interstate crews working locally here in Brisbane, but it's just reality and how it is. They do it to me, i do it to them...its how it is. Visas are the correct and legal way to do it and should be followed accordingly and you run the risk of repercussions, but we need to make this as easy and hassle free as possible...if not the Producers will just say, let's do it somewhere else that's easier and usually always cheaper, as Mark often does. It's definitely a shame and is just not right...but it's reality.

 

[Björn Benckert]

Trust me, there are and probably 90% of that $40mil is spent on foreign crew, foreign equipment, foreign management, foreign post production, etc...The only money spent locally is on logistics, permits and accomodation that, if the crew was Australian, whould have been spent anyway. The difference is that the profits all go off-shore and local DOPs, sundos, and other freelancers can't get work, even for less money and more skill. Again, this is natural history/documentary perspective. I understand that this may not be the case in other genres, like Mark suggested.

But Pawel, If you do your job right people will hire you. Right now Im working late at night doing post / VFX for a Swiss bank film that I was post supervising when it was shot down in South africa. At the same time we are producing some american telecom commercials for an agency boston. And we are downloading the material from an FTP from MPC in london where the grade was done... The film market is truly international so if you try to put up borders I think you will find your self more trapped then protect. Look at cape town in south africa if they followed your ideas they would be sitting around waiting for the next little south african job to work on. Now as their government has open arms to all foreign film production the guys down there work more days a year than they do in hollywood. So I think letting people in is a better trick then keeping them out.

Just my thought.

 

[Pawel Achtel]

Björn, firstly, it is not about me (I had someone else in mind in my example, I'm about to start a $3.5 mil feature) and secondly the natural history industry seems to be very different, rarely based on the skills or economics.

But Pawel, If you do your job right people will hire you. Right now Im working late at night doing post / VFX for a Swiss bank film that I was post supervising when it was shot down in South africa. At the same time we are producing some american telecom commercials for an agency boston. And we are downloading the material from an FTP from MPC in london where the grade was done... The film market is truly international so if you try to put up borders I think you will find your self more trapped then protect. Look at cape town in south africa if they followed your ideas they would be sitting around waiting for the next little south african job to work on. Now as their government has open arms to all foreign film production the guys down there work more days a year than they do in hollywood. So I think letting people in is a better trick then keeping them out.

Just my thought.

 

[Luke Holwerda]

Hey guys, thanks for all the responses! It's been very enlightening.

Pawel, I'm still researching exactly which visa to go with, but thank you for all the info. I might hit you up again if I need help on that front.

Herring, I'm also working on my list for the Carnet. Thank you for that too!

Mark, thanks for the backstory! If we manage to get in, I promise to spend lots of money on food, booze, rental equipment, and so on!

 

[Luke Holwerda]

Oh, if worse comes to worse, and I need to scale things back and rent... is anyone on the forum up for renting out Scarlets? I've been in touch with a few of the local rental houses, but I figured I'd ask the people on here too.

If anyone wants to PM me a quote (or post here, whatever feels best)... let me know! Oh, and let me know which accessories you have with it.

Thanks again!

 

[Mark Toia]

Which city are you shooting in...

 

[Luke Holwerda]

We'll be starting in Sydney, following lectures in Canberra and Melbourne, then back to Sydney.

 

[Pawel Achtel]

Pawel, I'm still researching exactly which visa to go with, but thank you for all the info. I might hit you up again if I need help on that front.

No worries, Luke. I hope your filming goes smoothly.

BTW, I'm in Sydney, so let me know if you need any help/gear/advice....or just catch up and let me buy you a beer :beer: