Story by Rochelle Siemienowicz, April 22 2009
Return of the Trailblazer
An interview with Mark Hartley, inaugural AFI Documentary Trailblazer upon his return from MIPDOC/MIPTV in Cannes, April 2009.
When Not Quite Hollywood, the feisty and fun documentary about Ozploitation cinema, won the 2008 AFI Award for Best Documentary, there was an added bonus. The film’s writer/director Mark Hartley automatically became the inaugural AFI Documentary Trailblazer*, travelling to Cannes in April 2009 to attend the annual MIPDOC/MIPTV global television and content market. Travelling alongside AFI CEO Damian Trewhella, Hartley joined seven other Trailblazers from around the world – documentary filmmakers “chosen for their innovation and creativity and breakthrough
qualities”. The event saw the Trailblazers attending networking events, panel discussions and showcasing their work to buyers and commissioning editors from televisions stations across the globe.
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Freshly returned from his overseas jaunt, Hartley is still jetlagged when we catch up to discuss the trip. A multiple ARIA-winning music video director, and veteran creator of DVD extra documentary features on Australian classics, Hartley is far from your typical documentary filmmaker. Not Quite Hollywood was a project resulting from his passion for feature films, and making such films is where he sees his future (he’s currently working on a remake of Richard Franklin’s 1978 film Patrick – a spooky thriller about a comatose man with telekinetic powers).
So it’s no wonder that Hartley felt a tad out of place at a global event geared to career documentarians with a focus on getting their work seen on television.
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AFI: Congratulations on being the inaugural AFI Trailblazer. What kind of opportunities does this open to you as a filmmaker?
Mark Hartley: It was fantastic, and amazing, and I’m really grateful. It was really nice to have the film showcased at such an event. It certainly puts your film in the spotlight, and it positions your work as being something that people should seek out. But I think where this [initiative] would be really handy in future would be if it went to somebody who had dedicated their life to being a documentary filmmaker and who lives documentary and has 20 other documentary projects that they’re trying to sell and projects that they’re trying to raise finance
for. For me it was like “this is it. I’ve told the story I needed to tell, and I don’t really want to make another documentary”.
AFI: As part of the Trailblazer package you were able to put your film in the digital documentary library to be accessed by all programme buyers.
MH: Yes, that was really good actually. There are all these people sitting on little monitors watching films. At the end of the market you got a printout of all the people who’d watched your film and if they were interested in purchasing it. So the good thing is that now I can pass on that information to the film’s sales agent and say “here are three more people who are interested in buying the film in these territories”.
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AFI: What was it like to see your film being showcased up there alongside the work of the other Trailblazers?
MH: It was funny because each of the Trailblazers had to show something of their work. The first one was about a dance troupe, and the next one about a child savant composer, and the next one a montage of really important historical documentaries – all these incredibly worthy and serious subjects. And then up comes the trailer for Not Quite Hollywood and you could have heard a pin drop! All the other Trailblazers had brought material that was intended for television, and mine was a feature documentary, so it was quite different in that respect.
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AFI: Can you describe to us what the MIPDOC event is like?
MH: It’s like a conference that happens in the Carlton Hotel in the weekend before the MIPTV marketplace event. It’s people talking and running around having meetings. A lot of it is commissioning editors from television stations all over the world – like BBC, Channel 4, SBS would be there – and they’re the people that everybody is desperately trying to have meetings with. There are also seminars going on about digital and multimedia and all that stuff.
AFI: So MIPDOC is a weekend event devoted to documentaries, and then immediately afterwards is MIPTV, a much larger marketplace for television content of all kinds. What was that marketplace experience like?
MH: This was one of the best things about the trip. I honestly think that every Australian filmmaker should go to a real market to see how and where our films are positioned in the overall marketing of films. It’s quite humbling. Imagine three [of Melbourne’s] Exhibition buildings put side by side, filled with all these stalls selling films, and each stall has 20 films to sell. And you wander down these endless aisles with all these stalls selling films to buyers and commissioning editors. And the thing that those buyers are looking for is product that’s
going to sell units. It’s not about getting cred, it’s about selling units. And even though this is a foreign market, the interest is in buying things that aren’t really foreign at all. The people who are buying and selling them aren’t necessarily film-lovers, and have no special connection to the films. They’re looking for things that are very accessible.
It was interesting, I went to Belgium, Brussels, France, Prague – and wherever I go I scan video libraries to see what’s on the shelves and what’s on sell-through. And [Australian crocodile thriller] Black Water was everywhere. That was the one Australian film that was in every territory on DVD. It was a film that cut through and was very marketable. It’s very humbling as a filmmaker to visit these markets because you realise how easy it is for your product to get lost.
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AFI: But is that something filmmakers should really be thinking about when they’re making a film?
MH: Well, it makes you want to make a commercial film that people can instantly look at the poster, or the cover, or the trailer – because the buyers don’t watch the actual films, they just watch the trailer, and go “that works”. I guess the different thing for most Australian films is that they sell at festivals rather than at markets, where people usually actually watch the films. But if you want to sell to all territories, you can’t just do festivals.
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AFI: Speaking of festivals, you combined your trip to Cannes with trips to other places, like London, where Not Quite Hollywood opened the London Australian Film Festival.
MH: After the London Australian Film Festival we had a brief theatrical season in London, which was fantastic, and I was able to do the press for that, and also for the film’s DVD release. We got amazing reviews in London. And then I went to the Offscreen Film Festival in Brussels, where they played a whole retrospective of Australian genre films, and it was great to be able to go there. So winning the Trailblazer was great. Not only did the money help me get to MIPDOC, but it enabled me to go to other places that I needed to go as well. So I’m really
grateful for all those opportunities.
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Damian Trewhella, AFI CEO, talks about MIPDOC and the Trailblazer experience (Pictured left)
“Attending and being part of the Trailblazer is a fantastic opportunity for the documentary filmmaker to get an understanding of what this very large documentary market is all about and what global content acquirers are looking for. It’s a really good chance for the filmmaker to have themselves and their work promoted in a large marketplace so they can improve their profile and generate sales. They can meet people from these large global channels with a view to co-productions and collaboration opportunities. Because MIPDOC is attached to MIPTV, which is where the bulk of the
world’s television programming is bought and sold, whether it be documentary or other genres, the Trailblazer can get a sense of how those mechanisms work. This provides great insights for anyone who’s about to make a project. If they know what the market is looking for then that project will have a better chance of not just connecting with a channel, but also connecting with an audience.”
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