Tag: arts

The joy of short films

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Gympie’s Heart of Gold short film festival

The phrase most often heard during a four-day short film festival is that film-making, in particular short films, is a ‘labour of love‘.By that, the film-maker means he/she/they did not make a bean out of it – in fact probably lost money.

Gympie’s Heart of Gold International short film festival was held last weekend after a two-year hiatus through the Covid pandemic.

Festival director Jackson Lapsley Scott waded through 914 short movies from Australia and around the world to end up with a 170-film programme. We arrived at noon on Friday so despite the late start (the festival opened on Thursday night), we did well to sit through 32 movies, including two sessions under moonlight in an arena at the Gympie Showgrounds.

We’d been to this festival previously and found it most entertaining and absorbing. The joy of watching short films is, if you are not enjoying it, there’s only 10 or 15 minutes to sit through. Some of the films were really short. The endearing Irish animation, Gunter Falls in Love, runs for just two minutes. Gunter is a pudgy pug who falls in love on Christmas Day. The story is almost entirely conveyed with eye movements and sight gags. I’m not such a fan of animated movies, but at this festival there were some outstanding examples of the genre.

Some combine live action film with animated characters – this was first done to effect in 1988 with the acclaimed Who Framed Roger Rabbit. Who could forget the curvaceous character Jessica, who tells horny Eddie Valiant (Bob Hoskins): “I’m not bad, I’m just drawn that way!”

Wildebeest is a 20-minute film about a middle-aged couple who go on a trip of a lifetime safari only to be left behind with the wild animals in the South African savannah. This somewhat raunchy satire is darkly amusing. There were others that caught my attention – an Australian animation (Reboot), about an out of work skeleton actor whose famous old movie is being re-made using digital technology.  Skel’s not giving up without a fight.

Festival director Jackson Lapsley Scott’s name cropped up in a couple of movies as ‘executive producer’. I asked him did that mean he put up the money?

He explained that he had worked with Screen Queensland to help produce the movies, Thea Goes To Town and The Moths Will Eat Them Up. His role was to help facilitate script development, oversee budgets and be involved in other producer roles. Each film was allocated $50,000, which is quite generous in that some independent shorts are made with a $500 catering budget and a team of volunteers,

“With that sort of budget you can pay people properly. Fifty thousand might sound like a lot of money for a 12-minute film, but it can disappear very quickly.”

The Heart of Gold Festival was staged this year with the help of a $180,000 Federal Government RISE grant.

The Federal Government invested $200 million in the RISE programme to help arts organisations rebuild after Covid setbacks.

Jackson said the grant was vital to organising this year’s festival at a time when local sponsorship had dwindled due to the negative effects of Covid and floods and volunteer interest needing to be rebuilt. The grant also meant the festival could stage some free events to engage the local community.

“We probably would have been dead in the water or a very different looking festival without it,” he said.

“The grant allowed us to appoint people to paid positions and start rebuilding the festival after two years off.” 

Fortunately, audience numbers this year were higher than usual. So although the budget is yet to be finalised, safe to say HOG will be back in 2023.

“We were expecting numbers to be lower because of the way audiences responded to Covid,” Jackson said. “We were very heartened by the response.”

Heart of Gold took some short films on the road in late June to promote the festival, visiting Maryborough, Toowoomba, Pomona and Maleny. Jackson said the promotional tour was successful, so is planning to do it again next year and extend it to seven locations.

This year, the festival moved from its traditional home (the Gympie Civic Centre) to the showgrounds, making the most of the extra space, staging live music, an outdoor cinema, talks, workshops and podcasts.

The festival was not without some hiccups, including a savage storm on Thursday evening which brought strong winds, rain and hail. The storm damaged some of the festival’s outdoor tents and equipment and there was a blackout. But someone found a generator and a battery-powered PA, so the show went on!

The motivation for film-makers entering movies in a festival like Heart of Gold is that films are seen by a new audience and some are nominated for awards, judged by a panel of experts. Apart from cash prizes, winning awards brings street cred in the cinema business.

While there was a strong contingent of Australian films, there were worthy offerings from around the world. This year Heart of Gold introduced an audience’s choice award (won by The Invention).

This endearing 18-minute Irish film focuses on a Belfast lad who hatches a plan to steal cigarettes (for a good cause).

My favourite was Where is my Darling, a documentary about a homeless man, Lanz Priestley. Lanz organised distribution of bottled water during the drought to remote settlements in New South Wales. A charismatic character, he built up Dignity Water just using his mobile phone and a Facebook page.

Heart of Gold is one of 25 or more film festivals held in Australian cities and towns but is billed as the country’s biggest rural festival. It’s been going for 16 years, albeit with an absence during three of those years.

