Report on SPAA fringe for ScreenWest

by Kate Vyvyan

Overview

SPAA fringe was a great experience. This was only my second screen conference, I had been to Small Screen Big Picture a couple of years back. I was determined to make the most of it. I had learnt at my first conference that you have to set up meetings and talk about your projects not wait for a chance meeting or for somebody to ask you. I had been recommended SPAA fringe as a good conference for getting informal access to influential people. I got very organised with promotional materials and back up documents and booked myself out for one on ones and round tables. I did talk about my projects, I did meet a whole variety of filmmakers, I did make many new contacts. I did find out some helpful information. I did get inspired to keep 'at it.' and I did line up some potential speakers for WAnimate. The conference patron Peter Broderick said there were three things to get out of the conference *Ideas *Information *Inspiration, I would say that I could tick those off. However, there was nobody there from Children's television or likewise which meant there really wasn't anybody to pitch my lead projects too which was a disappointment, but at least I will be more conference trained and ready for big SPAA next time!?

Diary of SPAA fringe

Friday morning

I arrived off the red eye from Perth to a rainy day in Sydney and walked all the way up Oxford St. until I got to the Town Hall. It was a great venue, quite Fremantle town hall/FTI-ish – old, funky, slightly shabby, with lots of interesting spaces being used. There were about 400 people registered. The first thing was a call for people to stand up and say what they might be looking for or be able to help people with. A surprising number of people stood up and it was helpful because it threw up a couple of potential people to approach however there were a few too many women with dark hair and I got confused. I marked the woman from Screen Tasmania as someone to talk to as she stated their leadership in cross platform/360 degree funding and the fact they funded out of state because of the need to compete as a country not as States which was something I had also recently identified as a need for the animation industry in WA. Anyway I spent the rest of the conference trying to find out her name and get a positive ID on her and finally spoke to her just before the conference wrapped up (bar the shouting in the bar.)

The first key note speaker was Amy Hobby and independent filmmaker from the US. She showed a few clips from her films, she dropped quite a few names but in a down to earth endearing way and she dropped a few words of wisdom along the way...

“Say yes, work begets work”

“its good to find a good partnership like your perfect dance partner”

“maintain your end goal – find a way to make it”

“respect and learn craft.”

She showed a trailer which starts off with someone chopping wood and the rhythm and sound of the wood chopping is maintained throughout most of the trailer to great effect.

Next I headed off to host my peer to peer, one on one – I was the first of these sessions and the registration desk for round tables and one on ones was besieged with people, so this first session was not well attended – I got nobody but then nor did Megan Harding from the ABC or Julia Overton from the FFC – they knew each other and so were chatting and I just went and joined them. I discovered that;

• budgets can be got over the line using Professional development allocations (ie training someone as part of your production – I think.)
• the new tax off sets would get business style filmmakers self sufficient and see those in need of government help get it.
• JTV needed up to 5 minute interstitials (animations?)
• ABC are looking for sitcoms for the Wednesday evening slot they want to capture and hold on to, they are looking for traditional style, contempory, with a new thing, talent driven but not like Chris Lilly because they have him.
• Go and see Lawyers and the new Ian Curtis film.

Julia suggested doing a talk for Perth local film makers around AIDC and Megan said she would too.

Friday afternoon

In the break I met a guy from Canberra called Stavros Georgiadis who after hearing about Rainbow Dragons said to look into the Centre of Democracy and New York University because they were pioneering some project to provide educational downloads to low income kids which was being very successful.

Next I sat on a round table with Peter Broderick an expert on distribution. His main message was the you have to reach the people that the film will matter to directly and then work out in concentric circles. He used an example of Liz Collins at the table who is making a film about Downs Syndrome – the film is first for Down Syndrome people and then their families and carers and teachers etc. He said she should get on mailing lists and newsletters, look for blogs and networks, personalise your audience and start harvesting emails. Peter said people could do very well selling their films on DVD from their website this way. Also film makers should sell the DVD at festivals they are showing at. Every documentary has multiple core audiences.

You can sell a movie on Amazon (just ask) but they will take 45-65% of the sale. Another way is to have a storefront on Amazon – Amazon just gets 22% and you get the email address of the buyer.

Be aware that doing copy on demand that it is a copy and not a replication and you get another bad split.

