Can you have a screen career in the country?
Show Notes
Hosts: Kirsten and Jen
Sponsored by the Victorian Women’s Trust - Check out Rural Women Online, free digital skills
There’s this idea that if you want to make it in film, you need to move to the city. But is that really true?
In this episode, we meet Jospehine Croft. She’s a film producer and actor, based in Melbourne, but is part of a movement that’s making film more accessible to women. This includes job sharing on film sets, shorter hours and looking after the mental health of film crews.
Josephine, who runs Tenacious Studios, also talks about opportunities for rural women who want to work in film. In fact, part of her most recent production, “The Returned” has been filmed in Wannon, near Hamilton in western Victoria.
She also discusses the challenges facing the Australian film industry, and remembers what it was like being a young actor in the 1990s and early 2000s (this includes her role as an angsty teenager in Neighbours who burnt down Lou Carpenter’s bus!)
Thank you to the Victorian Women’s Trust for sponsoring this episode. They are running free digital workshops in Yackandandah 11 - 14 September. Head to Rural Women Online to register!
Would you like to sponsor an episode of Ducks on the Pond? Let us know!
This is a Rural Podcasting Co. production.
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Josephine: 0:04
I saw a statistic the other day of the last 20 years of Oscar-winning films the amount of lines that women had versus the amount of lines that men had and it's shocking Like some of them, literally not one woman spoke in an Oscar-winning film.
Kirsten: 0:23
And we're back. Season six of Ducks on the Pond is officially underway. Brought to you by the Rural Podcasting Co. I'm Kirsten Diprose and welcome back, Jen McCutcheon.
Jen: 0:34
Thanks so much, it's great to be back.
Kirsten: 0:36
Now this episode is sponsored by the Victorian Women's Trust and they're running free digital skills workshops for rural women in Yakandandah in northeast Victoria from September 11 to 14. There's tech advice, business marketing help, and it's all free. We'll hear from Alana Johnson, the chair of the Victorian Women's Trust, at the end of this episode, and she'll also talk about a new online resource for rural women. So that doesn't matter where you are Right now. Let's meet producer and actor Josephine Croft Actually, Jen, before we do, have you ever thought about a career in film?
Jen: 1:13
Not really about news TVs. As far as I go, I think I'm a terrible actor, so I'll leave that to the professionals. But yes, I heard you've got a bit of a claim to fame though.
Kirsten: 1:25
Yes, I think I would have loved to have been a movie star. Not that I ever tried, but I was once in a commercial with Chloe Maxwell. It was a Palmolive like the hair shampoo. When I was at uni I was in a commercial with her.
Jen: 1:40
Did you have like the full head of suds and in the shower?
Kirsten: 1:45
I love that. You think that I was a model in that as well. I was actually really just a glorified extra and my job was to act as her hair and makeup artist. So I'm in it for about a second as I start just sort of combing her hair. But I'll tell you what. I don't believe everything you see on TV, because she had all these hair extensions in to make her hair fuller for the ad, because obviously it was about Palmolive. So there you go.
Jen: 2:13
Controversial, and I guess that's how Naomi Watts' career started. She was in an ad, so you know, who knows you still might have an acting career ahead. I'd like the cash that comes with acting, but I guess it's a while till you can be Chris Hemsworth.
Kirsten: 2:26
Yeah, I can tell you I don't think I got all that much. I think I got about a hundred bucks and a free lunch for about six hours of work, but it was lots of fun. But it's the magic of TV and film and it's not always what it appears. And in this chat with Josephine Croft, who is a producer and actor, you'll actually learn a lot about film and what a career in film or TV might look like, because I think we sometimes think it's super glamorous but there are long hours. The funding can be really tricky. Now I got in touch with Josephine when I found out a film was being produced in the Wannon region, which is near me in Western Victoria. Now, not a lot of full production films happen near me. I don't know about you, Jen.
Jen: 3:12
Well, of course I mean not quite near me, but Mad Max, as you know, out in Broken Hill, priscilla, queen of the Desert. More recently we have had an episode of Total Control. The ABC drama was filmed in Trangie and I know the local breakfast presenter from Dubbo got a cameo in that they put it out to the audience, and a really big one for my hometown of Bathurst. Not too far away is the small little historic community of Carcore and big production out there. From October last year Rebel Wilson took the entire cast and team of her upcoming movie, the Deb, and they shot it all in the little village. So that's really put Carcore on the map. So not specifically Gilgandra, but yeah, a lot of films I guess do happen in the central west of New South Wales. Oh my God here.
Kirsten: 3:58
I was thinking this is so exciting and so special and you're like there's a film here every second day. You know, in Bathurst my parents, when they were in their twenties, were in a film as extras. I think my dad was chosen as a police officer because he was tall and mum was in the church congregation and the movie was Hoodwinked. 1981 Australian thriller starring Judy Davis and Geoffrey Rush.
Jen: 4:23
Oh, there you go. And Bathurst also had Sirens with Elle Macpherson filmed there too. I remember some kids from high school were extras in it as well. So yeah, wow, that's so interesting.
Kirsten: 4:32
I mean Australia's. A great location really for films and Clunes, which is near Ballarat. Not too far from me, is this little old historic town that lots of films and ads get shot in because it looks like a gold rush town. So Josephine Croft's film is called the Returned and you'll hear more about it shortly, as well as the ways that she and other women in the industry are making film careers more accessible, as in, you don't have to move to the city to be a movie star.
