\n<\/p>\n
T<\/span>om Avison is just back from Los Angeles when I meet him at Perth Film Studios on a warm May morning. The studio\u2019s inaugural chief executive was on a whirlwind sales trip, squeezing \u201cabout 16 or 17 meetings\u201d into four days with the likes of Netflix, Universal, Warner Bros and Disney. \u201cBasically any production company that you can think of,\u201d he says. \u201cThey want to know what\u2019s going on.\u201d<\/p>\n Back at the major new facility in Whiteman, on Perth\u2019s semi-rural north-eastern fringe, the British screen executive is in tour guide mode: affable, brisk, fluent in the strange mix of logistics and optimism required to launch a studio from scratch. Before Perth, Avison helped open Sky Studios Elstree outside London, a major production base that launched with Wicked and later hosted Jurassic World and Bridget Jones. But the Perth role \u2013 which he discovered, almost improbably, via LinkedIn \u2013 \u201chooked\u201d him because it offered the chance to shape not just a facility, but an industry still defining itself.<\/p>\n \u201cNot long ago, this was just a cow paddock,\u201d he says wryly, as he walks me through the 16-hectare site. Over the past three years, the paddock has been remade into a world-class film studio: four vast sound stages, production offices, workshops, service roads and a backlot larger than the playing field at Perth\u2019s 60,000-seat Optus Stadium.<\/p>\n <\/span>Work is already under way in one of the sound stages on the six-part Stan and ITV mystery-thriller Two Birds.<\/span> Photograph: Frances Andrijich\/The Guardian<\/p>\n The build alone cost $233.5m, funded by state taxpayers, who are committing a further $57m to support the studio\u2019s first decade of operation: a major public investment aimed at lifting Western Australia\u2019s share of scripted screen production from 1% to 10% over the next decade. The wager comes as Australia is drawing in more international screen projects: drama production expenditure was $2.7bn in 2024-25, up 43% on the previous year. For Avison, the challenge is to put Perth \u201cin the same conversation\u201d as the established east coast production hubs \u2013 and make the case for WA more broadly.<\/p>\n That case, he says, is both financial and geographical: WA can stack its own production incentive with the federal location offset, a tax rebate designed to lure film and television projects to Australia, with further support for regional shoots. From a location perspective, Avison sees \u201ca tremendous amount of untapped opportunity\u201d: WA has rarely been used by bigger productions, despite the cinematic range of its south-west forests, Wheatbelt, Kimberley, the Pinnacles and \u201cred dirt into a blue sea\u201d.<\/p>\n In one of the studio\u2019s sound stages, work is already under way. When I visit, Two Birds, a six-part Stan and ITV mystery-thriller starring Judy Davis, Sheridan Smith and Stephen Peacocke, is in its first week of production. Props and furniture are being readied for interiors; nearby, completed sets sit ready for filming. The series, which is also filming on location in Kalgoorlie, is employing more than 100 local cast and crew and expected to inject over $17m into the WA economy.<\/p>\n For those expecting the studio to open with a Hollywood blockbuster, Two Birds may look like a modest beginning. But for Avison it is part of the slower work of building credibility. \u201cMelbourne\u2019s had a film studio for 20 years, Sydney for 30 years, Queensland for 40 years,\u201d he says. \u201cWe\u2019re four months into a film studio here.\u201d The aim, he argues, is to grow the industry without pushing it beyond what it can sustain: \u201cWe want to stretch the muscle. We don\u2019t want to tear it.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/span>The new sound stages have been built for traditional shoots as well as virtual production and AI-assisted workflows.<\/span> Photograph: Frances Andrijich\/The Guardian<\/p>\n Beyond the studio gates, there is another sign of momentum. Breakers, the first Netflix series to film in WA and billed as the state\u2019s biggest production to date, is shooting in Busselton and along the south-west coast. It is not a Perth Film Studios win, but alongside Two Birds it is \u201cthe biggest concurrent production that\u2019s gone on in WA, I think, ever\u201d, Avison says.<\/p>\n WA\u2019s pitch to the world comes after years of exodus from Hollywood. Los Angeles\u2019 share of overall worldwide production in film and television has been falling for years, as California has been forced to compete with domestic and international jurisdictions offering lower production costs and competitive financial incentives. Entertainment data company Luminate found that the share of US scripted series made in LA fell from 40% in 2019 to less than 25% in early 2026. California\u2019s governor, Gavin Newsom,\u200b has said the \u200bstate\u2019s entertainment industry\u200b is now \u201con life support\u201d.