Peter said the following were mistakes to avoid:

• Submitting to festivals too early (wait until the movie is as good as it is going to get and then look forward to what festivals it should go into.)
• Going to tiny festivals and giving away your premiere (got to think about what festival is right for you.)
• Music rights (use original music, if get rights to music know what you are getting them for and know what the ultimate rights are so you don't get caught clearing it for one festival and then when it goes off...)
• DIY deal making (DIY film making OK, DIY distributing okay but not DIY deal making) it is very complicated with all the different rights. Check out a company you are about to do a deal with through other film makers.

Next was a round table with Margaret Murphy for SBSi. She commissions for factual, lifestyle, reality and documentaries. She invited people to send in proposals at any time as they were always looking at them, but think, is it an idea right for SBS and is there a place for it in the schedule. Examples of slots to look at; Wednesday 7:30, Food Safari, Inside Australia 8pm half hour docs, Monday nights for a young audience. One offs are hard to quote. JTV have a specific sort of humour – think youth sitcom, interstitials and cross platform. Do co-pro initiatives with funding agencies.

As everyone at the table was pitching a project I pitched a lifestyle show “Diva in the Kitchen” - I learnt that a talent led show (which it is) – would need a pilot and Margeret admitted there were all fooded out at the SBS. The following day I got to talk some more about this project idea to a woman from the ABC whose name I never did catch and it was 'while we wait' kind of chat and she gave me some good 'questions' to ask myself about this sort of format – I was suggesting a chat show on popular culture while the host and guest cook with the occasional loud singing - She said the ABC were also fooded out but that a really great cooking show would still get up (in other words any really great idea gets up despite what they may be looking for or full up with) I argued that it wasn't really a cooking show but we agreed using the example of Spics and Specks that it needed to have something strong and entertaining going on in case the “chat” failed. This project that I pitched was quite half-baked (compared to my developed projects) but I am glad I took the risk to air it in public and to commissioning editors because I got invaluable advice and great practice on something that I wasn't too close to (and therefore likely to get upset!)

Next I attended a talk by independent Writer/Producer/Director team Andrea Buck and Dee McLachlan entitled Surviving on the Fringe. This team had made The Jammed – a hard hitting gritty docu/drama about sex slave trafficking. They had failed to find a distributor but they did find some guy who believed in it and who got them to put it on in one cinema and did lots of promotion for it and it was very successful and then everyone wanted it. They suggested everyone should use the same creativity for finding an audience for a film as you do in making a film. Sitting in with your audience and doing Q&As informs your next film. They also said that you can lose yourself in a project and projects can go on for years with only occasional interest, that no script is ever ready and on a low budget do the best you can with what you can get. HDV is very liberating because less crew time required.

I caught the end of Brendan Cook talking about his animation designs and animation – he has done some creative pop videos.

There followed time in the Fringe Bar where I firmed up some new friendships and met some more independent filmmakers to discuss the day.

Saturday morning

I went for a walk in a hot sunny Sydney and found some bats in the Botanic Gardens.

I accidentally discovered the video feature on my new mobile phone wasn't half bad and I am now experimenting with importing it to a document. Later in the day I would learn that the Sydney Film Festival had a competition for one minute films filmed with mobile phones and I met the guy who won (as part of his prize was registration to the conference – he was a photographer who had made a film about a leaf commentating on other leaves falling around him.) It also reminds me that I should watch some of the SPAA fringe sessions on the net because my meeting schedule didn't allow me to get to many and I heard that they were good.

I did get to most of Ben Batstone-Cunningham's talk about Second Life and such virtual things. He was a classic geek with some very interesting things to say/ask. He showed how the digital sphere is not a battle of community versus content but how community leads to more content which leads to more community which leads to more content etc. He stated how any new media was initially used for storytelling the way the media before it had used it. For example in the beginning of television it was all filmed theatre. In today's virtual worlds the storytelling is like we see on TV or in games. Ben asked – what will be the language of virtual worlds? He threw this out to filmmakers to ponder and to be a driving force in creating the language of virtual worlds. He thought maybe it would be about turning the camera on Second Life users and getting their story.