Kirsten: 4:59
Exactly I mean, hey, clearly plenty of films are filmed here in the country, so there are ways let's meet Josephine.
Josephine: 5:10
So I was actually born in South Africa and I moved over to Australia when I was about eight years old and then have been living in Melbourne ever since. I started doing speech and drama classes when I was about eight years old, loved it, got my first agent when I was 13 or 14, got my first role on television when I was about 15. It was a show called Law of the Land and I played an unruly teenager that my mother couldn't handle and I was getting into all sorts of trouble and so I was taken away out of my mother couldn't handle and I was getting into all sorts of trouble and so I was taken away out of my mother's hands. And it was quite hilarious because a lot of the roles that I got when I was a teenager were very kind of angsty, attitude-y roles, like one of them was a goth and the other one I did a role on Neighbours where I blew up Lou's bus because he wouldn't pay me and all of this stuff.
Josephine: 6:05
And I think part of it was a rebellion against how I was perceived because I'm naturally blonde. I'm not actually, this is a bottle redhead. You're kidding me. You've got the most innocent hair. There you go. Yes, I was blonde and innocent looking and I always looked several years younger than I was, and I absolutely hated that. I just wanted to look sophisticated and grow up as you do as a child, and then, the older you get, you're like I just want to stay young.
Kirsten: 6:32
As an actor. That's a good thing, though, isn't it, to look younger, because then you have the maturity of actually being older, but you can play younger parts. Don't they always want that?
Josephine: 6:41
They want it if. If they want a 16-year-old and you're 24, great, because there's no like legal working hours and all of that kind of stuff Once you get a little bit older, I'm not sure it. I feel like sometimes it works against me. I feel, especially in my age group, a lot of the roles at the moment are mother roles and I don't think that I come across as a stereotypical mother role, if you know what I mean. What does that mean? What's a stereotype? Well, like I think, unfortunately, I think Australian casting is a little bit boring and there is a certain look that they go for mothers that is. If you have a look at random Australian TV shows, it's. It's just there's a softness that just don't look like me.
Kirsten: 7:34
Are you a mother in?
Josephine: 7:34
real life. I'm not a mother, no, yeah. And then, anyway, so I'd been acting for many years got a little bit frustrated that I wasn't getting many opportunities and decided to start producing my own work. And through that process of producing my own work, I just really enjoyed being a producer and it came quite naturally to me as well. And so, yeah, I've just been producing more, still acting, but definitely producing a lot more.
Kirsten: 8:03
What does producing actually involve? So, is it the writing of the work, or is it more the sort of business organisation of a film?
Josephine: 8:13
Yeah, so it definitely doesn't involve writing. You can definitely be a writer and a producer, but producing is a lot more of the logistics and the business side of everything Everything from creating a team and managing that team, really and you do have a little bit of creative input, but it's more. I would say it's much more managing a team and making sure everything goes smoothly. And post-producing as well, in which you're managing the editor and the director and making sure they're communicating and making sure that everyone's got the right files that they need and finding money, finding distributors, finding sales agents You're the boss, essentially.
Kirsten: 8:57
Yeah, yeah, pretty much yeah. Look, you came across my radar through a mutual friend when you were filming for your new film, the Returned, near where I live in Hamilton, or I think maybe north of there. We were super excited to hear that a film was taking place in our local area, which doesn't really happen all that often. Tell me about the Returned, yeah sure.
Josephine: 9:22
So I'll tell you how I came on board with it. I knew one of the actors involved and he contacted me and said that the director, ben, was looking for a producer and he sent me his pitch deck at the time and it looked really professional and the storyline looked interesting. So I asked him to send me the script and the script is fantastic. He's a really brilliant writer. It's creatively written at the same time as being I just I love the dialogue. The dialogue's very realistic and there's no exposition.
Josephine: 9:55
And for those who don't know what exposition is, it's when you spell out the story and therefore the dialogue doesn't sound naturalistic. You know you wouldn't come to your mum and say hi, mum, I'm feeling really sad today because last night my husband said that he had blah, blah, blah. Your mother would already know. But there's a lot of exposition in films just because you need to get the storyline across, because the audience doesn't know what's happening. But really great scripts find a way not to do that and give you the information without exposition, and he did that so brilliantly and there were just so many lines of dialogue that made me melt.
Josephine: 10:34
So should I tell you a little bit about the film? Yes, what's it about? Yeah, so it's about a mother who gets terminal cancer and her three children who come home to say goodbye to her, specifically about the different way in which each child grieves, because the whole point is that grief is not one emotion. Everyone thinks that grief is being sad and crying, but it's many emotions, it's frustration, sometimes it's feeling completely numb, sometimes it's confusion. I know it certainly was for me, and so we've got the eldest sister who is in denial about her grief and very much kind of being a busybody and taking care of everyone, and that's her way of coping.
Kirsten: 11:19
And then typical first child behavior, I reckon.
Josephine: 11:21
Typical first child, exactly. Yes, he has done a lot of the birth order and how people behave in that particular. So very astute observation there, yeah. And then the middle child is coping with it fairly well. He's been quite open with his mom about it. And then the youngest child is an adopted man from Sri Lanka and he is what Ben calls complex grief. He's quite angry about what's happening. He's trying to contact his birth mother. His birth mother doesn't want to have anything to do with him and yeah, and he's trying to say goodbye to this woman who's given him complete, unconditional love. And so there's a lot of mixed emotions coming from that. And so the story is cut into those three POVs. So you see the middle child's first story, then the eldest child's story and then the youngest child's story, and there's a few scenes that you see the same time but from a different point of view, so they play out slightly differently. And then, of course, we've got the ending as well.
