• Five new AFC Writer Fellowship grants for the development of feature film scripts were awarded at the end of June. This year's Fellowship recipients include Cannes Camera d'Or winner Shirley Barrett, AWGIE Award-winner Louise Fox, and the winner of the 2005 AFI Award for Best Screenplay in Television Jacquelin Perske. Teams awarded Fellowships this year are Best Original Screenplay AFI Award-winners Stavros Kazantzidis and Allanah Zitserman; and Academy Award nominees Anthony Lucas, Mark Shirrefs and Julia Lucas.
  
  The Writer Fellowships are designed to acknowledge the success and achievements of Australian writers who have received significant local and international awards and/or have enjoyed commercial success. The program supports the development of distinctive features at an early stage on the basis of the writer or writer/director's track record and the strength of the story idea.
  
  The full media release with film details can be read here.
  
  
• In conjunction with the 53rd Sydney Film Festival, the AFC's IndiVision presented the Indie Screen Director Dialogues in June - two professional masterclasses for filmmakers about low-budget filmmaking. Kelly Reichardt from the US discussed the process of making her film Old Joy on a budget of A$40,000. The second masterclass featured Israeli filmmaker Danny Lerner (writer/director of Frozen Days) and his producer brother Alon. Both of the masterclasses attracted 60 attendees, and were held in the AFC's refurbished Theatrette in Sydney. A networking opportunity followed both, with participants reporting that they were energised and inspired by the directors' low-budget production methodologies and the possibilities they presented. Read a full wrap on the masterclasses on our Skills and Networking pages.



• In June, a collaboration between the AFC and the ABC came to fruition with the launch of Chiko Accidental Alien, an animated interactive online children's game, now live on ABC Online. The project is the fifth to be launched from a slate funded under the AFC and ABC New Media and Digital Services Broadband Production Initiative (BPI), and is the first broadband interactive game to be produced from the BPI. This initiative is aimed at encouraging and supporting highly experienced film and television practitioners to team up with experienced new media producers, to produce interactive broadband programs for delivery via ABC Online and ABC Television.
  
  Infused with humour that will entice game lovers of all ages, Chiko Accidental Alien immerses players in a rich narrative-driven animated environment. The multi-level game-play follows the adventures of an inquisitive thirteen-year-old boy, Chiko, as he finds himself at the controls of a spacecraft en route to a fun park on the far-off peanut-shaped planet of Squerx.
  
  Read the full media release here.



• Recipients of various AFC Fellowships and Internships travel around the globe to develop skills in their chosen fields. This month our feature article is by writer Louise Fox who travelled to Los Angeles to observe series creator and executive producer David Milch working on the HBO series Deadwood. (Louise has also just received an AFC Writer Fellowship for a new project. See first headline above.)
  
  We now have two other new reports on our website from recipients of AFC funds.
  
  In 2005 cinematographer Vincent Monton received Fellowship funds to research digital production and projection. Then in May this year, Vincent went to the National Association of Broadcasters in Las Vegas to follow up on his Fellowship with a supplement. His report can be found here.
  
  Heather Croall undertook a Research Fellowship in 2005 to observe digital, interactive and cross-platform financing, and production and delivery of online documentary content. She studied organisations that lead the world in this field - WGBH in Boston, the Bell Fund in Toronto, the NESTA FutureLab in Bristol and the BBC in London. Her report maps some of Heather's experiences at these organisations.

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• Several Film Development strands are undergoing major changes from 1 July 2006. Please consult the new Film Development Funding Guidelines 2006 now available on the AFC website. Applicants can contact Film Development administration staff with specific queries. Phone: 02 9321 6444.
  
