Feature
Issue No. 38 - December/January 07/08
Rogue cuts new path to cinema
Wolf Creek producer David Lightfoot came home to Adelaide to screen his latest release, the horror-adventure Rogue, pleased with the response in Melbourne and Sydney and anticipating another hit.
David says recent changes to the tax rules governing film finance will drive big changes in the sector over the next year or two, which should stand the local industry in good stead.
The Rogue project, he says, is the first Australian independent production financed entirely by American interests including noted independent film backer, The Weinstein Company. It is the biggest independent project ever undertaken in Australia and David says reconciling US requirements from banking, legal and taxation angles was hard work before shooting even started.
“It was a massive minefield and took four months to complete,” he says. “Normally that would take about six weeks.”
But the effort created templates for US-Australian cooperation that will come in very handy under the new, rebate-driven Australian tax regime.
“Shooting a major film in the Northern Territory is a challenge. This film involved 250 people on the set with truckloads of equipment, 300km from the nearest town,” he says. “Rogue had a decent budget, so it was a massive logistical and business exercise. I had to use every bit of experience to avoid blowing the budget sky-high.”
He finished within contingency margin and got clearance to embellish the project with extra music a...
