• Screen Australia has revealed how much the screen industry has been impacted by the coronavirus pandemic.
• In its annual Drama Report, it found that spending on drama production in Australia dropped 18% in 2019/2020 to $991 million.
• The pandemic meant production on 26 Australian drama titles was postponed.
• Visit Business Insider Australia’s homepage for more stories.

Australia’s film industry has taken a serious hit from the pandemic.

Screen Australia released its annual Drama Report this week, which found that drama production expenditure in Australia dropped 18% in 2019/2020 to $991 million.

It was dragged down by the coronavirus pandemic, which brought large-scale drama production to a near standstill in March this year.

The report looked at production across local and foreign films, television and online drama titles, and post, digital and visual effects.

Aussie titles that began principal photography – where actors are on set and most of the show is filmed – in 2019/2020 accounted for 55% of total expenditure. A total of $543 million in expenditure was for 74 Aussie productions, a 32% drop from the record results back in 2018/19. On the other hand, foreign projects generated $447 million in spend, up 8% from 2018/19.

New South Wales accounted for the most of Australia’s production spend, at 48% ($475 million), followed by Victoria at 28% ($297 million) and South Australia’s 15% ($146 million).

“Never in the 30 year history of the Drama Report have we seen an event like the COVID-19 pandemic,” Screen Australia’s Chief Executive Officer Graeme Mason said in a statement. “While we looked on track to celebrate a record year in many areas of the industry, the pandemic is estimated to have postponed around 26 Australian drama titles with total budgets exceeding $325 million.

“This large scale impact is unprecedented.”

Mason added that there are still some challenges faced across the film sector, with some projects yet to resume and other faced with rising costs associated with having a COVID-safe environment. Some projects that were set to start production in 2020/2021 are yet to begin, which then impacts the availability of cast members, crews and space.

“Despite the hardships, I’m encouraged that our industry has been able to safely and markedly increase production activity and there are already positive signs that our sector will be able to bounce back,” Mason said.

“As a result of support from the Federal Government’s Temporary Interruption Fund (TIF) and Screen Australia’s direct COVID-19 funding we have supported a safe return to work on projects with combined production budgets of over $330 million.”

The federal government has brought in extra measures to support the screen industry. It added $400 million to the Location Incentive Scheme and announced more reforms to regulation and content funding.

Television and online drama

A total of $198 million was spent on general Australian TV drama in 2019/2020, down 39% on the previous period. Five shows that entered production during this time period had their filming interrupted due to the pandemic and an estimated seven had their shows postponed.

The pandemic affected production on a number of titles including “Neighbours”, “Five Bedrooms” and children’s series “The Bureau of Magical Things” on both Netflix and Network 10. These shows, as well as several others, have been able to restart production as the industry begins to get back on its feet.

Across online platforms such as Netflix, Stan, YouTube and ABC iview 23 titles were made during 2019/2020, amounting to a total spend of $94 million. While these were less than the number of online titles produced last year, their hours increased by 16%.

The pandemic saw two online dramas have their production interrupted and an estimated eight dramas postponed.

Feature films

During 2019/2020, total spend on Aussie features was $205 million, a 36% drop from the previous time period. It saw 19 films kick off production, including “The Drover’s Wife: The Legend of Molly Johnson” and “Streamline.”

Eight features, however, had their production interrupted while nine have reportedly been postponed.

But as cinemas have start to reopen, Australians can go back to watching films on the big screen such as Tim Winton’s “Dirt Music”, and animated film “Combat Wombat”.

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