  
• AFC funding deadlines - July/August:
  
  FILM DEVELOPMENT
  7 July
  New Screenwriters Program (NSP)
  Strand L - Shooting Time-Critical Material
  
  14 July
  Strand G - Short TV Drama Series and Animation Production (25-55 mins)
  
  21 July
  Strand B - Seed Feature Funding
  
  28 July
  General Development Investment (GDI)
  
  4 August
  Strand I - IndiVision Low-budget Feature Production
  
  11 August
  Strand L - Shooting Time-Critical Material
  Strand V - Interactive Digital Media Early Development
  Strand W - Interactive Digital Media Matched Investment Development Funding
  
  18 August
  Strand S - Animation Development
  
  
  INDIGENOUS
  4 August
  NIDF 9
  
  
  INDUSTRY AND CULTURAL DEVELOPMENT
  14 Aug 2006
  ICD Interactive Media Fund
  New Projects Fund
  
  
  TRAVEL GRANTS
  1 Aug
  For attending MIPCOM: Television Market, Cannes
  Type B (Producers with market experience)
  Type C (Producers developing market experience)
  
  
  
• AFC funding approvals.

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• Sixteen rare photos from the 1920 Australian film The Kelly Gang have been discovered in Bendigo, Victoria, and donated to the NFSA. The film was produced and directed by Harry Southwell and filmed in the Melbourne suburb of Coburg. The stills were discovered by Max and Lynne Douthat who, during a move, were sorting the belongings of Max's late uncle, Frank Tomlin. Tomlin had played a policeman in the film and had taken the photographs during shooting. Read more about this incredible discovery and donation in the Recent Donations pages.



• The jazz documentary The Graeme Bell All Stars: Play On was made with the assistance of the NFSA and recently screened on ABC TV. Focusing on the famous Australian jazz band, the film features interviews with a number of Australian jazz stalwarts, including Bob and Len Barnard, Bob Henderson, Kate Dunbar and the legendary Graeme Bell. The film was made by Marco Ianniello, a recent graduate of the Australian Film Television and Radio School. For the past three years, Marco has been assisted by NFSA Access Officer, Simon Drake who has provided footage and technical assistance. Read more here.



• A recently published book on the story of Australian radio is assisting in the search for missing radio programs. Don't Touch That Dial, by former radio presenter and historian Wayne Mac, is a comprehensive history of the development of Australian radio from the early 20th century to the present. The NFSA assisted Wayne Mac in the production of the book, and has placed a special notice in it appealing to all Australians to contribute to the Archive's radio collection. "We're looking for air-checks, jingles, promos, programs, news bulletins, photographs, publicity materials, memorabilia, and indeed anything that will help future generations relive the heyday of radio," says Radio Specialist Nick Weare. Read more about the book and the NFSA's request here.



• Throughout July, the NFSA Cinémathèque at Electric Shadows Cinemas in Canberra will screen a new season of works: A Band of Outsiders: the Cinematic Underworld of Jean-Pierre Melville. Most famous of Melville's films is his series of richly mannered Serie noir and Policier French genre films. His features and their intense realisation of the 'ethics' of underworld sub-cultures are among the most influential in modern cinema - they are a strong presence in the work of Martin Scorsese, Quentin Tarantino, Johnnie To, John Woo and many other masters of the cinema crime thriller. Read the whole article on the Screenings and Events pages. And visit the NFSA Cinémathèque website for details of the Melville screenings.



• Canberra film lovers enjoyed a treat on 29 June when award-winning documentary maker John Hughes hosted a special free screening of his new work The Archive Project at the NFSA. The film explores the work of the Melbourne Realist film movement after World War Two, whose activities and films were crucial to the emergence of film festivals in Melbourne and Sydney. Drawing strongly on the work of the Realists and the holdings of the NFSA, as well as other unlikely film archive sources (like ASIO surveillance footage), Hughes reveals the communal and artistic histories of Realists. Read more on the Screenings and Events pages.

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• AFC-funded short films The Last Chip (d: Heng Tang) and The Mechanicals (d: Leon Ford) have both collected awards at the Short Shorts Film Festival in Tokyo. The Mechanicals won the Student Jury Prize, and The Last Chip collected the Asia International Best Film prize before going on to win the Grand Prix of the festival.



