Idea Fix - The Blog

I know we have Phoenix on Mars and that Nasa somehow goes on, but really, gentle reader, what happened to the Space Age?

In the decade of my youth (the 1970’s and early 80’s) the Space age was all around us. You could have sworn that by 2008, I’d be organising trips to the moon. I mean, where is my flying car by now! All these things were, well promised by culture and media by around our current date but they show no sign of appearing. Just as we are entering what looks to be the second and final dark age started by the ‘war on terror’ and the ‘global warming’ crisis. The planet is closing down, not going up… into space.

Where did we go wrong?

I have been rewatching Carl Sagan’s “Cosmos” and what a fucking beautiful and inspiring TV show it is and was. I find myself getting teary eyed at some odd moments, that explore the vast depth, beauty and wonder of the Cosmos and Sagan’s semi dorky, but completely sincere and passionate evocation of it. Where is this idealistic reaching forward of science today?

All the internet dot coms, billionaires and businesses are funneling millions of dollars to feed the wretched of the earth, but can’t some of this money go to NASA and to space exploration?

I mean human beings, we got plenty more where they came from. But Space and our first steps in it or onto another planet like Mars, are truly what, I thought, my generation was going to be about.

But, no, everyone is breeding without thought, stupid in their liberal ‘intelligence’, buying things endlessly without purpose and being so fucking bourgeoise, it makes me want to puke.

The soft Aldous Huxley style brain wash and dumbing down of the human species is so vast and complete, I don’t think many of us are left that really care about and are passionate about such subjects as space exploration any more. Outside the field itself, of course.

I mean 108 years after Nietzsche’s death, vain ‘last men and women’ run around making complete asses of themselves trying to be Jesus and setting up charitable institutions. Just so they can be God to the starving masses and reap the vast public relations benefits, that will push their companies or themselves forward… to nowhere. All the while the Cosmos awaits us and our small window of opportunity to explore it, closing as humanity turns this planet into a Mars like desert, whether it takes 200 years or 2000 or more. Wake up to Cosmic questions and the billions of years of evolution it took us to get here. And for what? Just so we can ruin it in a short time span of a few thousand years?

Its all in Darwin and Herbert Spencer. Evolution, Natural Selection, Mutation, Survival of the Fittest. We must evolve to the stars, or perish as a species, in the big picture.

Its like Jarvis Cocker, said “We were brought up on the Space Race, but they expect us to clean toilets”. The Toilet is fast becoming the world and the sooner we turn our attention to the heights of human endeavors, our greatest aspirations and away from pitiable retrograde charity, the sooner humanity may find itself back on the track to the stars. And our future, if we have one.

But, a Schopenhauerian voice tells me a second dark age has began. A great forgetting of Being underway, just with Nike’s, light entertainment and Playstation’s galore.

Can the supposedly educated West be so stupid? Such heights are possible and yet we stay in the gutter, looking down at the wretchedness and stupidity, like a reversed Oscar Wilde dictum. I for one may be in the gutter, but I still look up at the stars. And I sincerely hope some of you may still do so…

In a development to be applauded Cate Blanchett and some of her pals from the 2020 conference have filed an open letter in support of embattled photographer Bill Henson. See here.

This defense of Henson, penned by Alison Croggan, is aimed at Kevin Rudd, who is behaving in a way more reactionary way, than the Howard Government may have on this issue! In the open letter it says,”The potential prosecution of one of our most respected artists is no way to build a Creative Australia, and does untold damage to our cultural reputation.”. This is, of course, true.

Good ol’ Andrew Bolt has added his his ‘two bobs worth’ here.

He makes a few wry, humorous and sardonic points about a few of the defenders of Henson. Sometimes he’s right. He also postulates his own suggested defense of Henson, “If they want to defend Henson, there is only one morally admirable way to do so: to argue that the benefits of letting an artist show naked girls aroused to their new sexuality causes more good than harm, whether to the models or to other girls who’ll be watched with newly aroused eyes.” This sounds more controversial, than many defenses, he heaps scorn on.

For me, the main defense of Henson, is simply that of free speech and freedom of artistic expression. Like Graffitti art doco’s, David Irving, X rated films, Larry Clark and Pasolini movies, etc. Freedom of Speech is simply that. You either defend and support it or you don’t! And from my experiences at MUFF over the years many people in the arts community are selective in their support of freedom of speech and Bolt is right to lampoon these clowns, as the hypocrites they are.