Kirsten: 12:21
Are you in the film as well?
Josephine: 12:24
I am. You'll need to spot me, I'm an extra. A couple of times we all are. All of the producers played little roles because we're actually all of the producers are also actors. But yeah, no, we just played little roles in the side. So you have to, you have to blink and you'll miss us. That was more of a cost-saving exercise than anything. And when's this film coming out? That's a golden question-saving exercise than anything. And when's this film coming out? That's a golden question.
Josephine: 12:48
So we're currently in post. We haven't started editing yet. We need some money to start editing at the moment. So we're looking for about $10,000 to $20,000 to get us started for editing and then we'll find more money to do color grading and then sound mixing and all of the stuff that comes with it that a lot of people who aren't in the industry don't really know about. But it's quite a huge process and it can take anyway from six months to a year and a half, depending on how complicated it is. So hopefully by the end of the year. But we're going to do a festival run, so it depends what festival it gets into, where, where it premieres. It might not premiere until mid next year and then we'd be hopefully doing a cinema run after that.
Kirsten: 13:32
Wow. So throughout the stages you might not have the money already lined up, so you have to now find some money to be able to get to the next phase.
Josephine: 13:41
Yeah, so this is our first feature film and as a first timer it's not hugely easy to get money, because people want you to prove yourself before they hand over money. Financing film is definitely one of the most difficult parts of the film industry anyway, but when you're a first timer it's just that little bit more difficult to get people to believe in you. We're in a really great position now that we filmed it, so we've got footage to show people and people know that we have completed it, because so much can go wrong in the filming process. You can get halfway through a shoot and somehow disaster happens and you never finish your shoot. Or maybe you get the day before filming and you don't have all of your money to film, so you have to cancel the shoot. You know we're in a really great position that we finished production and we are ready to go into post-production.
Kirsten: 14:31
Okay, Jen. So this is the crazy thing about film you fund it in bits. There's no guarantee.
Jen: 14:37
And did Josephine just call herself a first timer? Yeah?
Kirsten: 14:42
she's not exactly a uni student doing a short film. I mean, she nearly burned down Lou's garage in Neighbours. For goodness sake, she's got serious cred, surely?
Jen: 14:50
And that's the thing. As you're about to hear, the film industry has a bit of a hierarchy, but Josephine is just doing it anyway.
Josephine: 14:57
Feature film is just a different ballgame. I've got lots of acting behind me and I've got the first project that I did was a documentary web series. I've done a bunch of short films and other comedy web series but yeah, feature film is just a completely different beast and no matter what you've got behind you, if you don't have a feature film behind you, you're considered a first-timer, unfortunately, and it is a little bit like starting from the ground up.
Kirsten: 15:24
Film just sounds so glamorous, but the realities of it, I think. Great if you're a wealthy executive producer in Hollywood produced by Brad Pitt or produced by Martin Scorsese or something like that and you've got a lot of money. But for most film producers it's not like that, is it?
Josephine: 15:42
No, not at all, especially in Australia. We've got a very different system in Australia. In the US it is a business and there are people who invest in film because they know they're going to make money out of it. There's people who invest in film because they just want to be part of the experience of investing in film. There's product placement, so lots of companies will pay to have their product put in film and pay a lot of money for it as well, whereas we don't have that culture in Australia.
Josephine: 16:13
I contacted quite a few people about product placement and not many people have done it, so they just don't. They're not very aware of it, and they were happy to have their product put in our film for free. They were like, yeah, we can supply your product, our product, and then you can put it in. And I was like, what are we getting out of that? But it's just not part of a culture, so people don't think about it and although there are some people who invest in films, it's not a huge part of the business like it is in US and there is a very heavy reliance on government funding and obviously there's not enough government funding to go around. So we do need to start changing that idea of getting more private investment into film. There's a new head of Screen Australia, a woman Deidre I can't think of her last name, brendan, maybe who I just saw spoke at a conference recently. She sounds incredible. She sounds like she's going to change Australian films and I'm very hopeful about what all the changes that she's making.
Kirsten: 17:15
Yeah, I do notice that a lot of Aussie films will often say supported by Film Victoria or Screen New South Wales or whatever it is. But how do we make it more attractive for private investors? What's the benefit for them? Because film's probably quite risky, isn't it?
Josephine: 17:34
It is quite risky. Yeah, I think it's such a huge question. We need to find a way to make Australian film more successful. I remember speaking to a guy who owned a cinema in the Blue Mountains and he said he had one cinema screen and he knew I can't remember what Australian film was out at the time but he knew that if he put that Australian film on he would get a ton of people in the older age group who would come and watch that film at 12 pm on a Wednesday. But because he's only got one screen, he had a huge Hollywood blockbuster on and they made him do three screenings of that film per day and he was literally screening to an empty audience. But he can't say no to that Hollywood film because it's worth so much money to him and so he's not serving his audience but he's making money from the Hollywood film but then the audience don't get to see Aussie films as well.
Josephine: 18:34
There is talk about change at the moment, about reserving a certain amount of cinemas for, say, you go to a complex and there's eight cinemas there, reserving at least three cinemas for Australian films, making sure that Australian films have a longer run as well.