• 'If film is about devoting yourself wholly to imagining, Cannes is about imagining a place wholly devoted to film,' says Denie Pentecost, writer/director of short film Sexy Thing, which was funded under the AFC's short film production strand and was selected to screen, as one of 12 shorts from around the world, in the Shorts Competition 2006 Cannes Film Festival. Denie gives the lowdown on her experience at the festival on our Festivals and Awards pages.



• Five new features have been added to the Embassy Roadshow collection for 2006: Peaches, Somersault, Dirty Deeds, Danny Deckchair and Three Dollars. Four new shorts added to the Roadshow include Green Bush, Danya, The Mysterious Explorations of Jasper Morello and Crooked Mick. The two documentaries in the collection, Facing the Music and Year of the Dogs, will have special screening events in Amman, the capital of Jordan, in July. The Embassy Roadshow is a travelling film festival program presented through Australian embassies overseas, showcasing a selection of contemporary Australian films to people around the world. It is an initiative of the Australian International Cultural Council, and is managed by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and the AFC.



• Black Screen is distributing over 200 DVD compiles of Indigenous films across Australia for NAIDOC Week (2-9 July). Look out for NAIDOC screening locations in local Indigenous communities, local councils, universities, Indigenous health and welfare services, as well as the general workplaces, as part of cultural awareness activities. Free screenings of the compiles will also take place at cinemas and film festivals including Toowoomba Cinema, End Credits Film Club in Cairns, and the Colourised Festival in Brisbane. Black Screen is an Australian Film Commission program that provides Indigenous communities and the broader Australian public with access to Indigenous films.



• A reminder that high school and primary school teachers in regional areas who would like free cinema screenings of Australian films for their students can now book online. The AFC, through its Industry and Cultural Development program, offers school students the opportunity to view and discuss contemporary and classic features, shorts and documentaries in local communities throughout regional Australia. To book screenings, teachers can now access a quick and easy online booking system on the Australian Teachers of Media (ATOM) website. If your school is not able to access any screenings on offer, you can contact the AFC's Education Programs Coordinator, Bob Percival, to discuss organising a screening in your local cinema, or a free screening at your school if there is no cinema nearby. For more information about the program and the films, read the Screenings listings on the AFC website.



• The Australian films Candy, Ten Canoes, The Caterpillar Wish, Puppy, Unfolding Florence, Solo, Irresistible, Jindabyne, Like Minds, Shot of Love and Kenny are screening in July so keep an eye out for them at your local cinema.



• The Big Screen Touring Film Festival visited the town of Briagolong in Victoria's Gippsland for a second year over the Queen's birthday long weekend. Friday's grand opening night film Josh Jarman was introduced by writer/director Pip Mushin, who stayed after the screening to chat to festival patrons and feast on the supper provided by the Briagolong Mechanics' Hall Committee. As well as a banquet of Australian features and shorts, the weekend featured short films from Wellington Shire's Rural Access program and the Wellington Shire Short Film Festival Competition. Big Screen experienced a huge commitment from the Briagolong community, culminating in a magnificent turn-out over the weekend. Thanks, Briagolong!
  
  Big Screen has just reccied Port Augusta, Woomera and Roxby Downs for a South Australian tour 15-25 September. Michelle and Roger Coles from Cinema Augusta will be hosting Big Screen for a third year, with the support of the City of Port Augusta. About 170km up the road, the Woomera Board will host a satellite Big Screen Festival in its beautiful 1960s 500+ seat theatre. Topping off the tour, Roxby Downs will host screenings in its new Culture Precinct & Leisure Centre. Roxby Downs is in the middle of a resource boom and has approximately 5,000 people living there, nearly 1,000 of which are school children - all set for our free school screenings! For further details on the touring programs visit the Big Screen website.



