TVC + Content Production in Australia and New Zealand: State of the Industry 2024
Less work, shrinking budgets, tighter turnarounds and higher hard costs have all played a part in making 2024 a challenging year in production. It’s also a year that’s called on greater diversity and inclusion, not only in content creation but across the entire industry. This year production companies have worked hard to create powerful and imaginative work and to represent a broader range of voices. Campaign Brief reports.
Working interstate and overseas and with agencies, brands and clients direct, the year hauled in a health mix of briefs from a variety of sources. Servicing clients from the US market, most of Exit’s work has remained largely local, with briefs hailing in from Australia and New Zealand.
Exit executive producer Leah Churchill-Brown confirms there was pressure on budgets that in turn puts pressure on film craft and quality. She says: “It’s why we are really pushing hard and trying to get everyone to understand the implications, and to acknowledge that the deliverables are not commensurate with the mooted budget.”
She admits budgets are always a challenge with rational increases in crew rates and production costs that often create unrealistic expectations.
This year most of Photoplay’s work arrived from Australian and New Zealand agencies, with shoots facilitated in both Sydney and Melbourne. Says Photoplay executive producer Emma Thompson: “We also saw a lot of boards for our directors out of the US and Singapore and have also facilitated work for UK and US based companies who needed a safe set of hands for their productions in Australia. It’s great to mix it up.”
Thompson also witnessed a general tightening of budgets and an increasing demand for fully integrated productions across the board. She says: “Clients are trying to shoot multiple films with a stills team, socials team, and a BTS team all on the back of each other shooting together.”
Commenting on one of the industry’s biggest challenges, she points to consistency of workflow as one of the biggest facing the production industry. “There have been a lot of really talented crew not working enough and leaving the industry for a more stable income in other fields, which is such a shame. Let’s hope we can turn this around as the economy picks up.”
The Pool Collective executive producer Courtney Wellsmore has also cited a notable imbalance between work briefs and the number of directors and photographers looking for work. She says: “That current equation feels somewhat unsustainable.”
This year The Pool Collective worked with both local and international clients and agencies and on regional work out of Sydney and Melbourne. Interstate productions also took the team on expeditions around Australia; from Broken Hill to Whyalla, South Australia, along with international destination shoots in Switzerland, New Zealand, Spain and even Disneyland, Florida.
Filmgraphics executive producer Anna Fawcett says whilst the cost of production has gone up, budgets have gone down to the point where local shops are losing facilitation work to other countries. She says: “Locally, we must cut markups and work double the amount of time, trying our best to ensure that creativity and production standards don’t suffer. But we have adapted to this situation, keeping our overheads low and bringing in the right team on a job-by-job basis.”
This year Filmgraphics received scripts from the US, India, Indonesia, Singapore and locally. Primarily working with agencies, Filmgraphics also collaborated with production companies around the world, helping them to find the right director and to come up with solutions to suit the creative vision and the budget.
Aside from shrinking budgets, she says other major challenges facing the industry include a lack of diversity, reaching gender equality, production sustainability, and staying relevant in an industry where technology is moving at an incredibly fast rate.
With newly opened offices in Southeast Asia, electriclime° partner and executive producer Michael Ahmadzadeh has welcomed a variety of offshore projects. He says: “Notably, our Singapore and Dubai offices have seen a significant portion of our work, along with our newly opened offices in Seoul and Thailand, which have started gaining momentum.”
This year, Ahmadzadeh has noticed a shift in pushing for smaller budgets and tighter timelines to ensure the completion of work. He says the uncertainty in the market, leading to less reliable workflows, has had a big impact on the work and the industry itself. He says: “When work is sporadic, it limits opportunities for collaboration and refinement, which are essential to achieving the highest of standards. The overall environment can feel rushed, making it difficult for teams to engage and collaborate. Ultimately, this uncertainty not only hinders project execution but also stifles the creative spirit that drives the industry forward.”
Over at Taxi Film Production, part of the Taxi Group, general manager Kohbe Vela-Smith says there’s a clear increase in clients approaching production houses directly for a ‘de-coupled’ production arrangement with their respective creative partners. She says: “For the Queensland market specifically, there was a noticeable wave of government work and opportunities linked to the much-anticipated State election in October.”
She says along with rising production costs versus decreasing production budgets, another challenge is the rise of internal agency production nibbling into that mid-range budget tier of production work, which many production companies would consider their bread-and-butter work.