Kim Kardashian, the new Paris Hilton style party gal, ‘reality’ show star and sex tape producer has been making jokes about the Burma Tsunami. See here.

In related news Sharon Stone, also, declared the Chinese quake ‘karma’ over their treatment of the Tibetans. See here.

I couldn’t really give a shit about Burma or China. Just not interested. But it provides an interesting context for the following…

Check out Kim Kardashian’s butt!

Naughty Kim Kardashian needs a good spanking, over her wonderful booty, for these comments, whether I care about them or not. Insensitive comments about Buma, “slap”, you naughty girl, “smack”. Sharon Stone, the Chinese Embassy just rang, stand in the corner, your next! Sounds like fun, don’t you all agree?

One thing I have noticed in my years of running MUFF and making independent cinema, is an absurd prejudice in this country to low budget aesthetics. It’s as if years of government funded, technically well polished (but crap!) films, have Australian film industry personal and potentates all hooked on the fine tuning of a films aesthetic. And not worrying about its content, excitement, originality or quality as a work of art. I mean Esther Blueberger was polished, but it was a polished turd. Am I right, people?

At Accent Underground (AU), the MUFF DVD label we set up with Accent Film Entertainment, we have been releasing these less polished and low budget gems to the Australian public. Just watch “demonamongus”, “Welcome Stranger”, “The Garth Method” and others on AU and tell me these are not great local films?

They may not have the millions wasted on them polishing every detail. But they are all ballsy, original new Australian movies.

The Magician, by Scott Ryan, was 90% the same movie that played at MUFF compared to the version that came out after the FFC got involved, adding 300K or so to polish it that extra ten percent. I’m all for doing that polish, if you can and The Magician is better for it. But the original was equally as impressive as the finished product. It just had a new ending, decent sound mix and some proper credits. But the talent revealed in the early cut was clear to see.

Whenever I watch a low budget movie, Australian or otherwise, I enter into an agreement to expect some rough edges. It comes with the territory. That’s why its a low budget movie! I call this expectation ‘the low budget impressionist effect’. Things are sometimes not as polished as they could, or should be. For example, the sound may be a little low in one scene, a music cue not quite at the right level in another, a visual effect that could be slightly better, etc. These things all can be fixed given large $ in post. But the point is low budget films often don’t have the lolly of big budget films and should not be scolded for their inherent limitations. In fact, these drawbacks should be understood and appreciated!

Lars Von Trier’s whole Dogme 95 movement pulled us away from this absurd obsession with over polish in modern cinema. I mean, do we look at impressionists and ask of them why they didn’t paint a clearer picture? Of course not.

Low budget aesthetics are a form of cinematic impressionism that varies depending on the resource, budget or even intention of the films creator, and should be acknowledged as such.

If we embraced a more rough and tumble aesthetic, that recalls many great movements in cinema from Dogme to the French and British New Wave movements, back to early days of experimental, underground and even silent cinema, we can see the excellence in low budget cinema, for what it is. And perhaps reward it, next time around, with a more comprehensive budget. Instead of pouring millions down the gurgler on crap like September, Blueberger and other recent flops.

Like Robert Connolly says in his ‘white paper’, and in what he said was canvassed at 2020 conference, we should reward talent, innovation and success. I say to do so, also, from whatever aesthetic tier a work of cinematic art may emerge from.

Again, your thoughts are welcome in the comments page…

Its no secret I love the music of the eighties, especially that of the electronic variety.

Here is a funny/cool video of 80’s band The Twins, they were sort of like a German Pet Shop Boys, but with a Giorgio Moroder LA style flavour. Made up of Sven Dohrow and Ronny Schreinzer they had a string of excellent singles and albums in that golden decade. The music of local bands like The Presets and Cut Copy would kill for this retro style and sound. Dancing space girls, weird colour coded suits and little hip insignia badges, Idea Fix gives you all a blast from the most musically significant decade post WW2, yes, the 1980’s.

Enjoy!

Also I just found this video called “Life of a Toy” from a band called “My Favourite Toys” produced by Ronny Schreinzer from “The Twins”. It’s tres cool. Does anyone out there in internet lands have a copy of the “My Favourite Toys” album or single they can burn onto CD for me? If so comment with your email and I’ll get back to you. I love to discover this, rare, 80’s electro shit. Cheers!

My Favourite Toys clip.

Australian photographer Bill Henson is causing controversy and a stir at present with his recent, now banned exhibition, at Sydney’s Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery. See here. And here.

