In the beginning were the shorts, black and white flickering images that were initially shown as part of vaudeville shows, fairgrounds or carnivals. Audiences soon needed larger theaters to watch screens with projected images from Vitascopes after the turn of the century, using opera houses, music halls and converted churches that showed silent one-reeler's  (a 10-12 minute reel - projector's capacity at the time).

Most of the early one reelers were comedy oriented. That is until 1906, when an Australian, Charles Tait made a full movie length consisting of five reels entitled the Story of the Kelly Gang.

In 1907, it became the first movie ever made to earn "international box office" when it was displayed in England.

And of course – as with all new technology, the Government had to get involved in the new medium because of the films plot that depicted the Kelly’s as heroes and the police as the enemy.

(Not much change over the course of a hundred years or so….J)

So of course, this led to the movie being the first officially censored film in Australia when the Victorian Chief Secretary banned it from screening in the Kelly’s hometown area of Glenrowan, Benalla and Wangaratta. Later, in 1912 the Victorian Government banned the screening of a revised version of the film throughout the state.

Today, unfortunately only 19 minutes of the original 70 minutes survives in the Australian National Film and Sound Archive. (An extra segment was recently found in the UK).

Production costs of the banned movie were a princely $1000 pounds and total International Gross was $25,000 pounds, setting a high bar as the baseline. (Even though - please note - the movie had been banned in its state of origin).

The big content companies tell us (and anyone that will stand still for more than thirty seconds) that file sharers are destroying their business.

Big Film studios have Big Budgets, with big payrolls and expensive overheads and dont don’t “Grok” the smaller budget success stories like the Mad Max road Warrior.

The Mad Max success story – as told by Tom O’Regan in “The enchantment with the cinema” (reference below).

Mad Max & The Generic

Curiously, the Australian film which more than any other marked the beginning of the new tendency in 1980s cinema was the first Mad Max (1979). It was produced before the tax incentives, before talk of film as "industry", before meeting the audience, before working within Hollywood and international norms of what constituted cinema had come in. When Mad Max was produced the industry was caught in the straight jacket of two models of filmmaking which both seemed to be having trouble at the box office: that of the disreputable ocker film and the quality film. Other kinds of films were made in the 1970s, but somehow the critical agenda held those two in place.

Mad Max rudely shook up these priorities. To these two it added a third: the exploitation genre film. Mad Max was at odds with these prevailing industry norms at a number of levels. Firstly it was a generically based film. Secondly it was made entirely out of private funds in a context where the industry norm was up to 50% government involvement. Thirdly it achieved phenomenal international success in key film markets and it did so without the Cannes seal of approval. Quickly the film achieved cult status giving it a disreputable popularity. Fourthly it proposed a different route for Australianness to take. Australianness could be found - if at all - not so much on the literal but on the symbolic register. This was not a realism of a quotidian Australian but a hyperrealised Australia: a cinematised Australia.

In the context of a healthy film production milieu the film might not have attracted so much notice. But in the context of dwindling production, poor box office returns, and dissent over the direction film policy should take in the late 1970s it had to matter. The fact that it was made without government funding, that it worked within a genre of filmmaking which had been explicitly marked off as a no go area, and was so successful all seemed too significant for industry lobbyists and policy makers to ignore. Consequently it provided an important reference point for the major revision of government film policy (the Peat Marwick & Mitchell Report) which provided the industry blueprint for the 1980s. This report argued for film industry values. It urged an export orientation which it thought would see Australian film producers as major suppliers in "global software" markets. Using Mad Max as a guide the report saw unlimited potential if the industry and its films were geared internationally and firmly endorsed entertainment rather than cultural values. In this way the film became an emblem of the disturbance of priorites, taken for granted norms that were a feature of the 1980s.

But Mad Max did not wholly support this "industry" argument as it was made on such a meagre budget ($380,000). In this it could be, and was, cited to support arguments for a "poor" cinema capable of making its money back on the local market; a cinema whose integrity would be protected by it not having to be sold, in pre-production, overseas to make a profit.

Mad Max is still the highest profit percentage independently produced movie…..

See Table and Graph.- The Graph stops at 2003 because Hollywood altered the way they listed their production costings - choosing to include marketing and distribution costs as part of the production value. This means we are unable to accurately estimate figures past their change of fiiscal reporting policy. 

Table - Production Cost Returns to Investors.

BTW – the graph goes backwards – 1906 is at the extreme right.

N.B. the exponential growth line (green) has contracted only slightly since 1906; in 1994, approximately at the same time as the Internet was commercialised.

The Industry can claim whatever it likes. We all know that Napster started just before 2000 and that movies didnt appear on Napster until late in 2001. So where did all those other dips come from.

In the next article - I shall reveal some of the problems that Hollywood have conveniently forgotten about when making their claims against File Sharers utilising predominantly P2P Networks..

In other words, if it wasnt for the excellent showing by Mad Max - the chart above would show  that the hollywood formula between 1980 and 2003 was almost dead flat. Almost no vertical movement at all.

So obviously, there is a serious place for independent film makers globally, especially ones that return profits like Mad Max.

We’ve been hearing from Hollywood for quite some time – lets hear what the independents think about all this Pirate Bay stuff.

A recent Poll was taken at the Independent filmmakers website  http://shootingpeople.org/poll (you need to be a member to login) and produced results that one wouldn’t expect from Film makers.

That was interesting wasn’t it?

Adding insult to injury, Hollywood discovered it had a new competitor that could make thousands of hours of content available for free.

We can’t have free user generated content….. who would have time to go to the movies if everyone can watch YouTube for free?

And then tried to undermine Youtube at every opportunity.

But that’s a story for another day…..

References:

The enchantment with the cinema:

Australian film in the 1980s - Tom O'Regan

First appeared in Australian Screen (with Albert Moran), Ringwood, Vic.: Penguin Books, 1989. pp.118-145.

http://wwwmcc.murdoch.edu.au/ReadingRoom/film/1980s.html

Film History Before 1920 - Tim Dirks - AMC

http://www.filmsite.org/pre20sintro2.html

Box Office Results

http://www.boxofficemojo.com/

http://www.imdb.com/

Poll Results – Anonymous Benefactor.