Roles In Demand
Whilst Guilty producer Jason Byrne hasn’t hired any new talent this year, he sees no shortage of amazing creators available. He says: “The freelance life is tough at the moment but in many cases, it seems the option to use freelance directors for agencies is growing exponentially.”
Turning to specific roles in demand, Byrne has clocked digital post effects becoming increasingly a part of making campaigns that stand out, along with the use of volume screens that go further than green screens to create truly immersive virtual worlds. This means treatment contributors on a technology level are becoming very useful.
Merv executive producer Tim Berriman has noticed a lot of movement with talent lately, and says with less briefs around, there’s always the temptation that another company will generate more work. He says: “The reality is that this is seldom the case, and it is market forces, and not companies, that dictate the amount of work that any given talent will see.”
According to Exit’s Churchill-Brown, the local industry is blessed with an oversupply of talented filmmakers, however the downside is there’s not enough work to keep them all busy. She also points to a whole new generation of emerging directors, including a lot of diverse voices, that are up against it to win work and build a reel.
This year Exit signed director Campbell Hooper for representation in Aotearoa and Australia and Wilf Sweetland returned as managing partner. She quips: “It is so goodgetting him back on the tools. And, he makes a good coffee.”
This year Photoplay signed Warwick Thornton, an award-winning director that the team produced ‘The Voice’ campaign alongside for last year’s referendum. Says Thompson: “We’re honoured to be bringing a much-needed indigenous creative voice to the commercial landscape. We’re currently working with Warwick and a non-for-profit in the Indigenous mental health space.”
She says one of the short-term goals Photoplay has set is to reach gender parity across its partners, directors and photographers, and in the past few months, the production house has brought on three new photographers – Juli Balla, Bonnie Coumbe and Alexandrena Parker.
Filmgraphics signed Sinead McDevitt, a super talented female director who Fawcett says brings so much smarts and creativity to projects with her background as a writer and designer. Adds Fawcett: “Up-and-coming filmmakers need to be attached to an EP to help them get their careers going. The trend now is for directors to be freelance. With so many inhouse agency production companies getting the bulk of the work, it makes sense. But still, there are projects where the agency needs to collaborate with a production company and an experienced EP.”
Fawcett is also collaborating with Malinda Rutter, a Gomeroi woman, who owns Blackfisch Films. She is a director and writer and has directed and produced many impactful government projects as well as long-form work and commercials. Says Fawcett: “We hope together we can combine our talents and produce some fresh and insightful work for Australian brands.”
After many years of professional flirting, comedy director Josh Logue joined the Taxi roster, exclusive to Queensland. Says Vela-Smith: “We had a real comedy gap in our roster and it’s fair to say the local market has embraced his talents and are loving what he brings to the creative table. Good talent is hard to lock down permanently, with the freelance market remaining robust and showing no signs of slowing down.”
Oombarra Taxi (part of The Taxi Group) also has a few initiatives in development with Screen Queens-land, with a view to supporting and growing Indigenous screen practitioners nationally. Adds Vela-Smith: “Oombarra Taxi director Leah Purcell is hugely influential in that space and continues to lead the charge.”
As to roles in demand, The Pool Collective now has an in-house creative director to deal with the evolving nature of creative collaborations, pitches and treatment creation.
From a production team standpoint, Wellsmore adds the company has recently appointed a producer out of Melbourne with a focus on film productions, and to accommodate the increasing requests for production work out of Victoria.
Over the past year, Ahmadzadeh at electriclime° has noticed a need for full-time producers. He says: “One possible reason for this is that long-term positions in this industry are not typical. Having dedicated, fulltime producers allow us to ensure consistency, build stronger project relationships, and navigate the complexities of production more effectively.”
Tech & Trends
Although AI has taken out some of the more basic jobs, according to Berriman at Merv, there’s still a need for work that has a natural and authentic look and feel. He says: “AI and chat GBT have been useful to a point, with the ever-growing demands on treatments, but it does tend to all look and sound a bit the same, so it has not yet been superseded by research and hard work.”
Virtual production also remains a hot topic in 2024, and Taxi Film Production has shot a few virtual projects. The Taxi Group ownership in Born Bred Talent has also taken on a different shape this year, with the two business entities crossing over more on opportunities. Vela-Smith says: “With BBT bringing the best of influencer marketing and social celebs to the fore, coupled with production and content support from Taxi Film Production, we are moving forward together to provide seamless influencer integration for our client’s campaigns. Post Olympics, BBT signing Raygun was a game changer – the phones were running hot!”
