HUNTER FILM | TAKING ACTION

Zana Kobayashi
Jun 26, 2015
2 min read

With the arrival of the Travelling Film Festival in town this month we felt inspired to dig in & discover more about our own film culture here in the Hunter! As film is often a good indicator to measure the cultural connectivity of a city to the outside world, we were delighted to find six different film clubs operating within walking distance from our little CBD office (see the pic below for details)! Who heck knew?!

But perhaps even more exciting, was our discovery that the Hunter is in fact breeding a healthy film industry of it’s own. There are a surprising number of awarding winning production companies, such as Final Post & Good Eye Deer, who work on local & international level projects. There are two local feature films set to be released this year. Alongside a very active Screen Hunter office whose current focus is on the professional development of the Hunter region.

Olivia Olley of the award winning Good Eye Deer says that Newcastle has been an ideal location to operate the business from. Lower overheads have afforded them the ability to take risks & produce works of high professional quality.

In terms of working towards a strong film industry, Olivia talks about the concept of ‘buying in’.

‘If we can all ‘buy in’ and recognise that each success is supporting one another, then we will begin to invest in each other, communicate with each other & support each other. This will be the way to build more buzz around Newcastle. I think we are very much on that path’

Olivia committed to local professional development by bringing local practitioners together though the creation of The Newcastle Writers’ Room; a project aiming to connect local writers with award winning screen-writers.

Shane Burrell from Final Post & creative co-working space INNX, also believes that connectivity is key to progress.

‘The way forward is to create a community or network around the things we do’

He has invested in building a world-class production facility in his space in Wickham and has worked on both the local film set for release this year- Pop-Up & Yesterday’s Girl.

Stuart McBratney, whose feature film ‘Pop- Up’ is ‘unashamedly filmed in Newcastle', is forthright in saying the completion of his film could not have happened if he had lived else where.

‘I just would not have been able to self-fund had I been somewhere like Sydney’

He also says locally there is some strong talent coming out of the University & TAFE. He has even begun to hire local graduates.

Screen Hunter & Screen NSW have also begun working with local practitioners to encourage networking, take stock of the needs in the industry & increase professional development. After attending a professional networking event hosted by the two organisations, it was clear that things are well on their way.

So Newcastle, get your film networks out there, get connected & let’s make some show biz magic happen!