Josephine: 18:50
There's a very amazing producer called Sue Maslin who is part of the feature film forum and they've looked at a whole bunch of stuff statistically and seen that Australian films don't do very well in the first four weeks of their cinema release. But they start picking up on week five, six, seven, whatever it is, because word of mouth gets around and so people start talking about it because obviously they don't have the huge advertising budgets that the bigger films do. But the problem is the system at the moment is that if you don't do well in the first three weeks, your film gets taken off. So a lot of these Aussie films aren't getting a chance to find their audience. So it's about finding a way to access that audience, making sure they get to the cinema, making sure the film's got a long enough time at the cinema to be seen and then it's got a higher chance of being successful, making its money back, making much more profit.
Kirsten: 19:42
What about? Is it about the cinemas? Or what about your Netflix and stands? Is there anything there that needs to change? Yeah, definitely.
Josephine: 19:50
There's a huge push to have all of their streamers invest in 20% of Australian content at the moment, because at the moment they're earning a lot from our audience but not putting all that much into paying for shows. The government and the screen producers association are definitely pushing for there to be a minimum amount of spend on Australian content and I think that will definitely change things as well.
Kirsten: 20:21
Yeah, I've noticed some great stuff that you that was on the ABC, produced by the in conjunction probably with the ABC, but Frayed and Fisk I absolutely loved, and then they got picked up by think, netflix or one of the streamers and you see that, yeah, quite often that the streamers will be one or two seasons behind something that's already aired on and been successful on ABC and SBS and I feel like they all took the risk in making these things and then the streamers will just pick it up when it's probably already successful and then find a new audience.
Josephine: 20:59
There's definitely streamers investing in content. They're not being completely blind to it, but the amount of money that they make from our audience is definitely they need to invest more. I do think there is a bit of an issue as well and I hope Deidre will change this but Australia is a little bit more risk adverse than America. We've also got a smaller population, so therefore a smaller audience, but I do feel like we're still making the same type of shows that we were making 20 years ago, and there was an American guy that came to a conference that I went to recently and he was like I think the next Fleabag could come out of Australia. But we need to find those voices and we need to invest more in new and upcoming voices, whereas I don't think enough of that is happening at the moment.
Kirsten: 21:49
Yeah, Thinking about the roles you played as a teenager, it just made me laugh because that was like every teenager on screen, like in the nineties and early 2000s, like they were all like angsty and slamming doors and no, and I was like a little goody two shoes and so I never related to these teenagers. And then Gilmore Girls came out and I related to the teenager in that who was like stressing over study. You know, I never saw myself reflected in anything Australian.
Jen: 22:17
Yeah, yeah, interesting. Oh, kirsten, I loved Gilmore Girls and I was a bit of a goody two shoes growing up as well. So I guess I kind of got lost in, you know, the American dramas and I always dreamed of going to an American college or something. So a big one for me, of course, was Dawson's Creek, and I actually did end up going to college in America when I was at university. So my dream came true for a little while. But yeah, I was a bit of a goody two shoes as well.
Kirsten: 22:44
Yeah, right, so you weren't relating necessarily to like the bad kids of Heartbreak High and those neighbors in Home and Away always had the troubled teens, yeah.
Jen: 22:54
And my parents were teachers, so I always thought if I did something wrong it would be me that would get caught. I was always, you know, the square and the dork and that kind of thing, but anyway, I got good grades and ended up with a good job. So yeah, that's right.
Kirsten: 23:09
I was an absolute dork too, so look, hooray us so fast forward to today. And Josephine Croft actually wrote this fantastic piece in Women's Agenda recently about how the film industry needs to become more family friendly to help women. So it's not just about the parts and feeling reflected and Josephine obviously spoke earlier about the sorts of roles that you get it's also about the work hours and the long shoots.
Jen: 23:38
Yeah, and she said overall the industry is still so heavily male dominated.
Josephine: 23:42
I think in Australia we do have a decent amount of female producers. What we lack is the amount of female directors. I think it is changing, but definitely the director will often choose what script they're going to show, and I think a female director is going to pick slightly different pieces to a male director. Do you know what I mean? Not always, but I think as a general rule. And so I think if we've got more females directing the stories, we're going to get more female gaze scripts and films that come out, and I think that changes a lot. I saw a statistic the other day of the last 20 years of Oscar winning films and the amount of lines that women had versus the amount of lines that men had, like how often men were speaking on screen as opposed to women, and it's shocking Like some of them, literally not one woman spoke in an Oscar winning film yeah, literally not one. And some of them that were even about a female still had like a 70% male lines versus a 30% female line.
Kirsten: 24:51
Like it's just crazy that there's still such disparity, wow that's incredible and it's a shame, because there's been some really successful female-led films or series of late and I find, especially in the kind of comedy genre, even the ones that I mentioned before Frayed, the Australian One and Fisk all have a female perspective to it and they're incredibly successful and incredibly funny, whereas there's still that notion of women aren't funny, which is ridiculous.
Josephine: 25:26
Yes, yeah, I do feel there's definitely more female comedians coming up these days that are doing really well and part of lots of groups that are aiming to lift women into the industry. One of them is Women in Film and Television. Another is Screen Vixens, which is a female identifying producers group, and they're incredible and the women in there are just so helpful. We had a dinner with Screen Vixens and I said, if all of the women were like Screen Vincennes, the world would be an incredible place, because they're just such a bunch of amazing women that just are so willing to help everyone out with even the smallest things, and it makes such a difference to be able to reach out to those women, especially because everyone's in different stages of their career.
