The film studio: film production in the global economy

The Film Studio sheds new light on the evolution of global film production, highlighting the role of film studios worldwide. The authors explore the contemporary international production environment, alleging that global competition is best understood as an unequal and unstable partnership between the 'design interest' of footloose producers and the 'location interest' of local actors. Ben Goldsmith and Tom O'Regan identify various types of film studios and investigate the consequences for Hollywood, international film production, and the studio locations.

Local Hollywood: global film production and the Gold Coast

Hollywood films and television programs are watched by a global audience. While many of these productions are still made in southern California, the last twenty years have seen new production centres emerge in the US, Canada and other locations worldwide. Global Hollywood has been made possible by this growing number of Local Hollywoods: locations equipped with the requisite facilities, resources and labour, as well as the political will and tax incentives, to attract and retain high-budget, Hollywood-standard projects. This new book gives an unprecedented insight into how the Gold Coast became the first outpost of Hollywood in Australia. When a combination of forces drove Hollywood studios and producers to work outside California, the Gold Coast's unique blend of government tax support, innovative entrepreneurs and diverse natural settings made it a perfect choice to host Hollywood productions. 'Local Hollywood' makes an essential contribution to the field of film and media studies, as well as giving film buffs a behind-the-scenes tour of the film industry.

'The Pianist' and the ruins of Berlin

In this paper I will discuss some of the ways Berlin and the city's main studio complex, Studio Babelsberg, have been promoted and used as sites for international feature film production in recent years. I will use Roman Polanski's film The Pianist, which was shot in part at Studio Babelsberg and in the vicinity of Berlin, to exemplify some of the transformations and discuss some of the repercussions of international production for thinking about cinematic rivalry between places.

'The comfort lies in all the things you can do': the Australian drive-in: cinema of distraction

Contrary to the claims of some film historians, the drive-in was not a uniquely American invention. Australian drive-in cinemas were, at least in the 1950s and 1960s, distinguishable from their American counterparts by virtue of the profusion of additional amusements (or distractions) they offered alongside film-viewing. This article traces the history of Australian drive-ins as ‘entertainment centres’ and ‘high temples of modernity’. It argues that the drive-in can usefully be understood as a mid-point between the domestic and public spheres, and a powerful symbol of post-WWII Australia, signifying prosperity, gathering consumer confidence and, in metropolitan areas, marking the path of urban development through its concentration in new, outer suburban areas.

Something rotten in the state of Minnesota: or the morality of backwoodsmen: 'A Simple Plan'

'A Simple Plan' is a deceptively complex and multilayered film, combining elements of Celtic mythology with the morality play and the windfall fantasy gone disastrously wrong. Despite its blending of realism and heavyhanded symbolism, and its abundant trans-textual gestures, 'A Simple Plan' is in many ways defiantly not a 90s movie: its leading characters are fashionably flawed, but they are neither sensitive, nor honourable, nor heroic; there are no startling special effects or intricate timeshifts; and it desperately gives the impression of depth, of being emphatically more than mere superficial excess. At a stretch it almost appears to be a throwback to the 1930s Production Code emphasis on the role of cinema in moral instruction; while good hardly triumphs over evil, venality is painfully and emphatically punished. But in other ways it is a quintessential late 90s film: an American/British/Japanese/German/French co-production, 'A Simple Plan' acts most palpably as a commentary on the moral, economic and social condition of the United States at the end of the American century.

A positive unsettlement: the story of Sakshi Anmatyerre

This article tells the story of the mass marketing on stationery of the work of an artist, Sakshi Anmatyerre, whose claims to an lndigenous heritage and to the authority to paint particular designs, totems and motifs were vigorously contested, leading to the withdrawal of the stationery from sale. The efforts made by the publisher, Steve Parish, to atone for the offence caused to the Anmatyerre people are detailed. The article illustrates some of the issues involved in the commodification and commercial exchange of lndigenous artistic or cultural work - or rather, work which relies upon lndigenous connections for its aesthetic and financial value. The story told in this article is enlightening for what it reveals about the state of unsettlement that characterises debate over the 'appropriate' commercial use of lndigenous intellectual and cultural property, for the ways in which it is possible to achieve restitution when an offence agalnst lndigenous law is alleged, and for the effects the process of seeking restitution has had on the business practices of one company.

Cultural diversity, cultural networks and trade : international cultural policy debate

This article sketches some of the ways in which the language and concepts of cultural diversity are being taken up internationally. The debate has been driven in part by concerns about the treatment of cultural goods, services and knowledge in trade agreements. But it also involves larger questions about the role of the state, the role of non-state actors in domestic policy formation, and the shape and function of international policy communities comprising both state and non-state actors. The extent of the discussion of cultural diversity internationally is described through new formal and informal cultural networks and work towards an international instrument for cultural diversity to lay our ground rules for international trade, cultural exchange and policy principles to guide governmental responsibilities. The article concludes with analysis of some of these new networks, and investigates why Canada has been so prominent in these international efforts.

Introduction: Culture, trade, services

Ben Goldsmith and Christina Spurgeon introduce the special 'Culture, trade, services' issue of Media International Australia.

A bureaucratic cinema: the fraught relationship between government and film

The interventions by the government in the production and circulation of film in late 1960s transformed the Australian cinema industry into a bureaucratic cinema because of its established agencies and institutions for the benefit of filmmakers. Training options expanded by the commencement of the Australian Film and Television School and the Film, Radio and Television Board of the Australia Council, which ran compulsory orientation seminars and workshops on the use of new equipments, helped the aspiring filmmakers to access money from the council's Basic Production Fund.

Outward-looking Australian cinema

Over the last twenty years or so, Australian cinema's international relations in production and policy have expanded and become more complex, while those with Hollywood have been transformed. The boundaries of the national cinema stretch much further than the national territory. Australian production and postproduction companies work in Australia with international partners or on international projects. In this article I will trace some of the material and discursive entailments of this new international turn to explore how dynamic and shifting relations between the local/national and the international have transformed the ways in which we might think about what constitutes Australian cinema, and to illustrate how relations of commonality and continuity with the international called up in the new arrangements challenge the dominant articulation in policy of difference from 'other kinds of filmmaking' as the basis of Australian cinema. I draw on Deb Verhoeven's work on simultaneously national and international films and filmmakers, and adapt Doreen Massey's concept of 'outwardlookingness' to consider Australian cinema's international aspects.

Australian content and convergence

This article is a response to Kim Dalton's 2011 Henry Mayer Lecture. It focuses on Dalton's discussion of Australian content in the context of the government's ongoing Convergence Review.

In search of the Korean digital wave

This article sets the context for this special themed issue on the 'Korean digital wave' by considering the symbiotic relationship between digital technologies, their techniques and practices, their uses and the affordances they provide, and Korea's 'compressed modernity' and swift industrialisation. It underscores the importance of interrogating a range of groundbreaking developments and innovations within Korea's digital mediascapes, and its creative and cultural industries, in order to gain a complex understanding of one of Australia's most significant export markets and trading partners. Given the financial and political commitment in Australia to a high-speed broadband network that aims to stimulate economic and cultural activity, recent technological developments in Korea, and the double-edged role played by government policy in shaping the 'Korean digital wave', merit close attention from media and communications scholars.