<\/p>\n Analysis commissioned this year by Screen Australia found Australia is globally trusted as a production hub, but warned the sector \u201cremains constrained by feast and famine cycles\u201d; production peaks are stretching the limited pool of experienced crew, which drives up costs and creates scheduling conflicts.<\/p>\n <\/span>The central walkway between sound stages at the new studios in Perth.<\/span> Photograph: Frances Andrijich\/The Guardian<\/p>\n Two Birds offers an early test case: the British-Australian co-production, led by the WA producer Martha Coleman, has a majority WA crew supplemented by interstate and UK practitioners where personnel were not available locally, including an east coast line producer, best boy\/rigging gaffer and key grip.<\/p>\n Avison says WA lacks trained personnel and specialised equipment in some fields, such as stunts, special effects, construction, grips and, to some extent, rigging and lighting, because productions of this scale have rarely filmed here before. Screenwest is trying to fill some of those gaps through targeted industry-capacity funding and workforce training.<\/p>\n Matthew Deaner, the chief executive of Screen Producers Australia, says that while Perth Film Studios is an important investment, \u201ca studio alone does not create a sustainable screen industry\u201d; the real measure of success is \u201cnot simply the productions attracted, but the capability left behind\u201d. Returning series built around local stories and IP, he says, are what tend to stabilise a sector \u201cfor years to come\u201d.<\/p>\n <\/span>Avison hopes Perth Film Studios will not only attract big projects, but small ones too, \u2018because they all feed off each other\u2019.<\/span> Photograph: Frances Andrijich\/The Guardian<\/p>\n Kate Separovich, a WA producer and co-founder of Lake Martin Films, is \u201ccautiously optimistic\u201d about Perth Film Studios, but says larger productions can put pressure on independent producers already trying to finance local work, and absorb the crews which smaller productions depend on. \u201cIf a bigger production comes in and takes all the local crew, then I can\u2019t afford to fly people in from interstate or overseas,\u201d she says. \u201cAs a producer, I\u2019m like, but where are the crew when I want to make something?\u201d<\/p>\n If crew depth is one test of Perth\u2019s ambitions, distance is another. \u201cThe challenge of being in Perth is always our distance,\u201d Separovich says. \u201cIt\u2019s 20-plus hours to get from LA to Perth.\u201d But Avison argues distance looks different inside the global production circuit: creative talent already moves between hubs such as LA, London, Sydney and Cape Town, while Perth\u2019s direct (17-hour) connection to London will appeal to UK productions.<\/p>\n Back at Perth Film Studios, Avison is still making his case. As we continue around the studio, he points out some quieter aspects of its design: a yarning circle, hundreds of thousands of native plants and, at the rear, an open field visited by grazing kangaroos. \u201cIn the UK, film studios are big grey boxes and loads of parking,\u201d he says. \u201cHere, we don\u2019t want it just to be that.\u201d The softer edges sit alongside a more technical ambition: stages built for traditional shoots as well as virtual production, real-time rendering and AI-assisted workflows. A studio, he adds, needs to be \u201ckind of eternally flexible\u201d.<\/p>\n His hope is that Perth Film Studios gives WA\u2019s screen industry a centre of gravity. At one point, he compares the studio to \u201can artificial reef\u201d \u2013 a piece of infrastructure meant \u201cto help establish and grow an ecosystem\u201d. He hopes it not only attracts the big projects, but small ones too, \u201cbecause they all feed off each other\u201d. Whether that ecosystem will justify WA\u2019s $290m investment remains to be seen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Tom Avison is just back from Los Angeles when I meet him at Perth Film Studios on a warm May morning. The studio\u2019s inaugural chief executive was on a whirlwind sales trip, squeezing \u201cabout 16 or 17 meetings\u201d into four days with the likes of Netflix, Universal, Warner Bros and Disney. \u201cBasically any production company<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":50678,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[24852,9945,1171,830,20446,1394,24853,15321,4182],"class_list":{"0":"post-50677","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-290m","9":"tag-cow","10":"tag-film","11":"tag-hollywood","12":"tag-lure","13":"tag-movies","14":"tag-paddock","15":"tag-perth","16":"tag-studio"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50677","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=50677"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50677\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/50678"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=50677"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=50677"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=50677"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}