Another Gallery has also removed his work and an article shows how the Government has backed his exhibitions (of naked teen photography and other subjects) before, showing their hypocrisy. See here.

It all seems absurd to me. Henson’s work is clearly art and this attack upon him smells of a media beat up. Everybody is caving into this hysteria about his works and removing them from galleries. Until recently he was considered controversial with the art world and public alike, but respected. What has changed? The issues raised are clearly issues of artistic freedom.

To make it even funnier, all the reactionary press condemning the exhibition, all publish reprints or portions of the art they supposedly have a moral objection with. Thereby, bringing wide public attention to it and also implicating themselves as distributors and exhibitors of the art they, supposedly, want to ban. I have reprinted a photo all these media sources have been running with.

As long as the photographic subjects were willing, had permission from their parents, etc., I can’t see the problem. Henson work is not overtly erotic or pornographic in tone either, it has a dark, moody, slightly sickly quality to it, that goes against it being labeled ‘porn’.

What do Idea Fix readers think of the controversy? It just seems like the latest witch hunt and example of repressed sexual hysteria, to me.

Not according to her denials. But we all know denial is a river in Egypt. Tania Zaetta, some singing ding bat, who I have never heard of until this wonderful story, went over to ‘entertain’ the troops fightin’ hard on that ol’ chestnut - the ‘War on Terror’ in Afghanistan. And according to allegations in a leaked Army document, she did a little more than Bob Hope’s old school song and dance routine for the troops morale. The document claims she had time for a Soldier or Soldier’s to conduct a bit of an invasion of her own territory, whilst over there in sunny Afghanistan. She strongly denies the allegations, of course, but the army is still conducting an investigation into the facts of the case. Tour mate Angry Anderson added fuel to the fire as possibly being the source of the complaint. Surely, Angry was just jealous the strong, virile army jocks had all been taken, leaving none for him?

Will be interesting how this plays out. I mean who cares if she did do it? Soldiers can’t have sex, now? Good on her if she did, we say. See story here that mines this particular ethical vein.

And if she didn’t do the deed, as she claims, she should clearly sue somebody in relation to the issue. There are claims a tape or photos exists of the ‘act’. If they exist and hit the net, the whole landscape of this issue will change.

Idea Fix supports our Soldiers getting laid more often. Should we send over special comfort squads of patriotic hookers, in these difficult times of war? Sex and War go together, don’t they? War as an ‘idea’ is sexy, don’t you think? The reality less so, obviously. This whole PC war trip we are now on, is just a bit silly. Its war. Its not about manners, etiquette and sexual decorum.

The photo above is actually from the tour with Zaetta on left. Sexy leather dresses, digger’s camouflage kit…all sounds like good kinky fun to me.

Bobby Galinsky’s report on The Cannes Film Festival 2008. Enjoy! :

Well it’s 7am here in Cannes and an overcast morning. The normally endless sunlight that bakes Cannes from the promotional brochures is not shining. The weather has been a bit dodgy but overall a pleasant 20° and pretty sunny for part of each day and a tiny splattering of rain.

And that would pretty much symbolize the mood here at Cannes. Relatively steady but unimpressive sales for most people but some real bursts of success and promise. After that ham-handed segue that I’ll attribute to the 3 bottles of Cristal and 750ml of scotch on the yacht with some other film makers late last night, let’s really break this down into the Big Fours, including our own film PREY, and projects we’re developing :

a: business
b: celeb sightings
c: new trends in film and media
d: oh, yeah.. the films

It’s my first Cannes. (Technically my second…my parents brought me here in 1967 after my Bar Mitzvah for what was ostensibly a surprise poorly disguised as a holiday for them because they had gone through every baby sitter in the State but were nervous about leaving me alone in the house. They weren’t worried about me…they were worried about their new house.)

The business end of the scale for most films has been slow. Nobody is paying big bucks for art house films and most genre films aren’t finding the gold mine that was Cannes and the other markets but sales are steady as there is so much output potential for DVD and (legal) electronic media. From a personal experience, we’ve been absolutely blessed. PREY (starring Natalie Bassinghtwaighte, uber-hunk Christian Clark, and Yank phenom Jesse (yes my Dad is Don) Johnson is on the radar and getting a bit of heat because it’s not ‘low budget’ it’s not ‘horror’ (supernatural fantasy) and it’s going for PG13 rating or equivalent worldwide for a much wider market. We’ve guessed correctly that the trends are for sexy and groovy and original and that people are moving away from heavy hitting horror and the numbers are showing we guessed right and were spot-on for what our targets are for this coming financial year. We will open in Australia in October. Our Sales Agents DAMAGE FILMS are new here but will be wunderkinds to watch. I could rant for another month on why we’re achieving success and other Aussie films aren’t but that’s not what this is about. The other big business reality is that the cyclone in Burma last month blew about a billion Indians here to Cannes on it’s way. The Indian market is huge, and Westernizing. Not that Bollywood rubbish that makes you think you’ve sat through two hours on the Telstra support line but big US and UK development deals with Indian money and Indian studios. We’ll see how that pans out in about two years when either production prices level off or fall, or just don’t happen.