Although not specifically production workflow related, The Pool Collective’s Julian Wolkenstein embraced technology this year, directing his latest project remotely. He combined actual footage with CGI elements to reimagine the iconic Sephora storefront on 5th Avenue in Midtown Manhattan, transforming it into a Valentino Beauty display. Even the scaffolding was animated piece by piece.
Commenting on trends this year, Wellsmore believes craft is making a welcome comeback, led by Micah Walker and his team at Bear Meets Eagle On Fire. She says: “I think an overall trend is the creation of unique, craft-based work that doesn’t look like anything you’ve seen before. It’s great to see such innovative work being produced by Bear as well as agencies like Special and Howatson+Company among others.”
With all the hype around AI, the team at Photoplay has clocked a resurgence of stop motion and hand-crafted moving images as a new sought after currency. Thompson says: “From what I’ve seen this year, there’s been an uptake in brands wanting to stand out from the digital. Recently, we have been working with Greenpeace on a stop motion campaign called ‘Fight For Our Forests’ directed by Dropbear. The main koala characters and other animals were all 3D printed and then hand painted (there were 77 of them). The decision to use miniatures gave the film a tangible, hand-crafted quality while still using state-of-the-art motion control and allowing for shots and sequences that would be otherwise unattainable in a live-action format.”
Fawcett at Filmgraphics believes real time compositing is going to be a gamechanger. Says Fawcett: “This year seems to have been all about AI and 3D technologies and the integration of them into traditional film making. But, whatever the technologies, it always comes down to the filmmakers and operators. As far as commercial production, directors find AI a useful tool to help them with their treatments and to use it when they need to enhance a shot or two.”
This year Guilty has launched an AI data startup called the Difference Engine that helps companies look at data using AI in the most accurate and expansive way. Says Byrne: “Virtual production on LED Volume Screens is becoming increasingly popular, enabling you to travel to any world, real or imagined, and embed characters, vehicles or anything realistically within it. Comedy is also thriving!”
This year electriclime° has been utilising AI and virtual production. Ahmadzadeh believes virtual production offers an expansive canvas for filmmakers and advertisers, enabling them to create immersive worlds and narratives in real-time. AI, on the other hand, enhances the storytelling process by analysing vast datasets and predicting audience preferences, providing valuable insights that help content creators refine their work and engage audiences more effectively.
Says Ahmadzadeh: “In our Kia EV9 project, we used AI-generated VFX to create stunning visuals. While we initially faced some copyright and legal challenges, we overcame these by creating a dedicated bank of footage that the AI could draw from, ensuring compliance while maintaining creative flexibility. This approach has significantly enhanced creativity and sped up production processes, allowing us to work more efficiently.”
Another significant trend Ahmadzadeh has observed this year is a strong push for greater diversity and inclusion. He adds: “Clients are increasingly striving to represent a broader range of voices and perspectives, highlighting the importance of authenticity and representation. Diverse stories enrich films and make them more relatable to audiences.”
The Work
Despite the challenges, there’s been no shortage of top tier work hitting screens this year.
Launching an exciting project with Apple and director Edward Berger, Sweetshop executive producer Kate Roydhouse says: “He’s crafted an incredible film called Submerged to launch the Apple Vision Pro using some amazing, next-level technology. Our US team is calling it the project of a lifetime, and honestly, everything I’ve seen so far has completely blown me away.”
Another standout for Roydhouse is MLA’s new Beef campaign through The Monkeys, part of Accenture Song, with director Damien Shatford. Commenting on the campaign, she adds: “Amazing scripts from day dot, trusting clients throughout, and all out a good amount of fun. I’m very proud of producing this campaign.”
For Exit, standouts this year include Stefan Hunt’s film ‘Yeah The Boys’. Says Churchill-Brown: “It’s been received as a truly outstanding piece of work, and we couldn’t be more proud of it. It touches deep into cultural issues in our society.”
Another top contender is Glendyn Ivin’s Woolworths Paralympics spot ‘Fresh Fuels The Best In Us’. She adds: “It won Bronze for best global Olympic advertising… we loved that. Most recently Mark Molloy’s collaboration with Special and Uber has been hilarious and Jason Evans’ sumptuous spot for Connoisseur delighted the senses and marked his first work with us.”
