Screen Australia Drama Report Production of feature films, TV and online drama in Australia in 2016/17 © Screen Australia 2017 ISBN: 978-1-920998-31-8 The text in this report is released subject to a Creative Commons BY licence (Licence). This means, in summary, that you may reproduce, transmit and distribute the text, provided that you do not do so for commercial purposes, and provided that you attribute the text as extracted from Screen Australia’s Drama Report 2016/17. You must not alter, transform or build upon the text in this report. Your rights under the Licence are in addition to any fair dealing rights which you have under the Copyright Act 1968 (Cwlth). For further terms of the Licence, please see http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc- nd/3.0/ Screen Australia is grateful to all those who contributed data to the compilation of this report. The data provided has been drawn from a number of sources. While Screen Australia has undertaken all reasonable measures to ensure its accuracy, we cannot accept responsibility for inaccuracies and Newton’s Law omissions. 2 Contents ABOUT THE REPORT 3 Key terms 4 OVERVIEW 5 ALL DRAMA PRODUCTION 6 AUSTRALIAN FEATURE SLATE 8 Feature budget ranges 8 Sources of finance for Australian features 9 AUSTRALIAN TV DRAMA SLATE 11 AUSTRALIAN CHILDREN’S TV DRAMA SLATE 14 AUSTRALIAN ONLINE DRAMA PROGRAMS 16 Sources of finance for Australian TV and online drama 17 Finance by Australian first release platforms 20 FOREIGN PRODUCTION 21 DRAMA PRODUCTION BY LOCATION 22 PDV SERVICES – FEATURES, TV DRAMA AND ONLINE PRODUCTION 24 All PDV 25 ABOUT THE REPORT The Drama Report covers the production Focus on foreign PDV-only expenditure 26 of feature films, TV drama (mini-series, telemovies and series/serials) and online PDV expenditure by state 25 drama programs by financial year. Showcases 28 The report incorporates data gathered through surveys and publicly available TITLES IN THE 16/17 SLATE 30 sources to give a comprehensive view of drama production activity in Australia. Data METHODOLOGY 36 is presented for the past five years, 2012/13 to 2016/17. Foreign titles are included if they are shot (or substantially shot) in Australia, or have post, digital or visual effects (PDV) work carried out in Australia without shooting here. See page 4 for definitions of ‘Australian’, ‘domestic’, ‘co-production’ and ‘foreign’. Feature films and TV dramas represent about 30 per cent of all audiovisual production in Australia (excluding online productions). Other areas of activity include documentaries, web-series, light entertainment, commercials, music videos, corporate videos and TV productions such as sport, news and current affairs. See the statistics section of the Screen Australia website for details, www.screenaustralia. Newton’s Law gov.au/fact-finders/production-trends, and the relevant archives for pre-2012/13 data. The Drama Report 2016/17 | Screen Australia 3 Doctor Doctor S2 KEY TERMS don’t have to pass the ‘significant Australian principal photography, pick ups or physical elements content’ test for eligibility for the Producer Offset, such as sets and props, and includes animation. It Drama includes: and may be classified as ‘Australian’ for the also refers to the manipulation of those elements Features: a film made for cinema which is 60 purposes of Australian content regulations applying and includes sound and visual editing, digital minutes or longer to broadcasters, the report mainly focusses on effects, creation of computer-generated images TV drama: a ‘drama’ program according to the domestic and co-production projects as a combined (CGI), film laboratory work and duplication Australian Content Standard guidelines (see ACMA ‘Australian’ slate. services. As such, it includes a variety of activities website). Includes series/serials, mini-series and that not only take place after the shoot but also telemovies. ‘Foreign productions’ are defined as those under during the earlier stages of a project’s overall Online drama: encompasses single-episode or foreign creative control, originated and developed production. series programs with total durations of 30 minutes by non-Australians. This includes foreign projects or more that have their first Australian release with an Australian production company operating in The following abbreviations are used throughout online. a service capacity. the report: Subscription video-on-demand (SVOD), Free video-on-demand (FVOD), Advertising or Ad- Total budgets reports on how much it actually ‘In-house productions’ are projects by Australian based video-on-demand (AVOD) and Transactional costs to make projects. It is reported for all projects TV networks, where no independent production video-on-demand (TVOD). that started shooting during the financial year, company is credited as