Celebs are everywhere without question. At a lunch yesterday our Sales Agent’s table was a matzoh ball’s throw away from Harvey Weinstein, Clint Eastwood, Harrison “no I don’t use botox” Ford and Calista Flockhart, and Morgan Freeman. I went to Monaco for a dinner with one of our key investors at his pre-Grand Prix launch. Dita von Teese stood next to use at a traffic crossing and smiled. I don’t know if she was smiling at us or just using my sunglasses to see how damn good she looked in them but I’d like to think the former. Lets face it, it’s about hot shiksas and successful yidden businessmen here and you don’t mess with a winning formula. Director Stephan Elliot (PRISCILLA) is staying on the yacht generously lent to our sales agent for the festival spruiking his new film and we couldn’t be in a better position (photos send separately). He’s also been the ticket to the hottest parties on La Croisette including the unbelievable Bujois blowout Sunday night that finished with this writer staggering out at 6:20am to walk about 30 minutes uphill in the drizzle from the beach as there were zero taxis avail. I don’t remember the walk but I remember channeling Moses’ frustration about having to stroll for 40 years after his last big party.. Of course JIMMY’z is still the old school killer night club. Drinks are a 2nd mortgage in Toorak or Vaucluse but the scenery is worth it. I don’t really care about global warming or 30 second showers to preserve water in Victoria when I can sit at a table full of supermodels and head back to a yacht to make phone calls about my film. Hell, I spent 30 minutes waiting to get into Embassy once in Double Bay and once I was inside it was being in the middle of the Palestinian peace talks. And look where it got Rene Rivkin?

NEW TRENDS The big package is back. Like the 80’s. Matching a star or director with a packaging firm that can bring the money to the project and then attract the missing pieces (director, other star) Our big budget dream project DUST & GLORY (set during the REDEX races/trials of the 50’s in Australia) has attracted Eric Bana’s management to discussions (as legendary Aussie larrikan Gelignite Jack Murray) and we’re trying to match a director (pref Aussie) with the money we’ve raised and get a US star to fit, and we’ve found two North American firms hot2trot with us so it’s been like the opportunity to compress 6 months to a years’s work in just six days here. That part is unbelievable! This IS where the films get made, so to speak, in many ways. And of course everything on the planet for viral marketing and digital media is here. Day / Date releasing has begun and will be more prevalent this next year with theatrical and DVD release almost simultaneous.

THE FILMS. Haven’t had time to see even one yet. Too busy. We’re going to some premieres/screenings tonight and tomorrow and Friday…now that business is slowing down a bit and the festival will gradually think out…but not much. Crowds at INDIAN JONES were like a mosh pit at Big Day Out… You could NOT move an inch and cars were driving through the crush and it was insane. Clint Eastwood’s THE CHANGELING is astonishing according to a friend who saw it. I don’t want to see all the art house blickitiwick which will end up at the Nova or Kino Dendy for a week later on, and I won’t want to see them then either. And short films…forget it. I personally hate them. Can’t be bothered. (NB: other than the one the French supermodel gave me in the banquette after 30 champagnes and made me promise I would watch before having coffee with her in Paris on the weekend. I can’t break a promise to another film maker..

OTHER BITS: The people are all wonderful here if you’re wonderful. The French are lovely, the scenery is lovely, the food is great, and if you are polite and patient and smile then everyone else is polite and quick and will smile. But that’s true everywhere. The only people who complain, complain everywhere they go. The chaotic restaurant service (or lack, thereof), the trains that don’t go to the final destination, the post office that closes because of a one day strike, etc, are all classically French and May is a big month here, historically, for Labor disputes. I think if we brought Chris Corrigan here to straighten things out like he did on the wharves back home it would be an interesting scenario..

Well, time to head out for a cafe au lait and get the day started. Meetings on the yacht at noon, and all day, and friends and investors in from Melbourne and Sydney for dinner in the evening.