• The following international film festival submission deadlines are coming up in July-October: Telluride Film Festival; San Sebastian International Film Festival; Pusan International Film Festival; Mannheim-Heidelberg International Film Festival; London Film Festival; Sao Paulo International Film Festival; Transmediale - International Media Art Festival Berlin; Torino Film Festival Cinema Giovani; Sundance Film Festival; Stuttgart Filmwinter Festival; Mumbai International Film Festival for Documentary, Short & Animation Films; Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival. See Festival Profiles for more information.

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• The following AFC publications have been updated and are available online, or contact publishing@afc.gov.au for a hard copy:
  Film Development Funding Guidelines July 2006



• Are you looking for details of a particular Australian film title - feature, short, TV drama or documentary? The Searchable Film Database includes Australian and co-produced features, TV drama and documentaries from 1990 and shorts from 1998. It is updated on the AFC website each month.



• Upcoming Production Report.



• Latest updates to industry statistics in Get the Picture Online.

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• Welcome to Richard Brennan, Project Manager, Film Development.



• Farewell to Cristina Pozzan, Project Manager.



• Positions vacant: National Film and Sound Archive Presenters; Project Accountant; Production Manager, Video and Telecine; Manager Finance.

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• As part of Arts Law Week, 10-17 July, the AFC is hosting the Arts Law Centre of Australia's Legal Issues for Filmmakers seminar. This free seminar will cover copyright, chain of title, financing, co-productions, fair dealing and defamation.
  
  Date: Wednesday 12 July
  Time: 6-8pm
  Venue: AFC Theatrette, Ground Floor, 150 William Street, Woolloomooloo NSW 2011
  Speakers: Katherine Giles, Arts Law Centre; Kate Gilchrist, ABC Legal; Stephen Boyle, AFC; Michael Frankel, Frankel Lawyers; Janine Pearce, Nina Stevenson & Associates
  Bookings: 02 9356 2566 OR artslaw@artslaw.com.au



• SPAAmart, Australasia's only feature film market, is back again in 2006, presented by the AFC and the Screen Producers Association of Australia (SPAA). The 4th annual SPAAmart is a selective entry marketplace positioning Australia and New Zealand feature film projects with international and local film financing sources. It will be held alongside the SPAA Conference, 13-15 November, Sheraton Mirage Hotel Gold Coast. Applications open in July. In 2005, SPAAmart hosted executives from companies such as Arclight Films; Backup Films, France; Beyond Films, UK; Celluloid Dreams; Hopscotch; Dendy Films/Becker Entertainment; and Fortissimo Film Sales, among many others.
  
  Enquiries to Dale Fairbairn, SPAAmart 2006 Manager, spaa@afc.gov.au or visit the SPAA Conference website. More details will be available in upcoming issues of AFC News.



• The AFC's Industry and Cultural Development Division proudly supports the following upcoming festivals:
  
  Revelation Perth International Film Festival 2006
  13-23 July
  
  Melbourne International Film Festival (MIFF) 2006
  26 July-13 August
  
  The Shoot Out 2006
  Newcastle - 7-9 July
  
  15/15 Touring Film Festival 2006
  Warrnambool - 14 July
  Wagga Wagga - 22 July
  
  St Kilda Film Festival Tour 2006
  Hobart 7-8 July
  Adelaide 21-22 July
  Sydney 28-29 July




• Showcasing the best of Australian media art, Experimenta Under the Radar opened at the Foundation for Art and Creative Technology in Liverpool, UK, on 16 June. The show encompasses a diverse range of artforms including: interactive installations, video projections, film, animation, data sonification, industrial design and game technology design. The exhibition and video program are part of Undergrowth - Australian Arts UK 2006, a two-year Australian contemporary arts promotion program in the UK. The tour's next stop is the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London in November.



• For the 2007 exhibition Experimenta Play, Experimenta is commissioning new interactive works that allow the audience to play and be played upon. Up to $6,000 per project is available for emerging and mid-career Australian artists to create new interactive media art works. Visit the Experimenta website to download the guidelines and application form. The closing date for applications is Friday 21 July.



• The ATOM Film, Television and Multimedia Awards are calling for entries. Deadline 12 July. The awards presentation will be held in August at ACMI in Melbourne. Visit the ATOM Awards website for further details.



