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| James Ricketson |
For discussion, dialogue and debate
Would Young Einstein have received development funding if Yahoo Serious had been assessed anonymously by Screen Australia's "industry experts" through an online application form?
Prior to the establishment of Screen Australia in 2008, fledgling filmmakers could meet face-to-face with experienced filmmaker/assessors. I was one of those assessors, working for the Australian Film Commission on short-term contracts for a dozen or so years.
In the early 1980s, an applicant who had never made a film submitted a chaotically written, incoherent, incorrectly formatted, comedy screenplay riddled with typos. We three assessors were unimpressed. There was little in the written proposal to persuade us to take seriously his request for $15,000 to shoot three test scenes for a feature film.
Then Yahoo Serious (above) walked into the room.
He paced up and down, talked up a storm and pitched Young Einstein. His manic energy, eccentricity, self-confidence and zany sense of humour won us over. Whatever the shortcomings of his written application, here was someone worth taking a risk on.
We recommended the AFC fund the test scenes.
The rest is history.
Would a 21st-century Yahoo Serious survive today's assessment processes? Or would s/he receive a form letter of rejection from the GATEKEEPERS?
This question has become more relevant with the arrival of AI. Today, an applicant can use ChatGPT or another AI platform to produce, in an hour, a polished synopsis or treatment that appears to tick every assessment box. The written application may tell us increasingly little about the creative capacities of the human being behind it.
Put that applicant in a room with experienced filmmakers asking intelligent questions and something else becomes possible: a genuine assessment of the person as well as the paperwork.
Both Screen Australia and Screen NSW refer to assessors as "industry experts".
This brings to mind William Goldman's famous observation:
"Nobody knows anything... Not one person in the entire motion picture field knows for a certainty what's going to work. Every time out it's a guess and, if you're lucky, an educated one."
For decades, assessors and applicants met face-to-face. Today assessors remain anonymous and most applicants have no opportunity to pitch their projects or engage in dialogue with the people judging them.
Why?
I have asked Screen Australia and Screen NSW this question multiple times without receiving an answer.
When I asked VicScreen, CEO Caroline Pitcher responded immediately. She argued that assessor confidentiality: "...supports fair, independent and robust decision-making by enabling candid, criteria-based feedback, reducing the risk of lobbying or external pressure, and protecting assessors in what is a small and highly connected industry."
These are arguments worth taking seriously.
But there is another side to the equation.
Does protecting assessors from applicants come at the cost of removing something essential from creative assessment — human engagement?
Can creative potential be reliably assessed without meeting the creator?
In the late 1990s, I was asked by the ABC to meet a young man who had never made a documentary but wanted, as a one-man-band, to film his road-trip travels from Cape Town to Cairo.
On paper, his proposal seemed wildly ambitious. Should the ABC take the risk?
I met him. Face-to-face he quickly convinced me he had the talent, energy and determination to pull it off. It was, in part, a gut judgement.
I recommended that the ABC and Australian Film Commission take the risk.
The resulting series, Africa — Cape Town to Cairo, broadcast on the ABC in 1998, launched the career of Michael Davie, now an internationally respected documentary filmmaker.
During my years assessing for the AFC, I encountered many filmmakers whose talent emerged not through polished applications with all the right boxes ticked, but through direct engagement. Some lacked experience but compensated with passion, intelligence, originality and an unmistakable determination to get their films made.
Instinct matters.
The Hollywood "elevator pitch" exists for a reason.
Filmmaking is not principally a literary activity. Some talented filmmakers struggle to express themselves in written applications. Some are dyslexic, shy or inexperienced. Some communicate much better through images than prose. Some are eccentric. Some may even appear slightly mad.
And some of these people make extraordinary films.
I am not suggesting that every applicant should receive a face-to-face meeting. Clearly that would be impractical. I am asking whether shortlisted applicants should have the opportunity to meet and pitch to experienced filmmaker/assessors before significant funding decisions are made.
There will always be tension between bureaucratic certainty and creative risk-taking. But have we got the balance right?
Great films rarely emerge from bureaucratic certainty. They emerge from talented, unpredictable human beings whose gifts may not be obvious on paper.
My concern is that anonymous assessment, online applications and the proliferation of professional bureaucratic decision-making may make it harder for funding bodies to recognise precisely those filmmakers who don't fit comfortably into predetermined boxes.
Cost is sometimes advanced as an argument against face-to-face assessment.
Screen Australia invests tens of millions of dollars each year in documentary and drama production. Would allocating even a tiny percentage of those funds to pitch sessions for shortlisted applicants really be prohibitively expensive?
The question is not whether the old system was perfect. It wasn't.
Nor am I arguing that gut instinct is infallible. It certainly isn't. Goldman was right: nobody knows anything.
But perhaps acknowledging that uncertainty is precisely why human judgement should remain part of the process.
There are many reasons Australian films struggle to find audiences: limited marketing budgets, short theatrical runs, streaming competition and the difficulty of attracting attention in an overcrowded entertainment landscape.
But another question is worth asking:
Are our assessment and development processes themselves contributing to the problem?
Perhaps anonymous assessment is fairer. Perhaps it is more efficient. Perhaps confidentiality protects assessors from lobbying and pressure. These are legitimate arguments, and I would like to hear them debated.
But I keep returning to the young man with the terrible screenplay who walked into a room more than forty years ago and persuaded three sceptical assessors to take a $15,000 gamble on him.
His name was Yahoo Serious.
Would he get through today's gate?
If the answer is no, perhaps we have a problem worth talking about.
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