It may be a Labor government back where you are, but here we’re working!

Shalom and au revoir…

Bobby Galinsky
YOUR MAN IN CANNES

Another similiar report exists here.

Photo below of Bobby stalking Malcom director David Parker on the Cannes Croisette.

I had the great pleasure to see John Foxx perform live at The Corner Hotel, a few weeks back. I have wanted to see him live for around 20 years and now have! All you kids that like the electro of Miss Kitten, FisherSpooner, The Knife and local acts Cut Copy and The Presets, should check Foxx out, he is the real deal. With his work with early Ultarvox!, to his first solo album Metamatic and his recent 00’s releases being equally as superd as his first three solo albums, Foxx is back in serious form and more relevant than ever. His new CD “From Trash” is a masterpiece of Ballardian electro and alienation.

Foxx’s number one Oz fan Colin Savage was there snapping away with his camera.

After the concert with Bruce Butler we spent some time chatting with Foxx and what an unpretentious nice guy he was.

See photo below of Foxx and Wolstencroft.

I would love to work with him one day on a soundtrack. His new instrumental CD “Tiny Color Movies” makes NIN’s recent non vocal album look like a joke. If you haven’t discovered Foxx you are missing out on some of the most intelligent and disquieting electronic music around.

Film Victoria held a conference a few weeks back called Mindshift, as a kind of official response to the on going Australian Film Industry Crisis, that we have long harped on about here at Idea Fix, and through my own prosetylising at MUFF. I have been biding my time to see other articles or discussions of the event, so as to respond to them, but so far I have found none! Yes, a conference on change in the Oz film industry that receives no media coverage. So, I thought I’d better publish my own humble thoughts before the whole event receives no review on the Internet.

I was a little sceptical about such events, i.e. as it is often organised by the very people who have made our industry so mediocre for the past while. But anyways I’m usually up for a bit of debate and that is always healthy. I bumped in to Steve Jennings, from Nothing But The Struth, who was brave enough to sit next to me, the Oz film Industry gadfly, at the forum.

Here was the guest list of official speakers at Mindshift:

* Robert Connolly, Director of Arenafilm and author of the excellent white paper Embracing Innovation.
* Joel Pearlman, Managing Director of Roadshow Films.
* Debra Allanson, Managing Director of Ishmedia.

Also:

* Pete Wilson - Director of Movie Measure. Pete works with investors, filmmakers and distributors to gather market research on the way audiences respond to films.
* Patrick McIntyre - Acting Executive Director of the Australian Ballet.
* Debi Enker - Chief TV Journalist for The Age Green Guide.
* Michael Padden - General Manager of BigPond Mobile Network.
* Paul Wiegard, Madman Films
* And others

The event was well attended with about 300 people from all aspects of the industry.

Robert Connolly was clearly the most interesting speaker, as he addressed issues raised by his extremely important paper, “Embracing Innovation”. See here. His main points are that the film industry in Australia is stagnating and going nowhere, unlike other Oz creative industries like the music industry, that all readily adapt to innovation and change. Connolly says the industry does not embrace new ideas, ways of making films cheaper, for example, and is stuck in a cumbersome mode of production and infrastructure at both Industry and Government funding levels. Basically, he contends that our beloved industry is outdated, incestuous with non-innovators and retrograde. Not only that, Connolly says the system is also corrupt! He says that it encourages established producers to raise their budgets into the millions to justify their producing fees. He says he has done so himself on Three Dollars that cost 6 million, but he admits should have and could have been made for much less! He calls this inflation of budgets ‘perverse incentives’ i.e. for producers to get a reasonable fee they have to inflate their budgets, thus creating vast wastage, excess and over spending in the industry. Gov bodies approve all this and turn a blind eye to the lot. Connolly suggests establishing decent Producers and Directors fees based on track record, innovation and talent and not related to budget. A brilliant idea! So even on a low budget film, the producer can still be well paid and fairly compensated for her time. This ‘perverse incentive’ he describes sounds more to me like official corruption in the Australian Film Industry…

That is why at the drinks afterwards I heard Connolly’s name being sullied by various anonymous sources as a ‘light weight’ and an ‘up start’, all because he had the guts and honesty to blow the whistle on the gravy train, that could easily be fixed with some common sense and lateral thinking. I spoke to Connolly after the event and gave him a copy of my own contribution to Oz film industry criticism “The 1st MUFF Manifesto”. I said that we are the only two people in this decade or more, from the industry, to have created an official paper or manifesto that had the guts to stand up and constructively criticise our local film landscape. Connolly is a wry chap and probably thought, ‘Who is this guy?’… but the point stands.