Josephine: 26:07
Some people have been the producer for 30 years and some people are just starting out, and so to have those people who've had 30 years experience give you advice on something is just invaluable. But, yeah, I do feel like there was a huge push around 2012 to get female storytelling and female gaze up there, and I feel like it's dropped off a little bit and because I think we've also realized that other things are really important Having a diverse cast in and having people of all abilities in which is also incredibly important. But I do feel like we may have lost the push for women a little bit, but it's definitely about the younger women seeing other women doing it and saying I want to be a director, I want to be a writer, and seeing that it's possible and all that kind of stuff.
Kirsten: 26:59
Yeah, yeah, exactly. What about logistically? I think I've got friends who previously worked in the film industry as editors or on set and as soon as they had kids, like they just couldn't do the hours anymore, because there's this expectation that you're there for 10, 12, 14 hours a day and it's impossible when you're juggling kids, or seemingly. Is that changing or can you change that?
Josephine: 27:26
It's not changing. There is actually I keep banging on about it, but I do love them the Screen Vixens actually I keep banging on about it, but I do love them the Screen Vixens. There's a woman in the Screen Vixens who is pushing for job sharing and it has happened a couple of times. I wouldn't say it's common, but it is starting to happen more and more. So there are people who've co-directed a film, so they're not fully committing to all of that time. There are other people who are trying to reduce that the day, so they're not so long, so that you can do a feature film in eight hours, be finished by 5 or 6 pm and go home to your kids, because, as the system is, it's not currently very accessible for people who are parents and I think even I think it's important even for dads, because dads should be home after work as well. But yeah, it definitely needs to change and I think we can definitely work towards an eight hour day and also be completely open to job sharing. I think that is a really good option.
Kirsten: 28:25
I guess it comes back to some of the funding, though, too. Like you had that pressure of we've only got X amount of time or X amount of money. Therefore, say, when you came out to near where I live, you had to really maximize that time. Because you're out in the field, I suppose you've got to maximize that time and you've got this financial pressure.
Josephine: 28:48
Yeah, the thing is that when you go over eight hours you're paying for it, so it's not. I think it still does work out a little bit cheaper, but it's still. It's that extra time is paid for. And after you go over 10 hours then it's like time and a half as well, so you're paying quite a lot of money.
Josephine: 29:07
I think we also need to think about people's mental health, and it's really hard to get to the end of a six-week shoot having done 10 hour, 12 hour days. On our shoot we never did over 10 hours, we did mostly eight and a half to nine and a half hours and finishing that, you really have to come back and shift back into your life and go okay, wow, what was I doing before the film took over? And it's such a huge shift and so to then. You know, if that had been more like 10 to 12-hour days, I would have needed just a week of sleeping for the whole time. Do you know what I mean? And it's a really healthy thing to be able to finish a project and go. That was a really great time. I still feel like I've got energy to go back to my normal life.
Josephine: 30:08
I feel really good about what I did film covers grief is we wanted to make sure that everyone's mental health was okay and that we created a really safe environment and that people trusted us to come with any problems and that people felt like they were really looked after. And I think we achieved that, because a lot of people did say that it was a really great working experience. Who wants to work a 12-hour day and be utterly shattered and have no hobbies and just get home at the end of the day and go to sleep and then get up and do the same thing the day after? It's not a great quality of life and you can only do it for a very short amount of time if you're doing it back to back.
Kirsten: 30:48
It's a really good point you made about the content of the film as well. If it's about grief, then you're probably tapping into your own kind of experiences of grief and then and having to be in that space to be able to authentically show up and be that kind of character that that can probably be a hard space to to be in sometimes if you're there for a long time every day and having to turn it on and go into that feeling yeah, absolutely, absolutely.
Josephine: 31:14
And then I think because of that, you need to create a set where people feel really comfortable, because it's so hard as an actor to go in and be vulnerable and show all of your emotions if you don't feel safe on set and if you don't feel happy on set, whereas if you feel happy and comfortable. And if you don't feel happy on set, whereas if you feel happy and comfortable, you can completely just reveal it all and give a really beautiful, authentic performance.
Kirsten: 31:41
Another thing I wanted to ask you about and I don't know whether you've thought about it much is, I suppose, accessibility for women in rural areas to the film industry, because I think it can be really hard for women on the land to be involved in arts in general. It's like if we can't do it from home in some way, then it's really hard for us to be in these things. But if you're living on the land and you've got these big dreams and you don't want to leave your hometown, or perhaps you're on a farm and part of a farming business, can you be involved in a film?
Josephine: 32:18
I think you can find a way to make it work for you. I think there's so many people who are flexible these days. I do know a producer who lives in country Victoria Kylie Pascoe is her name and she does move around. So she does fly up to Queensland to produce the films up there, but she lives rurally and she spends quite a lot of time at home. But obviously she's traveling but she loves it and she makes it work. I do, yeah, I think. I don't think it's easy, but I think you can find a way to make it work and depending on what role you're doing as well, if you're an editor, you can absolutely work rurally because you are working from home. If you're a producer, I think you could do most of your stuff remotely. I don't know if you've seen, but there's an actress, marta Dusselthorpe, who is now owning her own production company and she does that all from Tasmania, and Tasmania never used to be a hub of production, but they're doing a whole bunch of shows out of there now and being pretty successful at it.
