20/05/2024
When good ol' gummint actually gets it right!
Imagine finding yourself invited to join dozens of very clever, emerging creative people of all ages from north and far north Queensland to learn how feature and other films are professionally made. That was the fabulous predicament Cranky Curlew’s George jumped into last year as one of the writers for a very intensive series of workshops and actual film shoots known as Film Intensive Script to Screen (FISS) - a program designed to rapidly build the filmmaking skills of the region.
Last Friday that adventure came to an end at Screen Queensland’s brand new, $12 million plus studio in Cairns and the taller curlew couldn’t have felt more chuffed.
For too long Australian and international film companies, large and small have come north to shoot on the Reef, in the rainforest and across the outback, but having to pay big bucks to fly in, feed and accommodate their crews then leave as soon as possible to keep their budgets intact. With the new studio - a recycled Bunnings building with a quarter acre sound stage inside, recording and editing studios, props construction areas and much more - the big and not so big fish of filmmaking will be able to stay to develop their productions in Cairns.
Even better, through the creative vison of Kolperi Outback Filming's Ashley Burgess, Essential Screen Skills’ Moneth Monteymayor, and Screen Well’s Ben Steel, FISS was the first step on the long but essential road to grow our own film workers’ skills to support the visiting production houses as well as begin to make our own productions from and about the north.
For filmmaking in this vast region, there’s never been a more exciting time. On two weekends this curlew found himself scrambling with some very sharp younger peeps to nut out short scripts in a couple of hours, have them printed and passed to actors, ready to learn their lines, then jump into and complete shooting the films before the weekends were out! All done with a professionally-mentored crew that included screenwriters: Jan Cattoni and Sue McPherson; cinematographers Murray Lui and later Miranda Porter; director, Martha Goddard; producer, Ashley Burgess and ‘below the line’ legends: Andrew McInally (1st AD) with north Queensland’s grip guru, John Baker; sound supremo, Terry Mehan; art department diva, Karen Ballantyne; costume queen Jean Marashlain; make-up maestro, Sue Kimm; locations landmark Karen Jones and classy casting director, Rachel Terry.
This was one intense intensive. So much so that one participant commented that she’d completed a three year uni degree in filmmaking but had actually learnt more from this string of weeks and weekends of totally immersed, on-the-job, filmmaking.
What resulted was a number of short films culminating in Tullywell, where a mum and daughter clash over what happened to disappeared dad amid beliefs of alien abduction from the FNQ region famous for sightings and the first crop circles.
Tullywell, Cardwell meets Tully (get it?), was filmed with all the mentors and mentees in the literal depths of the wet season amid downpours and sapping humidity with flooding a constant threat, pushing the crew to their absolute limits of endurance and ability. The short film will soon be entered into the festival circuit.
It’s not often that Cranky Curlew has been known to praise the work of good ol’ gummint, but this experience was a stand-out that needs acknowledgement. The benefit of this program, which will hopefully be the first of many, cannot be overstated. North and far north Queenslanders received unparalleled entry training for an industry capable of transforming the region with big spends that support many local businesses. With new skills and opportunities appearing, northern creatives may no longer need to leave their home towns to the draw of the big smoke.
Screen Queensland hasn’t just been busy in Cairns either. As a Yunbenun, Magnetic Island curlew, there’s been several invaluable workshops and industry training events in Townsville too.
Now, through the new Cairns studio, under the innovative management of head honcho, Mark Melrose, visiting productions and hopefully, more programs like FISS, the local creative people at the heart of filmmaking can begin to drive the benefits of a multi-million dollar industry in the north, flourish where they come from and enrich their region in immeasurable ways.
Photo: A tall but not so Cranky Curlew does the boom mic thing during a filming exercise with other FISS participants at the new SQ Studio in Cairns last week. Photo: Michelle La.