It’s plain to see there is no shortage of material. Heart of Gold’s brief is to find films that are positive and uplifting. But as Jackson said, post-Covid a lot of filmmakers focused on the darker side of life so it was difficult to find a balance.

The Best Short Film award was won by Like The Ones I Used To Know (Canada) directed by Annie St-Pierre. This is a bitter-sweet tale of a recently divorced man who visits his ex-in-laws on Christmas Eve to pick up his children.

Best Australian film, What Was It Like, was directed by Genevieve Clay-Smith. In this documentary, eight film-makers with intellectual disabilities interview their parents about what it was like when doctors delivered their diagnosis.

Which brings us to the question – where can you see movies like this if you don’t go to film festivals?

Many are available (free) on internet video platforms including YouTube and Vimeo. A link to the aforementioned Wildebeest is included here (don’t shoot the messenger!)

I’m wondering what it would take to convince the big cinema chains to reinstate the tradition of ‘shorts’ which used to precede feature films? It would be handy too if the big chains paid to screen the shorts, deriving much-needed income for independent film makers around the world.

Until that happens, the independent short film makers get by through applying for grants and asking sponsors and supporters for money. Many of the short films we saw stated in the credits that the film could not have been made without crowdfunding through the likes of Pozible, Go Fund Me and Kickstarter. As long-standing FOMM readers may remember, I canvassed the topic of crowdfunding back in 2015, as it was emerging. Good to see crowdfunding still supporting independent movies, art, theatre and music.

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Harping on about the arts

The Morrison government’s $200m RISE grants scheme for the arts helped many arts organisations and individuals revive their careers after the Covid hiatius. According to the Opposition, there’s still $20 million in the fund not yet distributed.

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The Brisbane Philharmonic strings with Emily Granger (harp) and Jonathan Henderson (flute). Photo by John Connolly.

In the aftermath of ‘Albo’s first 100 days,’ it could be constructive to talk about one good thing the previous Federal government did – creating the RISE scheme for the Arts.

The $200 million RISE (Restart Investment to Sustain and Expand) grants scheme was designed to arrest the declining financial health of arts organisations and creative individuals. The Covid-19 stimulus program was welcomed by the arts community as organisations large and small shared in the bounty.

We were witness to the fruits of one such grant application by the Brisbane Philharmonic Orchestra. The BPO has been touring regional towns with its newly acquired Salzedo concert harp. This $75,000 instrument looks and sounds gorgeous. The BPO toured a string quintet with two soloists – Emily Granger (harp) and Jonathan Henderson (flute). This ensemble played for 110 people at Warwick Town Hall last Saturday. Apart from the interesting and varied programme (Ralph Vaughan Williams, Mozart, Schoenberg, Faure), this was an occasion for ‘show and tell’.

Audience members were invited to come up to the stage after the concert and inspect the concert harp close up. BPO director John Connolly told the audience the custom-made concert harp used up a lot of the grant the orchestra received last year. He briefly explained the complexity of the instrument, built from maple and spruce and invited the audience to come up and inspect it after the concert.

The BPO’s application brief was to acquire this instrument and then take it on tour to places where people have probably never seen a concert harp. On this tour, the ensemble played at Pomona, Maryborough, Warwick, Toowoomba and Brisbane.

The RISE Fund was established to support the arts and entertainment sector to re-activate after two years of Covid disruption. The program offered arts and entertainment sector organisations assistance in the presentation of cultural and creative projects. The funding of activities and events was aimed at rebuilding confidence amongst investors, producers and consumers (hate that word.Ed).

The first RISE grants were issued in December 2020 in support of artists and organisations affected by COVID-19. The aim was to fund the delivery and presentation of activities across all art forms to audiences across Australia. Projects aimed at audiences in outer metropolitan, regional and remote areas were taken into account, as were projects that involved tours and use of local regional services and support acts.

The grant scheme provided $200 million over 2020-2021 and 2021-2022 to assist the financial viability of arts organisations. Among the first grants awarded was $1 million to the Byron Bay Blues Festival and $1.46 million to Woodfordia for its smaller-scale Bushtime festival.

Queensland grant recipients included Kate Miller-Heidke and her husband and musical partner Keir Nuttall. The pair, known for ‘Muriel’s Wedding – the Musical’, received a $200,000 grant to produce a new musical, Bananaland. QMusic, the umbrella organisation that represents musicians in Queensland, was another grant recipient.The Granite Belt Art and Craft Trail received $80,000 to help present a three-day showcase of artists and artisans around the region. Some grant awards have attracted criticism, however (see footnote).

In what one might term its ‘death throes’, the Morrison government allocated a further $20 million to the scheme in March this year. Just this week Opposition Shadow spokesman for the Arts Paul Fletcher took aim at Arts Minister Tony Burke for failing to distribute the last batch of funds. I reached out to Mr Burke’s office to ask (a) has the money had been allocated and (b) did this Labor government intend to extend or supplement the scheme.

