DNEG Sydney is one voice of many from the screen sector protesting massive cuts to funding for film and television flagged by the Minns government ahead of Tuesday’s budget.
The film and TV industry is warning of a potential exodus of thousands of jobs and the loss of NSW-based visual effects companies and production houses to Victoria and Queensland if the cuts,worth an estimated $60 million annually,are not reversed.
DNEG Sydney’s Andrew Jackson was special-effects supervisor on Oppenheimer.Steven Siewert
The Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance (MEAA) and Screen Producers Australia held crisis talks with Arts Minister John Graham on Thursday but said they had been advised the cuts were locked into the budget.
Graham acknowledged on Friday the situation was very serious,and said he was working to find a way to support and protect the screen and production sector.
“To address the urgent situation,we have committed $5 million to assure projects currently in production can proceed. This has secured five projects and 1372 jobs,” he said.
“We will continue to work through the budget situation and we are evaluating current submissions on a case-by-case basis.”
Thor:Love and Thunder,starring Chris Hemsworth and Natalie Portman,is among the productions to have received financial incentives.Marvel
The government announced last week cuts made by the former Coalition government shortly before the election. Three major programs subsidising movie and television,digital and visual effects making in the state have been affected.
These include financial incentives that have supported local production ofThe Fall Guy,Amazon’s,ABC TV’sMystery Road,Thor:Love and Thunder,and Peter Rabbit.
Sydney Harbour Bridge starred in Ryan Reynolds’ action film Fall Guy.Steven Siewert
MEAA’s chief executive Eric Madeley said it was bitterly disappointing that the government was persisting with the cuts and union members would meet next week to decide their next move.
“Our people are facing devastation,” she said. “It’s like the COVID pandemic all over again.
“Over 4000 screen technical and crew roles will be affected by effectively creating a screen production drought overnight - the incentives elsewhere will make that inevitable. That’s over 500 cast members,1600 or more extras,and 1200 or more supply chain businesses.”
The Made in NSW program was introduced in 2016 to attract offshore and Australian film and television productions to the state.
One of them was the Mad Max prequel,Furiosa,a milestone project for which DNEG will provide visual effects. It established a Sydney branch earlier this year after being lured to NSW by multiple funding incentives.
DNEG Sydney’s clients make use of a 10 per cent rebate for work on post,digital and visual effects production in NSW introduced by Create NSW in 2019,which led to NSW securing post-production work for Baz Luhrmann’sElvis.
Alaric McAusland is head of the visual effects and animation studio,DNEG.Edwina Pickles
“We’ll be reviewing any and all our strategic options in the time ahead,” DNEG Sydney’s managing director Alaric McAusland said.
“From a November 2022 launch,we’ve already created around 200 new jobs in NSW. We’re looking to expand our offering here creating hundreds of new jobs for talented young artists and creative technicians and significantly expand our graduate intake. We can’t do this unless NSW offers a globally competitive PDV incentive.
“Victoria and Queensland which have more optimal incentives will now benefit from this growth. Job creation and investment will happen in Victoria and Queensland not here.”
Competition for local and overseas productions is fierce between Queensland,Victoria,and NSW where big projects can be a huge local job generator.
International studios and local producers “stack” subsidies including the federal government’s offsets with the NSW rebates creating a pipeline of inbound investment worth hundreds of millions of dollars. This,in turn,supports the presence of visual effects,animation,and post-production businesses in the state.
Screen Producers Australia chief executive Matthew Deaner said the cuts were a disaster for screen practitioners in the state at a time when Australian content quotas were being considered by the Federal Government,unleashing local production.
He said the timing of the cuts was particularly hard to understand coming just days after the deadline for consultation on a new state policy for arts and the creative industries.
Antony Partos,a screen composer based in Sydney’s Disney Studios,said:“I will absolutely lose business over this as there is such fierce vying for work between the states to attract film and studio business because each knows it has such a huge multiplier effect on the economy.
“My studio employs eight full-time staff. On any given project,I will employ a quartet,up to an orchestra,with 50 or so players,engineers,and arrangers,and I’m only one tiny piece in the puzzle.”
The NSW opposition arts spokesperson Kevin Anderson said the government would own all its cuts once the NSW budget was brought down. Graham said he would be meeting post-production and visual effects studios next week and would be holding an industry round table later this to consider a revised approach to domestic and international screen support – in film,television,and digital games.
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