Snack TV - pt 2

Another aspect of short-form drama that I have been musing on since reading the article in The Age is how strongly online/digital drama formats have been pushed by the "money people", ie: film funding bodies such as Film Victoria, AFC and also the ABC. I find that their focus on new media is out of proportion in relation to the number of new media practitioners in Australia and also the audience for new media content.

Digital platforms have created a great new resource for filmmakers and other artists to express themselves and connect with an audience at relatively little cost. The push and drive to be exploring these new technologies should be coming from the artists themselves, as well as from the audience/consumers. However, in our current system, bodies like Film Victoria are using these technologies from the outside in, placing a huge emphasis on new media projects at the expense of more traditional media projects. I see this as having two negative side-effects. One is that the digital media created is actually a traditional drama form forced into a new media cross-platform technology, as opposed to a drama that organically uses the digital form. Secondly, throwing money at new media may make funding bodies look hip and cool, but part of the joy of digital technologies is how cost-effective they can be, which opens up opportunities to new artists and should need less money.

Of course there should be funding for these new media projects, but I think that decisions about how much to fund should come from how many media practitioners out there are using this form and how much they actually need to do it well (and make a living). There's a joke going around the filmmaking community at the moment that any application for film funding or for the ABC needs to use the words "new media" or it is doomed to fail!

Frankly, I think funding of new media projects would be better coming from commercial sources, such as Telstra, Optus or Foxtel. The commerical/business world is much better at being up-to-date and is also aware of what their audience wants. Business is about providing for the consumer, and government funding bodies should be about providing opportunities to artists. If each focused on their particular task, in relation to all areas, not just new media, we could probably get the balance right.