Gaining Traction
This article features online at encoremagazine.com.au and will be in the next issue of the magazine…
Film Australia plans to save the world
by Anthony James
Film Australia is breaking from its ‘tradition’ of standard format documentaries designed to screen on conventional platforms with its ‘Change the World in Five Minutes’ cross-media initiative.
Comprising nine different productions, the chosen submissions cover doco, drama, and animation and none of them are longer than five minutes – the shortest being an 8 X 20 second set of ‘commercials.’ The project’s filmmakers are facing the challenge of producing work that can ‘play’ successfully on wide-screen TVs, mobile phones and the web.
Executive producer Rod Freedman told Encore that Film Australia was determined to do more work in the cross media area. “But we wanted to also find a way to encourage emerging filmmakers.”
The initiative is a collaboration between Film Australia and the New South Wales Film and TV Office – the major investors in the project. Other key players in the joint initiative are SBS Digital Media are hosting the site for the projects on-line platform and the Australian Film, TV and Radio School AFTRS who are contributing their expertise in the online application area with a workshop in early March.
The project takes its thematic cue from the bestselling book Change The World For Ten Bucks which offers 50 suggestions average punters can take on to make the world a happier, healthier and more sustainable place. “I think sometimes people feel really helpless to effect a change in the world and what’s great about this project is that it encourages people to regain some sense of empowerment to do something useful and local,” Freedman said.
In tone and style the projects offer a wide range from black comedy to the poignant in mini-narratives that cover coming of age to re-cycling and the importance of putting a smile on a stranger’s face.
The nine projects were chosen after an open call for submissions; Freedman said they received 96. The successful applicants are budgeted at $20,000. “We are holding back a bit of money,” said Freedman, “so we can pass it on to teams so they can develop a website.”
Many of the projects parody conventions in a way to convey the ‘Change the World’ mandate like youCan2 which cunningly uses the ‘family unit’ stereotypes of routine ad land. “I thought I could appeal to mums and dads and the small changes they can make that can make a big difference,” said the director Richard Shepherd. “I wanted to make fairly mainstream commercials but in a funny and quirky way that delivers the message.” youCan2 features a nuclear family with a pair of anarchistic kids whose naughtiness is really a vehicle to change their parents complacent attitude to environmental issues. “The point is that it is about kids and their future – so why shouldn’t kids take over by taking control?”
Shepherd said his series will be shot on the Sony Z1P HD with a style specifically designed to accommodate the limitations of the web and mobile phone viewing: “Because of the compression in those platforms you can’t do quick-pans and quick moves because you lose so much detail. Your only option is to keep the camera locked off – but you end up with a pretty boring shot. So we’ve decided to go hand-held and with a bit of a voyeuristic feel to give more energy.”
Freedman expects that project will go ‘live’ on line in Spring, 2007.
Great publicity for us. There is also the Film Australia press release here.
We are starting to look at casting options for the children, and the production designer is on a location scout today. All very exciting. More news soon.