• Popcorn Taxi, a regular film event where filmmakers and film lovers can meet, watch films of all types, and discuss the filmmaking process all year round runs in Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, Brisbane and Darwin. For further information and screening details visit the Popcorn Taxi website.



• mo:life monthly is an informal gathering on the second Monday of every month, that offers the opportunity to discuss the latest advances and opportunities in mobile media technology and culture. Find out about the various players and networks and what they offer, explore the capabilities of the latest handsets, and see what others around the globe are doing with this new format. Contact d.opitz@metroscreen.org.au



• Metro Screen's Members Production Group meets on the first Tuesday of every month at 6.30pm at Metro Screen. Meetings are open to all Metro Screen members and give you the opportunity to pitch new ideas, discuss your current projects, share skills and resources, and collaborate with others to produce your own films, TV content and media projects.



• ScreenWest and PAC Screen Workshops have announced the PAC Script Lab initiative, monthly rehearsed readings of West Australian feature film scripts on the last Sunday of each month. The aim is to hone West Australian scripts and increase the profile, quality and awareness of West Australian film projects.



• IF Magazine's What's On in Film guide to screen events is sponsored by the AFC. The July to December 2006 calendar is now available as a PDF on the AFC website.



• Other AFC-supported activities and events.

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Writer Louise Fox received AFC funding to spend a week in the dynamic 'writing room' and on the set of HBO's Deadwood - the modern US western drama series with a cult following. Observing the show's creator and executive producer David Milch in action was worth its weight in gold.

Jacquelin Perske and I have travelled a long way: she from Sydney via Hanoi with her husband Rowan and three children in tow, while I'd just arrived in LA on the long-haul 14-hour flight from Sydney. We're at the Melody Ranch, LA (the original location for The Magnificent Seven) at seven in the morning to witness the magnificence of our favourite HBO cable television show Deadwood and its creator, executive producer and mythological figurehead, David Milch, in the trailer they called 'the writing room'.

Milch hasn't arrived yet so it's up to 50-year-old Mary, a former news producer, now intern, to take us around the exquisitely detailed period set, and breathlessly tell us about David's method and modus operandi - or lack of it. Jac and I are trepidatious enough, but with Mary's eyes glowing like a cult acolyte, we start to get very excited with her stories of life-changing moments, of the mysteries of writing being revealed at whim, of secrets disclosed and a rare mind - in fact a genius - at work in front of you. How is this possible, I thought, my healthy and nationally encouraged cynicism rearing up.

Back in the room, it starts to fill up with various young, uni student-looking types taking their places on chairs and a couch, while in the middle is a space surrounded by pillows. Two computer screens face the 'audience'. Abby, David's typist, settles in and opens up a scene from Episode 12 in the third series that's being shot on stages merely metres away. Jac and I squint to read it as David Milch walks in.

Sixtyish, casual, New York Jewish cool intellectual. We're introduced, asked to give a quick precis of our CVs, and are immediately taken with Milch on a tour of the set, a scene in rehearsal and the edit rooms. He is generous, funny, curious and extremely warm - his talk flitting between history, literature, making television and personal anecdotes. The mind is indeed impressive, but it's only when he returns to the trailer and focuses on the writing task at hand that I see what Mary's talking about.

Over the next two hours or so, Milch writes a scene between one of the new main characters in series three and one of his employees. It's the first scene of the episode. It's informative, it sets the conditions for the episode, it's entertaining and elegantly written, but it's also surprisingly, deeply psychologically true, rich, resonant, heart-breaking, funny and slightly mysterious. It has the stuff of life through it. Its illuminations and frustrations are written deeply into the characters' connections and near misses. And while the scene is being composed, the author spends half the time turning around and explaining every nuance to any interested party.

Milch talks freely about Jungian psychology and fathers and daughters, about American theatrical history and the colonial imagination, about Walter Benjamin, Robert Penn Warren, his own addictive behaviours. He talks about his fraternity brother at Yale, George Bush, and even does a credible and entertaining imitation of his dog.