Ben illustrated how he built a virtual cinema and how he holds screenings and film festivals – what he particularly likes about people screening their films in virtual cinemas is that you can 'hear' the applause even if it is from aliens and animals and other mutated avatars. Ben said that SL was a great place to experiment with film making and that everything you need is there. He needed a singer so he contacted a woman who does virtual bar performances and they did a deal – a performance video (virtual of course) for her and he got music for his films.

Ben also looked at future trends such as virtual worlds becoming more entangled with real world (virtual world gambling has had to be banned.) He said virtual life was making inaccessible places accessible, such as building Guantenomo Bay prison in VL and then being able to create a dialogue in there. He suggested the future was in phones which had so many extra features already, he could see augmented reality in the future – you could point your phone at a empty street and populate it with monsters that you see on you phone viewer. Cool! And food for thought.

I went to a round table with Brendan Cook who is a designer and animator. He doesn't see himself as an animator or film maker per se but as a designer pushing himself in new directions. He is more interested in techniques and experimentation than form or length. He says doing music clips is a good way to build your profile if you are an animator but beware they often expect a music video in two weeks (as music videos are not normally animated.) He also does commercials and commercial projects in order to fund short films and art stuff.

He gave me some good tips – he said that the Ottawa International Animation Festival was a good one to go to because you could pitch children's television projects. Also New York.

There were very few people at the SPAA conference with anything to do with animation – why so?

For the conference I had had made a couple of T-shirts with some characters from one of my preschool shows and the question “what are your oobly dooblies called?” printed on it. I wore these shirts at the conference. I had to call attention to the shirt, it seems either people were too intent on their own pitch or too polite to stare at my chest. I noted there was very little self marketing going on surprisingly. There was a guy who I kept bumping into who is a writer and has a crime drama project he was looking for people for. On the second day he made up a set of boards claiming he had 'lost' his producer in the bar the night before and was looking for a co-writer, producer, director. He sat holding the boards outside one of the talks when everyone piled out and he did get some reaction to that.

Saturday afternoon

I went to a round table hosted by Justin Brow. Justin is a producer who has set up this online digital content matching service www.60sox.org for connecting creatives and for self publishing work. It is an exciting project which is just for Australia and New Zealand so that we can catch up with the rapidly growing world of digital content which now boasts 50% spending on consumer indexes. The site features peer and expert review and a people looking for other people section including real jobs. It is a fairly new site but is well supported. I would really like to see the West get behind it and will be telling Wanimate about it.

Next up was a round table with Ellenor Cox from Firelight Productions. She is producing a cross platform project around a telemovie called Scorched. It is Sydney of 2012 and a bush fire is threatening the city and there is no water.... It started off, as a 'what if' documentary but has turned into a drama. She says there is still resistence to new media. The movie will be on Channel nine (after a change in personnel at the ABC saw it dumped) and the cross platform elements on MSN (but that MSN are half hearted about the online component but which they see has so much potential.) She says the skill in cross platform is how to re-purpose and to create content suitable for different platforms. You need to have integration of the TV stuff and the internet stuff.

Use the social networks to create a buz and drive people to the site early. Try to get the broadcast trailers to mention the site as well. Afterwards extend the life of the site with forums, panels and alternate reality game. Funding is still for the movie, she is trying to get the freedom to approach advertisers herself for funding for alternate media elements. For international sales – the whole project site and all will need to be re-startable.

I had a one on one with Tina Lymberis, a high energy individual who has recently made her own pilot and got her new internet dance magazine series up Ubergroover.tv (not available until Feb.) She reiterated how important it is to tie in your internet and TV content – so one is dependent on the other. So the show tells the kids go online and the show uses the kids pictures that they download online and activities from the show are there on line....

I finally caught up with Karena Slaninka from Screen Tasmania who listened to me about my cross platform preschool projects. She asked some probing questions and gave me the name of two companies in Tasmania, Roar Films and Blue Rocket Productions that might be worth approaching as I would need a Tasmanian partner to get ScreenTasmanian cross platform/360 degree funding.

The conference was then wrapped up with drinks at the Fringe again when I just had time to make a couple more contacts when I had to go and get my flight home.

The following week

One of the first things I did after recovering from the trip was to look longingly at the line up and attendees for big SPAA so I am obviously conference hooked. I have also followed up on some of the contacts made to line up possible talks for Wanimate and I have contacted Blue Rocket Productions. I have gone back to the chopping board on my Diva in the Kitchen project idea!

Thats all Folks!