The AFC and AFTRS are very very happy that the SPARK projects are being financed. Last Friday’s FFC meeting added another two.
There is enough truth in the usual PR quotes for us to supply the whole press reiease:
Hot on the heels of the SPARK 2005 workshop held earlier this month, comes the news that another two SPARK projects from 2004, The Home Song Stories and Noise, have been greenlit by the Film Finance Corporation and will go into production soon. This brings to three the total number of SPARK projects financed in the past year. Footy Legends, the third SPARK project, is now in post-production.
SPARK is a national residential script workshop providing selected writers and their creative teams with an intensive hothouse environment to develop their scripts. It features focused one-to-one sessions with leading local and international advisors from Europe and the US. SPARK is an initiative of the Australian Film Commission (AFC) in association with the Australian Film Television and Radio School (AFTRS).
Carole Sklan, Director of Film Development at the AFC, said, “We’re very excited by the news that Noise and The Home Song Stories have been financed. It means that almost half the projects that participated in SPARK last year will be made, which is a terrific result in today’s tough global market.”
Malcolm Long, Director of AFTRS, said “This result confirms our faith in the value of residential workshops like SPARK to deliver meaningful outcomes. We are now using the residential model for a number of other initiatives that are part of the School’s new approach to flexible course delivery to the industry. ”
The three SPARK projects financed are:
Footy Legends (w: Anh Do, Suzanne Do, Khoa Do, p: Megan McMurchy,
d: Khoa Do)
Noise (w/d: Matthew Saville, p: Trevor Blainey).
The Home Song Stories (w/d Tony Ayres, p: Liz Watts and Michael McMahon).
Noise writer/director Matthew Saville said, “The week of intensive analysis and discussion with the extraordinary group of SPARK mentors, advisers and fellow filmmakers was, for me, a wonderful experience. I felt privileged to be given the opportunity to engage in thoughtful, earnest discussion about my script with practitioners whose work I so greatly admired.”
Producer Trevor Blainey went on to say, “SPARK gave us the chance to expose Noise to rigorous scrutiny in a program that enables unencumbered advice from highly respected industry professionals in a concentrated week-long forum.”
Tony Ayres, writer/director of The Home Song Stories added, “The workshop was invaluable in developing my script, mainly because the process forced me to focus upon what the script is actually about.”
Producer Michael McMahon said, “By the end of the workshop our team had all agreed and clarified the central relationships of the characters.” Producer Liz Watts agreed, saying, “Our project developed an enormous amount from the SPARK process. We’re now very excited about the task ahead, getting the script to the screen”
Media enquiries: Adriana Fragoso, Avviso PR for the AFC; 9368 7277; [email protected]; 0404 638 646
