Australian cinema is still big and we are producing the same amount of content but the audience has gotten tremendously smaller, being only 1.9% of the box office share in 2016 (Screen Australia 2017). We have an audience viewing problem, we’ve not carried on the tradition of seeing our own films. Old style screen activities should not be taken for granted but it seems that new screen activities and infiltration of new media technologies are emerging e.g. using devices simultaneously. It has been discovered that new industries are being created and amateur content creators are producing content on platforms such as YouTube rather than traditional forms of media (Cunningham 2017).
Box office statistics should not be the be all end all. Box office importance is overstated and the audience for cinema attendance often has little regard to the success of the content (Verhoeven et al. 2015 p. 8). The audience is more diffused and has moved across platforms, so it is hard to just measure the success of Australian content by cinema and box office statistics as this can’t measure a reliable market for impact of the ‘invisible’ audience. Box office success in Australia also doesn’t account for the international success of Australian films such as The Babadook 2014 which will be discussed (Verhoeven et al. 2015 p. 9).
(Image Sourced from: https://www.shutterstock.com/video/clip-21665020-stock-footage-empty-cinema-hall-with-red-seat.html?src=rel/9307574:6)
But there is also the issue of distribution problems and the ‘Americanisation’ of Australian cinemas. Hollywood films receive box office success as they are promoted more heavily and are released at prime-time whist Australian cinema is left in the dust (Bowls et. At. 2007, p. 97). Film makers and their limited funding means most expenses are contributed towards the film itself and there isn’t much left for marketing. Money is the primary obstacle for the Australian film industry but how can we enable people to check content beforehand? A possible way for people to gain interest and to create hype towards a film is through screen tests and possible pre-releases to gain crowd funding which is what The Babadook 2014 did.
Access and marketing are the biggest issues for Audiences not meeting Australian cinema. The Babadook 2014, was a major international success… but not in Australia. Many Australian audiences hadn’t heard of the film such as myself.
(Image Sourced from: http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/article/40205358/the-babadook-has-became-an-unlikely-gay-icon-for-pride-month)
I first discovered and encountered The Babadook character through his representation of the LGBTQi+ community. I stumbled across articles dedicated to him, embracing him as a gay icon through being listed in the LGBT movie category on Netflix (Hunt 2017). Through this, the film gained more popularity internationally and finally gained recognition for the film itself and the fact that the film was created in Australia. But more about the film and not so much about the fictional character, it received big compliments from reviews as it is simply a well-produced film. It’s not typically Australian, it’s Low budget and it is rediscovering or reconsidering genre films. It is not a straightforward horror film as it is not about a ‘monster’ but more a psychological thriller (Bradshaw 2014) but shows the manifestation of depression, grief and mental illness. But when this film was released in 2014, many Australian’s didn’t get to experience this popular film until recent years. So maybe the entire problem for Australian Audiences isn’t the audience itself, but rather the audiences access to the films and knowledge about them prior to release. The problem may also be how the success of a film is measured and if box office success really the only way a film is regarded as good?
References
Bradshaw, P 2014, ‘The Babadook review – a superbly acted, chilling Freudian thriller’, The Guardian Australian Edition, 24 October, viewed 21 December 2017, https://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/oct/23/the-babadook-review-chilling-freudian-thriller
Bowles at al. 2007, ‘’More than ballyhoo?: The importance of understanding film consumption in Australia’, Metro : media & education magazine, no. 152, pp. 96-101.
Cunningham, S 2017, Australia’s screen future is online: time to support our new content creators, The Conversation, 21 August, viewed 21 December 2017, https://theconversation.com/australias-screen-future-is-online-time-to-support-our-new-content-creators-82638
Hunt, E 2017, ‘The Babadook: how the horror movie monster became a gay icon’ The Guardian Australian Edition, 11 June, viewed 21 December 2017, https://www.theguardian.com/film/2017/jun/11/the-babadook-how-horror-movie-monster-became-a-gay-icon
Verhoeven, D et al. 2015, ‘Australian films at large: expanding the evidence about Australian cinema performance, Studies in Australasian Cinema, vol. 9, no. 1, pp. 7-20.
Dana Said 