Boost to Australian film location offset welcome news on Gold Coast and in Hollywood

Bond University Director of Film and Television, Associate Professor Michael Sergi, explains why the decision to increase the film location tax offset is great news for the Gold Coast.

NEWS that the Federal Government is raising the Film Location Tax Offset from 16.5 to 30 per cent for films shot in Australia reached Hollywood very quickly.

Just a few hours after the announcement, Variety magazine had uploaded a news article on its website with the headline: “Australia to Double Location Shooting Incentives”.

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The article went on to say: “In recent months, producers, facilities managers and post-production companies have said that Australia has become uncompetitive compared with other locations … Many new and more generous incentive schemes have been introduced in the past couple of years. These include schemes in Thailand, Malaysia and China’s Qingdao region.”

It is clear that the news Australia was nearly doubling its incentive scheme was big news in Hollywood.

Director Taika Waititi and Chris Hemsworth on the set of Thor: Ragnarok on the Gold Coast. The film was attracted here by a range of factors including the Federal film location tax offset. Picture: Jasin Boland. Marvel Studios 2017

According to Los Angeles-based AusFilm, whose role is to connect the international film community with Australia’s screen incentives, talent and facilities, Hollywood spends more than $5 billion a year making films with budgets of more than $15 million in places other than Hollywood.

While roughly half of those “footloose’’ productions are made in other parts of the US, which offer their own generous film location incentives, like Atlanta, Georgia, the other half scan the world for favourable destinations generally linked to locations.

Award-winning Gold Coast stunt co-ordinator Guy Norris is a perfect example of the skilled screen crew on the Gold Coast. Norris has been inducted into the — The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences — the Oscars’ club. Picture: Supplied.

Many of those footloose productions head to the UK, while others end up in Canada. And now that Australia has become competitive again, hopefully more of those productions will come to the Gold Coast.

The obvious benefits of international film productions coming to the Gold Coast are well known.

From jobs for film crews, local actors and extras, to ancillary economic activity, and tourism, these films make a big impact and spend a lot of money, in a short period of time.

These productions also offer wonderful opportunities for young people, like our Bond University film and television students, to gain valuable experience learning from some of the best in the world, while at the same time creating networks that lead to future employment.

But there are other, less obvious, benefits too.

These international productions make us feel good about the Gold Coast.

A scene from Kong: Skull Island, filmed on the Gold Coast at Village Roadshow Studios. Picture: Supplied.

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When international stars like Tom Hiddleston and Chris Hemsworth, or Dwayne Johnston, Jason Momoa, Nicole Kidman, Matt Damon and Margo Robbie, come to town, it is hard not to get excited.

Whenever one of them turns up at a café or restaurant, it is all over social media in seconds.

The big movie stars and highly talented filmmakers who work on these big international productions live strange, transient lives.

Their work takes them to many of the fabulous places in the world – Los Angeles, New York, London, Paris, Vancouver to name just a few.

And now, hopefully, many more of them will add the Gold Coast to their regular list of movie-making destinations.

Associate Professor Michael Sergi is the Director of Film and Television at Bond University and a regular attendee at the Berlin International Film Festival.