Trends in
the core Australian feature slate
Next update November 2009
Total production budgets for Australian features
fluctuates each year, due largely to the impact of a small number of
fully foreign financed, usually high-budget, films. Annual variations
can also be caused by the timing of principal photography start dates.
To clarify trends and smooth out the sharp annual fluctuations
caused by the presence or absence of such films, we have used two-year
rolling averages and excluded projects fully financed from overseas.
The rationale for excluding such films is solely to isolate and examine
the ‘core’ of Australian feature production. While high-budget,
foreign-financed local features such as Australia, Happy Feet
and Moulin Rouge are extremely important to Australian production
activity as a whole, they are exceptional and skew the results statistically
when trying to build a picture of the general production slate.
An analysis of this ‘core slate’ over the
past 12 years shows there was a downward trend in average annual production
budgets between 2001/02–2002/03 and 2003/04–2004/05, due
partly to a decline in foreign investment over this period, although
average production budgets and foreign investment increased again in
the following years. Average production budgets peaked in 2006/07–2007/08,
with increased investment from government, private and industry
sources.
Investment from government agencies underpins the core
slate, averaging around $34 million annually since 2000/01–2001/02.
Until 2007/08, this was mainly from the FFC, which became part of Screen
Australia in July 2008. Private investment has fluctuated, with
peaks created by contributions from the Film Licensed Investment Companies
(FLICs) in the two-year period to June 2003 and escalated use of 10BA
in the two-year period to June 2008. Division 10BA was closed to new
applicants in July 2007 with the introduction of the new Producer
Offset, although the concessional status for investment in productions
holding a valid 10BA certificate will continue to be available until
30 June 2009.
Production value of all Australian
features and core slate (i.e. without fully foreign financed films),
2-year rolling averages
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Contributions of each investor type
to core Australian feature slate (i.e. without fully foreign financed
films),
2-year rolling averages
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