Kirsten: 33:24
Yeah, because I think it's really important in terms of that Australian story. There are plenty of actors and producers and directors that have grown up in the country, perhaps, but there's still that sense of oh, want to be in film, go move to the city or, worse, go move to hollywood or go move overseas. But I feel like we're missing something like that richness of of australian life if you don't have people from rural areas involved in the storytelling.
Josephine: 33:53
Yeah, and maybe that's a thing of starting something within your community. If you don't see it, then start it yourself. There's plenty of people who've made successful things just by saying I want to do this, and people gravitate towards that.
Kirsten: 34:09
Yeah, how do you get yourself in front of producers and writers and directors to just get your name out there Like it's one thing to be like, oh yep, I'll work from home, but if you're not already known, it's kind of hard.
Josephine: 34:24
Oh, that's such a hard question, because I think it's a hard question even when you're in a city. It's just one of those things that you just have to make it up, and I found it endlessly frustrating because I always wanted to know as well. I was like how do you do this, how do you get in the industry, how do you find someone to work with, how do you get this done? And you'd hear people talk about stuff and there's no step-by-step process. It's not like you could go online to this thing and be like, oh cool, there's just there's no step-by-step process. It's not like you go online to this thing and be like, oh cool, there's a job, I'll just apply for that. It's this really. It's this process that everyone does like completely differently.
Josephine: 35:05
And then one day you find yourself and you look around and you're like, oh, I'm in the middle of the industry and it's, I think it's about talking to as many people as you can, being part of groups. So, whether you join women in film and television, whether you find online forums, whether you do courses, I think courses are a really great way of meeting people and finding out about the industry. I know that AFTRS does short courses and I think some of them are online. Compton University does a lot of creative and industry stuff. You just have to literally put yourself out there and meet as many people as you can make stuff, and then one day you just realize that you're in the thick of things.
Kirsten: 35:55
Yeah, no, I think that's great advice, because I think that's probably the same for media in my experience, and, I'm sure, other industries. And the one thing about courses. I think courses are great, but at the same time, you've got to get to that point where you're actually doing something. Sometimes we can do courses and tell ourselves that we're working on the dream or whatever, but you're just doing courses. You've got to actually start doing the thing that you want to do and be comfortable with it not being perfect or it being a bit messy or whatever. Just start it.
Josephine: 36:28
Absolutely, absolutely. And I think my production company is called Tenacious Stories and I think that's one of the only reasons that I am where I am is because I just get up and do stuff. I don't think twice about it. I'm very good at getting off my bum and just making it happen, and it means that I've made mistakes here and there and it means that I've potentially embarrassed myself a few times, but it also means that I've gone through leaps and bounds and made a whole bunch of stuff happen. I think it's the only way to do it. You just have to. You just have to get up and try and stop thinking about it.
Kirsten: 37:05
Yeah, and I think that remains true, no matter how successful you are or how successful you get In your earlier career. Talking about being a female, I think the 90s and 2000s were at that kind of phase of looking back on that era, I think, particularly when it comes to how women were treated in the arts, whether it's music or TV. I didn't remember it at the time or think of it at the time as being that bad. But if you look back and you go, oh yeah, victoria's Secret and it was all about being super skinny with big boobs or there was some really unhealthy kind of messages for women, did you ever feel that pressure, or were you ever pressured to do anything you didn't want to do?
Josephine: 37:49
Yes, I did feel that pressure. As far as being an actress, I was very, extremely lucky to have not been put in that situation. I was having a conversation with an older actress recently about it and she had some really horrible, hairy stories about it. And she had some really horrible, hairy stories about it and just being asked to do things that were just not okay. It's funny I was. This is a little bit off topic, but I feel like it's relevant. I was talking to some friends recently. I watched a TED talk by Monica Lewinsky and and I think it wasn't which was around that time, wasn't? It was like late 90s, early 2000s, that, oh, it was 90s um, it was when Clinton was in power, obviously, so that was yes, yeah, 90s yeah, yeah, okay.
Josephine: 38:36
And she talks about the fact that she was so young at the time and the world just completely turned against her, said that she was a slut, that like couldn't believe she'd be doing this. There were so many jokes about her and during that time she had moved in with her mother and she was on suicide watch 24 seven, like she had to shower with the door open. She could never close her door in the bedroom. It was like it was really horrific and to think that he was in this huge position of power, he got away with so much and the world absolutely hated her. And she was so young and I remember thinking, yeah, she was 21, I think, 21.
Josephine: 39:21
And I remember thinking she was a slut. I remember thinking, oh my God, I can't believe she'd do that. And then now you look back on it and feel so guilty about it. And that was all of the media at the time. And how dare the world do that to her, like she was just a young girl and yeah I just. That kind of stuff really sticks out to me. It was such a hard time to be a woman then, especially in the media.
Kirsten: 39:48
I actually saw an interview, a recent interview, with Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton, and he spoke about that and he said his biggest regret is what happened to Monica Lewinsky and that for her, that ultimately has defined her, or at least for a long time, and he feels deep regret about that. And I thought that was very insightful, that he could see that, because it's not for him like, yes, everyone still remembers it, but he still gets to have a kind of more holistic perspective of his career and life will be recorded. But yeah, I remember thinking the same as you but also thinking, gosh, if that was me, I would just dye my hair, move to the middle of nowhere. That would be it. Yeah, totally yeah. So yeah, and I guess I'm asking this because there's a new book by Rebel Wilson who's talked about the pressure to do a nude scene. Was there anything like that? Or did you have a kind of a good sense of self that you could know where you wanted to draw any line?
