​INDIEBLOCK

Baz Luhrmann is an australian film maker born in 1962 in Sydney, famous for his lavish cinematic style dubbed ‘red curtain’ because it involves over-the-top theatre style visuals and performances equivalent to live stage shows.

 

Luhrmann was educated as an actor at NIDA (National Institute of Dramatic Art) where he found his inspiration for his first film ‘Strictly Ballroom’ (1992), basing characters on the theatre types he often encountered in his studies. Luhrmann developed the 30 minute play version of Strictly Ballroom nearing the end of his education at NIDA and went on to direct the stage version, to great success later on. He is also known for his films Romeo + juliet (1996),  Moulin Rouge! (2001), Australia (2008) and The Great Gatsby (2013).

 

 

I suppose I should address why Baz Luhrmann is a case study in this project. First of all he provides an excellent juxtaposition to Mekelle Mills, he's a part of a different generation of filmmakers in Australia, beginning his film career in the early 90s with a, primarily, government funded film. Zoe.misplaced also had a considerably smaller budget of $8,000 AUD, mainly made through the crowd funding website prezi.com, whilst Luhrmann's Strictly Ballroom (1996) was made with an estimated 3 million AUD sourced from the AFFC (Australian film fund corporation) now known as Screen Australia.

 

 

Of course money doesn’t solve everything, according to Pam Cook’s book ‘Baz Luhrmann’ (2010), Luhrmann had difficulty with Strictly Ballroom in it’s early stages. In 1990, before the film had been shot or a final draft of the script completed Luhrmann attended the Cannes film festival in France to cultivate interest in the film from distribution. Despite these efforts no one seemed interested in a film centered around ballroom dancing. He also had no known actors cast in the film, Paul Mercurio was yet to be the celebrity chef he is today. However this did not stop production of the film which was shot over 7 weeks in both Melbourne and Sydney, the final dance competition filmed in a combination of both Melbourne and Sydney. Mills’ ‘Zoe.Misplaced’ however has had a similar issue, according to her. As I have stated on the ‘Zoe.Misplaced’ page of this website Mills had doubts that the subject matter of her film would not gather interest from government funding bodies or studios because of the subject matter of her film, instead vying for crowdfunding donations. This is worrying to me, personally, it seems that funding bodies have a stigma around them that suggests that they will not fund anything that even slightly strays from mainstream cinematic themes and values, allowing little to no innovation in the Australian industry.

 

 

It’s interesting to reflect on some of the things noted here. It not only marks each filmmakers success but shows a certain decline in an acceptance of new talent and creative ideas. This is where I start speculating. As Tiffany explored in her sections of this website on the subject of crowd funding and government funding, screen australia and other government bodies will not give funding away to just anyone, there are very specific criteria that must be met, especially regarding the film’s producer. Then, on the other hand crowdfunding, which Mekelle Mills opted for, requires an idea, clear goals and benefits for supporters of the project. The results are very different. $8,000 and $3 million.

 

 

 

Written By: Ren Elliott