Back to the conference. I must say I felt many speakers had their heads firmly planted up their asses, talking in industry double speak about “creating critical mass” (whatever that is) and similar jargon that is totally meaningless and unproductive. It was clear that 80% of the speakers and audience had no clue about how to fix the film industry.

The exceptions were Joel Pearlman from Village, who espoused a theory of genre, especially Comedy. Paul Wiegard’s comments on finding niche markets and about there being no formula for success and that it comes from fragmentation, multiplicity and many different approaches to film making .i.e true diversity in movie making. The film tester and market researcher Pete Wilson also had some good points about content, that he gleaned from his research. And Bobby Galinsky’s questions concerning the quality of script writing, that has been so poor in recent examples of OZ cinema, like Esther Blueberger, et al. A Victorian College of the Arts Professor also asked why large corporations don’t contribute something back to the film industry in the development arena, which sounds a fair idea. There were other good speakers, but too few. What the head of The Australian Ballet was doing there as a guest, I don’t think even Socrates could enlighten me on?

You know me, I’ve more front than Myers, so I had no trouble asking/telling the panel about Genre being the main road out of our industry doldrums, about the fact everyone in the room but a few is over 45 or so and where is fresh new film making talent? I also stated that Australia needs to move away from the condescending PC story lines of most Oz films of late, and to (sometimes) allow a darkness to enter Australian cinema. When questioned by the clueless host as to how I came by this information? I used examples of recent OS hits No Country for Old Men and There Will be Blood being very dark and immoral hits and also pointed out local TV hits like Underbelly, as proof of my ‘theory of darkness’ in Oz cinema. The question was met by silence, as was Bobby Galinsky’s re: scripts, no one had the nerve to address any of these raised issues. The host quickly moved to the next question of a more non-threatening nature

This is one of the things that most sickens me about the Australian industry. The head in the sand approach. Just ignore the problem, if you hold a privileged position in the industry, and eventually it will go away. But it hasn’t and it never will. That is the problem, that is why we are at Mindshift. Its about ‘mind shift’, people, not a ‘head in the sand box’ meeting! This denial and repression of the problem is not Connolly’s innovation! Many have applauded Connolly’s paper and well they should. We need questions and more importantly answers, yes, and debate. Then decisions, real change and difference with lateral thinking, I can go on, and on. We are the most exciting wing of the creative arts bloc but the stuffiness, closed naturedness and ‘don’t rock the boat’ attitude is stifling, unproductive and destructive in our Industry. Until someone with real power makes change happen through innovation… its Esther Blueberger city, let’s be honest…

As Connolly said, “Innovation is what the industry should be about”. And he’s 100% right! He produced the excellent “The Boys”, one of my favourite Oz films of the last decade and he seemed to have his head firmly screwed on in relationship to the Film Industry Crisis. Journalists like Craig Mathieson from The Age and Bulletin were there and asked questions, but as far as I can tell, no official story from The Age has been published on this event? I hope I’m wrong…

Film Victoria should be congratulated for at least holding this event and acknowledging the problem. But the worry is, are the good ideas canvassed at Mindshift, going to be actioned upon? Unfortunately, I seriously doubt it.

The after party drinks sickened me a little, as I heard so many contrasting views from the usual suspects, the same ship of fools, who collectively have no idea about what to do about the industry. They have eked out their position in the industry and score big grants occasionally and they defend these ‘perverse incentives’ like rabid seagulls, from any criticism. The suggestion that the industry should be based on ideas like success, innovation, track record and performance made them all go pale, as many would be unemployed in two years. Not all obviously, but some.

From this multiplicity of contrasting opinion and double speak; will some equally clueless committee act on change? Even if they do, will it be the answer?

People like Robert Connolly need to be given Executive Power to make actual change in the industry. The new ‘Screen Australia’ amalgamate was raised. Connolly suggested seeing some filmmakers on the board of the FFC. This surely makes sense.

There are many other dynamic ideas that could be swiftly implemented.

Will ‘Screen Australia’ be just another name change to hide the fact that the Australian film industry is going down the toilet? Or will it give real power, not to clueless committees, but to a range of sensible innovative individuals at various levels of the industry, who can make varied executive decisions for change, vitality and innovation. This is the solution.

If this could be done, within a year or two this industry could be as dynamic, innovative and vital as it should be! Thoughts from the stalls?