Josephine: 40:52
Yeah, so I did do. I did a short film that actually never saw the light of day, where I was playing a stripper and I had to go pretty nude. I don't know for me. I definitely didn't feel pressure for me, also like I'm fairly comfortable with my body, so it wasn't something that I yeah that. That felt really that DOP was a guy and he was really lovely because he very much spent the whole time making sure that he was looking in my eyes and not looking at me anywhere else.
Josephine: 41:22
People definitely made me feel comfortable on set. Yeah, obviously I haven't had as much acting opportunity as Rebel Wilson has had. So yeah, no, I never felt the pressure in that way.
Kirsten: 41:33
No, that's good. Yes. What advice would you give to any young woman starting out in their film career? Not necessarily about whether or not to do nudes or anything but like about how to approach the industry and make sure that they're, you know, doing things that they want to do?
Josephine: 41:53
Yeah, I would suggest, especially if you're wanting to be an actor, acting is a very powerless position because you wait for someone else to give you an audition and you wait for other people to give you work and you have no control over what comes to you and how much work you're doing and all of that kind of stuff I think and it's particularly hard in Australia of stuff I think, and it's particularly hard in Australia. I would say, if you want to stay in Australia and try and be an actor, from the moment you can start making your own work and whether that is going and doing some comedy sketches or whether it's doing short film or whatever it is, work, save money so that you've got money to live off while you're making those projects. And you've got money to make those projects, make a whole bunch of money and then just go and make stuff because you're so much more in control of your career. And there's so many Australian actresses that are becoming producers because they want to control their career and they want to control their roles and they're like I've never played this role.
Josephine: 43:07
I keep being pigeonholed in this role. So therefore I wrote my own role. Leah Purcell, marta Dusselthorpe, lisa McKeown they've all gone into producing their own work and I think also a part of it is they're getting a little bit older and the types of roles available to them aren't roles that they're particularly interested in of roles available to them are roles that they're particularly interested in. It's extremely empowering to go out and make your own work and have some sort of control over what you're doing and the type of work that you're doing and how people see you.
Kirsten: 43:36
And I think we all benefit from it, which is great. Have you watched Grace and Frankie? No, I haven't. Oh, you should. It's hilarious. It's a kind of classic trope of the odd couple, but it's two women who are forced to live together and they end up becoming great friends and they're in their 70s and 80s and it's hilarious. One storyline is one of them creates a vibrator for women in their 70s and 80s that's easy to hold and it's really fun and funny and joyful and it's just something that just would not have been created 20 years ago.
Josephine: 44:10
Yes, yeah, I often think about that, about what has been created now as opposed to what was created 20-30 years ago.
Josephine: 44:19
One of the biggest things that I've noticed is that the men on our screens are very different these days. The ideal men that were on our screens 20 years ago were the heartbreaker, the bad guy that you're going to turn him so that he'll eventually want the relationship or whatever it is. Now, the men that we're seeing are a lot more sensitive and they cry Like you never would have seen the main hero of the story. You never would have seen them cry 20 years ago. They would have been like slightly emotional, but they still would have been really strong. And even seeing Timothee Chalamet doing Dune and he cries in Dune and in a big, big blockbuster film you wouldn't have seen the main male cry. You just wouldn't have. So definitely the types of people that we're seeing on screen are very different, and I think the types of women that we're seeing are very different as well, like women are much more able to be messy and interesting and the stories are much more realistic.
Kirsten: 45:17
Well, it sounds like there's a lot of opportunities and good things happening in the film industry overall, then. So when Returned comes out, will it be screened in those fun, nice little country cinemas that we have? Will you make sure it's getting screened?
Josephine: 45:32
Yeah, we'll definitely try. I mean, one of the things that we really loved about filming in Wanin was that there was a huge sense of community and we had a lot of locals come and help us and it was such a lovely experience and they were so grateful to be there, which was amazing and so helpful. But anyone we contacted within that area was just lovely to us. So we're definitely going to have a screening in Hamilton and invite a lot of the locals, something that, unfortunately, we don't get. To decide whether we go to regional cinema or whether we actually to regional cinema and or whether we actually get a cinema release, it depends on how well our festival run goes. It depends on how well received the film is and whether the distributors think that they're going to make enough money for us to do regional areas and a big cinema tour. Obviously we would love to, so so fingers crossed. So if anyone hears of the return, then make sure that you come and see it, because if we don't get our audiences, then we won't go to other cinemas.
Kirsten: 46:36
And that's it for another episode of Ducks on the Pond sponsored by the Victorian Women's Trust, who have a free digital skills workshop in northeast Victoria. Beautiful Yackandandah running from September 11 to 14.
Jen: 46:50
So season six is officially underway, and I am pumped.
Kirsten: 46:54
Me too. There is so much happening this season. And thank you to Josephine Croft, of course, and I got an update on her movie since I spoke to her. So the Returned they have now done a rough cut of the film and will have a first audience screening next week.
Jen: 47:10
Oh, that's so exciting. So when's it likely to come out?
Kirsten: 47:13
They just need some completion funding and she thinks it will be out February next year.