Citizen journalists don’t often get a response to approaches like this. We make do with public statements, published details of grant schemes and quoting other publications. In this instance, given there was no response from Mr Burke’s office, we’ll let the Opposition have a free kick.

Fletcher took the chance to turn Albo’s headline into ‘100 days of lost opportunities for the Arts’.

“Since the election, Minister for the Arts Tony Burke has repeatedly failed to confirm $20 million in funding from the last round of the (RISE) program,” Mr Fletcher said in a statement.

“The RISE fund helped to create over 213,000 job opportunities across Australia by assisting the arts and entertainment sector re-establish itself post-pandemic,” he added.

“In recognising arts and entertainment as one of our hardest hit sectors during the pandemic, the Coalition Government extended the RISE program as part of the 2022-23 Budget.”

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Anthony (Albo) Albanese spent much of the week explaining what he and his government had achieved in its first 100 days. A lot of what was said had been said before – diplomatic forays into the Pacific, the mercy dash to Ukraine, the Quad meeting, mending fences with France and all that. There was the commitment to reducing the impact of climate change, and, if you did not know, the quiet scrapping of the cashless debit card previously imposed on some welfare recipients.

As the Canberra Times pointed out, the first 100 days was not without its challenges. The incoming Labor government was met by a perfect storm – rising interest rates together with high inflation and the subsequent higher prices at the petrol pump and supermarket checkout. Mr Albanese is already flagging budget measures in October to tackle soaring energy prices.

All up, it seems ‘Albo’ is still enjoying a honeymoon, although some of the Opposition’s gainsaying is gaining traction. I’m fairly sure that allowing ex-basketball giant Shaq O’Neill to make a surprise visit to the PM was what young people would call a ‘fail’. The story was that Shaq, a black man from the US, was lending his support to Albo’s campaign for recognition of indigenous Australians. Shaq is these days maybe better known for betting ads than his time with the LA Lakers. Besides, he made the PM look small, and we can’t have that.

It will indeed be interesting to see what kind of funding Albo and his team direct to the arts and entertainment sector. It would be great if organisations like the BPO or talented individuals like Keir and Kate could depend on more of the same. Covid-19 has not gone away and there are still many challenges facing those providing live entertainment.

Anyway, we thought the Brisbane Philharmonic Orchestra’s travelling concert at $20 concession was the bargain of the year. The BPO’s grant application proposed just such a concert series. The aim was a regional tour built around the acquisition of a new Concert Harp. The $102,000 grant was released in July last year. It shows how long it can take for an arts group to plan for and execute a tour like this. As with most arts presentations, the door take was clearly not going to cover tour costs, not to mention wages.

The BPO is Brisbane’s leading community orchestra with up to 200 musicians a year performing a variety of orchestral music.  It is sustained by donations, sponsorship and grants.

We looked around Warwick’s beautiful town hall, built in 1887, and were astonished by how many faces we recognised. We’ve only been here two years or so, but somehow seem to have gravitated to the side of town that loves a bit of culture. I hear the famous Birralee children’s choir is coming here later this month. You might have even read it here first.

Today’s FOMM is brought to you by the letter P for patronage. There should be more of it.

Footnote: The RISE scheme has its critics

The ballet dancer and the footie player

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Bob and Laurel at the ballet – photo by Belinda

As we settled into our ballet seats at the Lyric Theatre for Sunday’s matinee of Queensland Ballet’s Cinderella, two kilometres away another group of elite athletes were preparing for their own performance.

It wasn’t much of a decision, whether to take up our pre-booked $100 matinee seats or go to the last-minute NRL home game between the Brisbane Broncos and St George Illawarra Dragons.

“At least nobody spills beer on you at the ballet,” I jested, as She Who Also Goes to The Ballet ironed my suit. I’d have done it myself but she’d already hogged the ironing board.

The performance – the timeless story of Cinderella, a fable of class warfare and how goodness and generosity should always prevail, did not disappoint. It was another flawless piece of work from the Queensland Ballet company and the Queensland Festival Philharmonic orchestra. The audience was dominated by children and parents/grandparents and the usual gang of gangly girls whose curious splay-footed stance gives them away as ballet students.

The choreographer (Ben Stephenson) played it for laughs, casting Vito Bernasconi and Camilo Ramos as the ugly sisters. Tradition requires that the ugly sisters be played by men. Bernasconi and Ramos tried their best to look ungainly and uncoordinated, somehow falling on their faces without injuring themselves. Stephenson laid on the magic tricks, with the old woman transformed, with a minor explosion and cloud of smoke, into a svelte fairy godmother. Later SWAGTTB nudged me: “Did I miss the part when she changed the pumpkin into a coach?” Feed two old people lunch outdoors in the Queensland sun and then put them in a stuffy dark room for a few hours – someone’s bound to nod off.