producer or co-producer. with the full budget allocated to the date principal See also Methodology on page 36. photography started; budgets are not apportioned across the duration of the project. ‘PDV’ (post, digital and visual effects) refers to those activities that create audio and visual elements for film or TV drama other than by Total spend reports on how much of the total budgets was spent in Australia. This measure is particularly relevant for co-productions and foreign productions. Again, all expenditure is allocated to the date principal photography or PDV work in Australia began rather than to the actual date of spending. Note: this is not the same as ‘qualifying Three Summers Australian production expenditure’ (QAPE) for the purpose of the Producer Offset. Some expenditure in Australia is not QAPE, and QAPE can include some expenditure on Australian elements outside of Australia. QAPE is not reported here. Australian productions include: ‘Domestic productions’: Projects other than co-productions under Australian creative control (ie where the key elements are predominantly Australian and the project was originated and developed by Australians). This includes projects under Australian creative control that are 100 per cent foreign-financed. ‘Co-productions’ are official co-productions (ie projects made pursuant to an agreement between the Australian Government and the government of another country). Because official co-productions 4 Overview The annual slate of feature films, TV and online drama productions consists of Australian titles (including official co-productions) and foreign titles that start production or post, digital and visual effects (PDV) during a given financial year. DRAMA EXPENDITURE IN AUSTRALIA Total expenditure 2016/17 y $1.3 billion total Australian expenditure – a record year, driven by the highest level of foreign spend in this country of $610 million and a healthy $1277m Australian slate of $667 million. y 29 foreign projects $610 million y Record year, driven by highest ever spend of $557 million from 6 features and 3 TV dramas that commenced shooting in Australia y PDV-only spend totalled $53 million from $860m $872m 16 features and 4 TV drama titles, down $830m $850m 17 per cent on 2015/16. y 41 Australian features $284 million - 45% increase on last year and above the 5-year average, due to the US studio- financed film, Peter Rabbit and strong domestic and co-production activity during the year. y 46 Australian TV drama titles $321 million - with expenditure and the number of titles produced at record levels. The volume of hours was also up on last year, with a resurgence in series production along with a strong mini-series slate. y 13 Australian Children’s TV drama titles $48 million - significantly below the five-year average. Hours produced were down slightly on last year, however when combined with hours for children’s programs made for online, show a slight increase. As a result of the 3-year children’s broadcast quotas required of the commercial free-to-air broadcasters, children’s TV drama production tends to be cyclical with the third year in this cycle still to come. EXPENDITURE BY STATE y Australian online drama contributed y NSW 36% accounted for the greatest $14 million to overall expenditure and is share of total expenditure, supported by separately measured for the first time in Australian TV drama production. this report. y QLD 33% had the second highest share, boosted by strong foreign shoot expenditure. y VIC 25% had the third largest share, with the majority of the spend coming from Australian TV drama titles. The Drama Report 2016/17 | Screen Australia 5 All drama production Total drama expenditure in Australia in 2016/17 was $1.3 billion – hitting an all-time high. $667 million was spent by Australian projects, while $610 million came from foreign productions. Australian1 Foreign2 Total Spend Spend Spend No. titles No. titles No. titles $m $m $m Features 2012/13 38 325 14 110 52 435 2013/14 39 312 24 203 63 516 2014/15 39 125 14 426 53 551 2015/16 32 195 22 249 54 444 2016/17 41 284 22 567 63 851 5-yr av 38 248 19 311 57 559 TV drama 2012/13 40 305 2 21 42 326 2013/14 40 291 2 1 42 292 2014/15 35 237 2 21 37 257 The Warriors 2015/16 44 310 8 31 52 341 2016/17 46 321 7 43 53 364 5-yr av 41 293 4 23 45 316 Children’s TV drama 2012/13 17 69 0 0 17 69 2013/14 11 53 0 0 11 53 2014/15 13 64 0 0 13 64 2015/16 14 66 0 0 14 66 2016/17 13 48 0 0 13 48 5-yr av 14 60 0 0 14 60 Online drama 2016/17 22 14 0 0 22 14 TV + online drama 2016/17 81 383 7 43 88 426 Total annual drama slate3 2012/13 95 699 16 131 111 830 2013/14 90 656 26 204 116 860 2014/15 87 425 16 447 103 872 2015/16 90 571 30 279 120 850 2016/17 122 667 29 610 151 1277 5-yr av 97 603 23 334 120 938 Notes: Figures may not total exactly due to rounding.