Jen: 47:18
That's great stuff and, of course, you can catch us on Instagram. And, kirsten, you're actually going to the Australian Women in Ag Conference in Aubrey at the end of this month.
Kirsten: 47:27
Yes, I am. I'm taking ducks on the road and I think there are some still some tickets available, so come and say hi. And Jen, of course, thank you for joining me back. You'll be with us throughout the whole season. You sort of joined us at the very end of last season, so it's great to have you on board. Lovely to be here. Now let's meet our episode sponsor, alana Johnson, from the Victorian Women's Trust.
Alana: 47:52
We were formed back in the 1980s in Victoria and the Victorian Women's Trust has been a leading light like a watchdog for women and an advocacy agency for women, and we still do an incredible amount of work that keeps the women's agenda at the forefront.
Kirsten: 48:12
So that's across the board, as in whether you're talking about careers or safety or opportunities.
Alana: 48:18
Absolutely Everything, from financial literacy to your petitioning the government for services that we think are required to give women greater opportunity safety, childcare, all those issues that are still really relevant. Homelessness for older women, so many older women entering poverty there's so many issues that are still there. We think we've made great gains and I suppose we really have in the last 30 years, but people forget that there is still a lot that needs to happen in terms of women feeling there's equity in society for them.
Kirsten: 48:56
Yeah, now I understand you've got a program running now called the Yak Digital Intensive and also an online resource for rural women specifically. Can you tell me a bit about that?
Alana: 49:08
This all came about during the COVID lockdowns. I live in rural Victoria and the women in my area would normally get together a couple of times a year and catch up with one another and hear what's going on. During the COVID lockdowns that was not possible, so I actually initiated a Zoom meeting so that at least we could have some contact with one another, and one of the people that I had invited, an older woman, rang me and said Alana, I'm so looking forward to being connected again. But what is Zoom? And I found out that for weeks she had not seen anyone. She was alone on her farm, totally isolated, and she didn't have the digital knowledge and capability to actually operate in the world that was available to us then. She didn't know how to make medical appointments or order groceries online, do her banking, so she was living just isolated existence. It was really quite tragic. And then, as I spoke to her, it made me start to investigate what that was like for other women, and it became very apparent that across rural and regional Victoria there were so many physically and socially isolated women that really came to the fore through COVID.
Alana: 50:30
We then at the Women's Trust started to investigate this whole issue and we realised that RMIT were doing pretty specialised work in this area and they came up with a research findings that suggested that people's access to the digital world was worse in rural areas. It was worse for older women, and there were three factors that really contributed to it. One was access to the NBN, another one was affordability, but the third factor was ability, and there was just lack of capability and we thought, well, that's something we can do something about. So we designed a program to upskill women in their digital capability, funded by the Helen McPherson Smith Trust and the Bendigo Bank Community Foundation. We went to 11 towns across regional Victoria in stage one of Rural Women Online, and we only went for a day and women just flooded in saying yo, I don't know how to download this, I don't know how to access this app, teach me how to do this.
Speaker 4: 51:40
So there was just safe environment for women to actually learn at their own pace and be able to be open and honest about where they felt capable and where they needed help, and I just think there's this lovely thing about when women help other women. Something special comes from that. We've already been to Shepparton and we're now going to Yakondanda, and it's for a whole week. We've got all these wonderful workshops where you can extend yourself so people can learn about AI, creating their own website for their small business, they can learn about Canva, and there is a whole vast array of things. So a whole week is just so exciting. In Shepparton there were young women in the community who gave their time to come and be there and sit at a table, mostly with an older woman, and take them through the things that they needed to learn.
Kirsten: 52:37
Do you still need volunteers, some of the younger women as well? Are you looking for them?
Speaker 4: 52:42
We would be very happy for any young women to contact the Victorian Women's Trust and say how could I support the Rural Women Online Program, Because there are many women across the state who would love to have assistance.
Kirsten: 52:56
What's the best piece of mentorship advice you would give to another rural woman?
Speaker 4: 53:01
Well, I think it's the same advice I've given for 30 years, and that is when you reach out to another woman, then you find mutual benefit. Anywhere where you can connect with another woman is not only going to advantage them, but advantage you, and that's how movements start, that's how support networks start and that's how skilling up starts.
Kirsten: 53:23
Yeah, I love that. So how can people find out more about Rural Women Online and is there a resource that is available? You know, if you're not in Yakandandah, we've got a national audience, but if you're not in Yakondanda, is there another way? You can perhaps be part of this.
Speaker 4: 53:39
So, yes, there certainly is. So we decided that we would create a easy to use guidance manual for women to actually participate in the digital world. So that's free to everybody. So people Google Rural Women Online. That will take them to the website and they can download any of the information e-safety and scams and online banking, and there's many, many resources there and anyone can access that. It's there for everyone.
Kirsten: 54:12
Great, and of course, for people in the Northeast. Yakandandah's running September 11 to 14. We can actually go in person.
Speaker 4: 54:20
Alana Johnson, thank you so much that is my pleasure and hopefully we might see rural women online go across the whole country in the future?
Kirsten: 54:31
That would be amazing. Thank you, Alana Johnson there. Chair of the Victorian Women's Trust. You can Google Victorian Women's Trust or just Google Rural Women Online. We'll have links in our show notes as well, and if you would like to sponsor an episode of Ducks on the Pond, then get in touch soon. Our places are booking out quickly. We'll catch you next time.