Over at Photoplay, Scott Otto Anderson directed a campaign for Suncorp Everyday Banking for Leo Burnett which rolled in all the director’s favourite things – great set design, VFX, comedy, motion control, wire rig stunts, circus tents, not so well-behaved animals, triplets, large trophies and table tennis championships.
Continuing the theme of projects that combine a director’s passions, Sarah Adamson directed a campaign for Uncle Toby’s with Ogilvy. Thompson says: “With underwater photography, stunts, drones, electric guitars, exploding volcanoes and toy train sets, Sarah also added her own unique hand drawn animations. And, if you listen really carefully, one of Sarah’s other talents, namely dolphin impressions, can be heard in the sound mix.”
And finally, Photoplay was proud of its environmental awareness films helmed by director and animator Dropbear (aka Jonathan Chong) including two stop-motion campaigns for Greenpeace and a 2D animated film and children’s book for the Australian Marine Conservation Society with Innocean.
Top tier projects for The Pool Collective included a collaboration with Thjnk Zurich. Saskia Wilson was invited to craft Swiss Airlines’ new brand vision, shot in Zürich and Andalusia over seven days in June. The work captured intimate in-flight moments and travellers enjoying their idyllic destinations providing a fresh take on modern travel.
The Pool Collective also worked on a project for NBN through Dentsu, where the agency and client gave the team ample pre-production time and scope. Wellsmore says: “This enabled Sean Izzard to discover stories through the casting and recce process, resulting in a suite of work (still and motion) full of beautiful surprises we otherwise might not have found.”
Lastly, Juliet Taylor wore two hats in Shark Beauty’s first-ever Australian campaign. As creative director and photographer working alongside PR company The Haus, Taylor was given creative license to develop the concept, direction and execution of the campaign.
Fawcett at Filmgraphics had two standouts this year; the launch of HBO/MAX for Asia with VML Indonesia shot in Bangkok with Matt Murphy directing, along with a local job via Host Havas for Tassal, directed by Josh Logue.
This year electriclime° had fun creating producing work for Marriott Autograph Collection – a collaboration with Media.Monks that capture the essence of luxury and showcased Marriott’s global legacy in hospitality. The film was shot across Japan, Indonesia, and Thailand, highlighting how comfort, culture, and impeccable service converge seamlessly.
Another was Suzuki ‘40 Years of Swift’, a collaborative campaign with Deloitte Digital that focused on the integration of technology and mobility, while celebrating 40 years of the Suzuki Swift. Betr ‘Sport is Everything’ was another favourite, directed by global director Leigh Powis. The film blended the intensity of sport with bold visual storytelling, highlighting the emotional and physical demands athletes face. The dynamic, high-energy cinematography captivated audiences, leading it to win Gold at the CICLOPE Festival in Tokyo.
This year Taxi Film Production worked on Repco ‘Bringing the Bathurst’ via Thinkerbell, along with the Queensland Government’s ‘Coercive Control’ campaign via Khemistry, directed by Siobhan Mulready. Says Vela-Smith: “It was a government brief that everyone went all in on, knowing how vital it is that this messaging be seen and recognised, especially in a post Hannah Clarke State still struggling to understand the how and the why.”
The production company also worked on Ford ‘Aussie Hoops’ via VML. Moving away from the traditional 30-second TVC construct, Taxi director TP got to explore longer form documentary content discovering Ford’s sponsorship of Aussie Hoops, a grassroots basketball initiative encouraging Aussie kids to get moving and take up the sport.
Merv shot around 10 films for Coles with Jonathan May directing and taking stills photography. These films took Merv all around Australia to remote and interesting places.
Merv also just completed the latest Panadol campaign for Leo Burnett with Gemma Lee directing. She was able to do some quirky casting, which also involved building miniature diorama sets that fitted into location. Merv director Alina Gozin’a also shot the latest campaign for Garnier through Medium Rare.
Guilty worked on OnePass ‘Most Valued Member’ via Sunday Gravy and with director Tony Rogers, along with Toyota CHR ‘Metal’ via Hero and director Jolyon Watkins. Says Byrne: “Using the nant volume screen, we were able to build a world that put the new hybrid at the centre of a diamond lattice. The resulting reflections and textures would be impossible to do with traditional lighting setups and was truly startling to witness.”
And finally, a project to promote MADC 2024 Creative Showcase ‘Deference for Difference’ with director Chris Tovo was another winning piece of work.