Watching Milch write - and you do see him labour and work every single phrase, every thought, even work all his big print over and over and over again - allows us an audience with one of the most lively minds I've ever encountered. Coming from a country deeply suspicious of intellect (in television, can you imagine?!) and of the academe, it's a deep delight to see a mind trained on a television script with such a dazzling process, and offering such rich results. No wonder I love this show so much! It's worked and re-worked by a huge mind, a restless heart and a fearless spirit. Not only that, the bravery that infects the entire Deadwood organism comes from Milch down. Everyone we spoke to - writers, directors, actors, designers, extras, grips - are all emboldened by this lawless artist.

For a show that costs so much money - enormous crews, detailed sets, horses and riders etc. - they sail enormously close to the wind in shooting. Scripts aren't fully finished till the day before, and pages for the next day's scenes are often delivered to directors, actors etc. at the last minute; not because Milch is slow or reticent, but because he trusts entirely his creative adrenaline, and his nerve never wavers. Sure, the general arcs are pre-planned, but so many of the scenes we saw written or at least largely re-written were done so to be shot in the few days ahead.

But then he's David Milch, with a CV that includes Hill Street Blues and co-creating NYPD Blue, and he can run the show however he damn well pleases. Plus he's working for HBO, who seem very comfortable taking risks on people who have produced past results.

So there's the bravery of the writing, its intelligence, its breadth of influence, its realistic sex and violence, its language full of profanity and poetry. Then there's the enormous crew and cast, the bonhomie of the entire set, the budget and production design, the re-making of an American genre - all contributing to the uniqueness of Deadwood.

Then there's the keen interns observing his writing process (who Milch pays out of his own salary so they can watch and learn from him); the exquisite set dressing (we read an old sign in the brothel that the camera could never pick up: 'Touching - 10 cents'); the two crews filming at once and their directors running between sets and David's trailer with questions; the extraordinary international actors; the hangers-on, relatives, friends and old Hollywood legends (an 80-year-old former actor turned 'greeter' at Paramount is on the payroll as producer because Milch was so appalled at the indignity that had befallen him) - all contributing to some highly productive but deeply idiosyncratic television 'xanadu'.

Milch has a say over everything: casting, design, direction, editing. It's all about authorship here and, as frustrating as it might be at times, everyone here is highly committed to the same ideal. Milch's authorship creates a show that redefines a genre - a quintessential morally conservative one - and transforms it into a show as fluid, pluralist and questioning as a liberal-minded Jewish intellectual is capable of helming.

Jacquelin and I had, over the week, numerous opportunities to watch that same process - a new scene written, an older one tweaked or an intern's nervous offering re-worked - again and again and again. Each time - although the scene may have been less important, more logistical - the same rigour, the same passion, spirit, cheek and talent was brought to bear. We were fortunate enough to watch many scenes rehearsed, set-up and then shot. And every time Milch had something - sometimes plenty - to say.

On this show, as in many of the American and specifically the new HBO shows, the producers are either writers or directors. Invariably if you write for a show more than a few times you're then entitled to a producer's credit. These shows are 'made' by writers - not solely, but whether it's Milch or David Chase or Larry David or Alan Ball it's all about voice and whatever it takes to achieve it. The primacy of the writer in American television has produced (through HBO alone) a wave of drama in the last few years that is truly groundbreaking.

I'm grateful to the AFC for giving me the chance not only to observe a deeply admired drama, but for giving me the chance to be truly inspired and enlivened by the entire production, and particularly by meeting David Milch.

Visiting Deadwood was the kind of experience that can keep a writer going for years. It's an experience that I know, as I struggle to do good work in the often under-nourished environment of television drama in Australia, I'll mine continuously for its ability to excite, its lessons in endurance and its invitation to explore. I hope that Jacquelin and I can use that invitation for fuel as we develop our series together, and allow the experience to embolden and encourage us.

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