About Ann Macbeth: Ann Macbeth was a British embroideress and author, a part of the Glasgow Movement and an associate of Charles Rennie Mackintosh.
The tensions are always based on financial resources. Something like film is very problematic because it is viewed as an art form and also as an industry with a pure commercial base.
The dichotomy between art and industry is totally dysfunctional in terms of film.
We discovered that there was a great deal of keen interest in America for the kinds of products that we thought could be produced here. Also there was an interest in Britain for Australian material generally.
We're under the Arts Council under the Minister for the Arts. The Minister for the Arts and the Minister for Industrial Development have great difficulty in agreeing over who should fund what in terms of film.
I think the long-term effect of video on cinema is good in that what we are now getting up there on the screen is of superior quality. Videos are just so much more sensitive to the world.
I see any production of any nature being good for the development of the whole industry.
Ten years ago I was not heavily involved in the film world but on reflection it was a boom time with the mineral boom happening, so there was immense growth for industrial training films, documentaries to do with the mining, and the outback world.
We are not yet at the point where our size, our being the drama industry, is sufficient to support full time professional crews, and that is very very important.
They will open up to what I would call corporate broadcastings where the non-commercial material will have air time. There's no possibility of that here right now, none.
Most independent filmmakers in Britain and North America work for commercial crews and then have their own projects when they've got enough money saved up to do so.
The British needlewoman follows blindly where the merchant leads.
Any new producer starting up is to get investors' confidence. Investors are still very very wary of anything to do with the arts world.
Film is the most expensive, highest risk industry in the world.
The existing documentary makers still believe that it is impossible to produce drama material in this State, otherwise they would be doing it, they say.
In 1975 Australia was producing things like Picnic at Hanging Rock, in other words films that I would consider still some of the finest products to come out of Australia. I think that our quality now is less than it was then.
It will never be Hollywood, the same way people think it should be. I think it will grow and it will be healthy and it will expand into more than one production house.
We are the only state that does not have a State Film Corporation there to support the commercial industry.
All the arts are predominantly national, and therefore the Australian Film Commission should be funding us. The battle gets more and more vicious each year.
The State Film Authority will be there for film as industry only, as is the case in all the other states, except Victoria. Victoria is moving more now into supporting non-commercial films.
Build into each budget the cost of hiring and don't lump yourself with capital investment.
