Focus: Building a career as a feature filmmaker

Not many of the producers, writers and directors who made a first feature film in Australia in the 30 years since 1970 have been able to follow up that experience with further feature film production opportunities. (See tables below.)

This illustrates the competitive nature of a film career: the vast majority of filmmakers who get to make a feature film cannot expect to make another one. But of those producers and directors who do make a second feature, most can expect to make a third – eventually.

The significance of the variation between the 30-year and 10-year pattern is not clear. It could simply be due to the shorter period: people have had less time in which to make multiple features. This would especially affect numbers in the last two or three years of the survey and could be expected to show up most clearly in the category of filmmakers who have made three or more feature films, which is the case.

Next update December 2008

Percentage of Australian producers, directors and writers making one feature film only, two or more, or three or more, over the last 30 years compared with the last 10 years

Source: Australian Film Commission.

Percentage of Australian feature films which were the first, second, third, fourth or more feature film for the filmmakers involved, 1970s to 1990s

This table comes at the issue in a different way, looking at the proportion of Australian films over the past three decades made by writers, directors and producers with various levels of experience. The emphasis on first-timers is clear across all roles.

Source: Australian Film Commission.