In a town like Hollywood, appearances are everything. And a smart office on a studio lot is more conducive to making a deal than the local Starbucks, where most aspiring producers, directors and writers can be found, hoping to strike it lucky between skinny grande Americanos.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Four of Australia's entertainment industry organisations – Screen NSW, Screen Queensland, the Australian Film Television and Radio School and Film Victoria – are backing a new shared work space in Los Angeles, intended to give emerging writers, directors and producers a launch pad into the Hollywood big time.
The space – nicknamed Charlie's – is located on LA's historic Raleigh Studios lot, tucked in between production offices and working sound stages.
Its name is drawn from the fact Charlie Chaplin frequently worked on the lot and more famously loved to play cards there.
It is also the studio where films such as A Star is Born and Whatever Happened to Baby Jane were filmed.
"Hollywood can be a tough town to crack," says Kate Marks, the president of Australians in Film, the LA film, television and digital content organisation which promotes Australian film and TV in the US, and conceived and created the work space.
"The aim of Charlie's is to create a base for Australian creatives who are coming to Los Angeles to sell their stories."
Actor/director Jason Perini at work at Charlie's in LA. Photo: Kylie Speer
It is not unlike, Marks says, Australian investment in any other trade industry, or even the funding of athletes.
"This is about exporting our stories and culture to a global audience, and like our athletes, when they head to the Olympic Games, we want to support our storytellers," she says.
The space's first two working occupants are Australian writer/director Catriona McKenzie, whose credits include Redfern Now and The Circuit, and aspiring actor/director Jason Perini, whose short film The New Empress, which starred Maggie Gyllenhaal, just won Kevin Spacey's Jameson First Shot competition.
"LA is like six huge cities in one, it's huge and sprawling," McKenzie says. "Charlie's provides a departure point, a launch pad. It's an opportunity, like a little patch of home that's closer than 14 hours away. You run into people, you can meet with people, it's a very safe creative space to go forth from."
McKenzie came to Charlie's straight from the set of Alien: Covenant, where she has been shadowing the legendary director Ridley Scott.
"Blade Runner is one of my all-time favourite films, all of his films are amazing films, he's got a very pure cinematic vision," McKenzie says.
"To be able to be right there on his shoulder, to see him with his heads of department, is really fantastic. It's a really big budget film, incredible actors, production design, but also incredibly technical special effects [which] we don't get a lot of exposure to in Australia."
Since establishing herself at Charlie's, McKenzie has been developing a science fiction television series, "which would come out of Australia but is an international co-production" and has a second concept in development. "I am having meetings here in LA on those projects, it's kind of a release," she said.
For Perini, the space has allowed him to capitalise on the exposure he won through The New Empress. US reaction to the short film has been "much more positive than I had anticipated," he says.
"There are plenty of things I wish I could have done differently but the reception has been really overwhelmingly positive, which has helped me," he says. "It's allowed me to start a bunch of conversations in LA and in Australia."
The site – a 1915 bungalow, with an interior by designer and photographer Ingrid Weir, the daughter of legendary filmmaker Peter Weir – is infused with its history, says Perini.
"It feels like a really welcoming place," he says. "And the history of it is nice, not that I think I would reach the heights of the people who have been there but there is some sort of magic in the air.
"You think if you could get the smallest bite of the magic, that would be wonderful."
Marks says Weir's design "evokes the early pioneering spirit of Hollywood, hence the nod to Chaplin, but with lovely subtle Australian references."
For example, the site's meeting space is called the Mermaid Lounge, a nod to former professional swimmer and early Aussie in Hollywood, actress Annette Kellerman.
"The space is extremely comfortable and welcoming, but it is definitely a work space on a studio lot," Marks says.
"For Australians just arriving in Los Angeles it is a great anchor ... in the biggest and most insatiable market in the world."