During one of two intervals, SWAGTTB demonstrated her classical education by recounting the gruesome Brothers Grimm version of Cinderella, where the ugly sisters, in failed bids to fit into the glass slipper (and thereby become an idle rich Queen), mutilate their own feet.

I mentioned a favourite radio comedy skit from my childhood where the fairy story is told in spoonerisms – Rindercella and the Pransome Hince. It has an opaque provenance, this sketch, with some attributing it to Ronnie Barker. The latter may have performed it, but this much-recycled skit dates back to the 1930s. I’m sure Barker didn’t write it, as he was much funnier than Rindercella, which quickly becomes tedious and predictable. Eight year old boys find it hysterical, though.

Later, driving home and resisting the urge to listen to the rugby league ‘sudden death’ semi-final, we marvelled that QB could finance lavish productions like this, with top-level dancers and an orchestra. We’ve been subscribers for a long time and have seen this world-class company grow and prosper. QB’s annual report shows it made a net operating profit of $1.64 million in 2017. They did this with the help of some $5.38 million in ticket sales and $7.25 million from sponsors and State Government grants.

Not for nothing do I make comparisons between Queensland Ballet’s company of dancers and the injury-depleted Brisbane Broncos squad. Those of you familiar with arts productions will know about ‘notes’ – the after-performance meeting when the producer/director goes through the things that worked and the things that could have been better. I can’t imagine QB”s ballet master having too much to say except maybe chide someone for raising the curtain a few seconds before everyone was in place for the third curtain-call.

Post the 48-18 drubbing by the Dragons, I imagine Broncos coach Wayne Bennett had a few terse things to say to his squad who, well, just didn’t cut it. In the spirit of Rindercella, the Sisty Uglers (all Dragons forwards) bullied Rindercella (Broncos forwards and halves) into submission. There was no Gairy Fodmother to save the day. The final whistle blew and the Broncos turned into pumpkins and field mice and retreated to the sheds.

As Wayne Bennett said later, the squad was decimated by injuries all year including losing three top players for the season.

Now here’s something: you never hear a ballet company complain about the inevitable stress fractures or knee, ankle and back injuries. While dancers’ rarely suffer the traumatic torque injuries common among rugby players, the cumulative effect of injuries can be serious.

When key footie players are injured, there are constant media updates. For example, when Broncos playmaker Andrew McCullough was taken from the field on a stretcher a few weeks back with serious concussion, the updates and speculation on his welfare were continuous.

Rugby league players can all have a month or two off now before the pre-season training begins in November. All the while they are pulling in salaries which range from the minimum ($80,000) to $1 million a year for top players like Cameron Smith or Johnathan Thurston. The average NRL salary is $371,000.

After Cinderella finishes on September 16, Queensland Ballet dancers will be straight into rehearsals for The Nutcracker, which starts its season on December 8. It’s a big deal, being appointed principal dancer of a ballet company, but it’s not something you’d do for the money. Averages are suspect in such a small field, but it seems principal dancers in Australia can earn around $75k-$85k. The average salary for a company dancer is about $48k.

Budding footie players and ballet dancers start working on their craft at an early age. Their parents foot the bill and the time to take children to dance lessons or footie training. Both disciplines require intense training and perseverance, particularly through injury and rehabilitation.

Then there’s the ongoing expense of buying ballet flats ($25 a pair) or pointe shoes (up to $100 a pair). You could argue that parents of footie-mad kids are up for a new pair of boots every time Junior moves up a size. That’s around $200-$250 a pair for the best, or they can browse Gumtree for second-hand boots.

A hard-working ballet dancer, however, can go through 50 to 80 pairs of pointe shoes ($5,000 – $8,000) a year. Some companies buy dancers’ shoes, others can’t. Professional dancers and aspirants may have to factor it into their personal budgets. If you wondered why pointe shoes wear out so quickly, every time a dancer jumps on pointe, three times her body weight is carried on the tip of her big toe. QB has a donation page where you can help out with this inevitable expense.

In arts as in sport, many have expectations, but only a small percentage make the grade to top billing. The difference in sport – and this is particularly noticeable in soccer and American basketball’s NBL – the top-level salaries can be huge.

Contact sports like rugby union or rugby league attract the support and big dollars from television broadcast rights and sponsorship and, more recently, from betting agencies.

Meanwhile, it is up to supporters of the arts to make sure superb creative companies like Queensland Ballet can cover their costs each and every year. I can’t see anyone promoting a televised State of Origin dance-off between State ballets anytime soon, even though it’s not a bad idea.