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17/05/2005: "CINEMA'S and FILM PRODUCTION"

State Theatre, Market Street, Sydney is part of the National Trust listed properties.

In my schoolboy days it was one of four grand cinema's and not necessarily the best. (The State always seemed to have the air conditioning too low when I was a boy). Rivals for most grand cinema are almost forgotten names today: Plaza, Prince Edward were both special and the Regent wasn't too bad either.

Today the State hosts live shows and the Sydney Film Festival. Decades of dust are apparent to me, especially when sitting through day after day of film festival material.

Modern seats elsewhere in multi screen theatres are mostly high-backed and fabric covered, home to annoying mites that crawl up your back and make a temporary home in the rear of the scalp, especially if you sit near the front rows, centre.

Cinemas with such seats must have washable head rest covers, as per bus and airline seats - it is only a matter of time and should already be happening as a service.

MAY21st In an article Australian Cinematographer (reprinted from Australian Financial Review 31 January 2005) George Miller (Australia's leading film producer and director) writes with words to the following meanings:

1. The terminally dreary Australian film Somersault won all 15 Australian Film Industry awards (the lot) while a cinema down the street played the film to an audience of seven.

2. Australia needs more good script writers - less sexy directors of films.

3. Children's TV film producer Jonathan Schiff has received film funding every year since he was appointed to the board of the Australian Government's Film Finance Corporation, of a whopping $24.6 million in the past five years alone. Check it out for yourself on the FFC website.

(The annual FFC budget for films is $70 million).

4. We need to attract private investment. The original 10BA tax scheme did that but being Aussies we rorted it sensless. What we could do is give a tax break to investors, but only after the film has returned its production costs in full. Make a crappy movie and you get nothing.