Last week at a marquee event at the Crown Sydney, Amazon Prime Video made a series of big announcements including:
• That it has invested $150 million in local productions, resulting in more than 2,500 jobs across Australia since 2019, totalling 14 Amazon Australian Original series to date.
• The greenlighting of seven new Australian Original productions
• Confirmation of the global acquisition of Nine Perfect Strangers outside of the US and China
• Release dates, show titles, trailers, and first looks for four previously announced originals
• Confirmation of the sporting commentary team for its upcoming live coverage of the 2021 Australian Swimming Trials in June.
Mediaweek spoke with Erika North, the head of originals, Asia Pacific, at Amazon Studios about what these big announcements mean for both Amazon and Australia.
“What I think is extremely exciting and compelling about Australia is it has got a rich history of creative talent both in front and behind the camera,” North told Mediaweek.
According to North, Amazon Prime Video does not use a volume driven business model but instead relies on being highly curated from development through to marketing and distribution. She said that this is an approach that Amazon will be taking with its Aussie made content.
“We are always thinking about what is it that our customers in Australia are not getting that they could be getting? And what is it that Australian content could be and how can we help it to be the best iteration of itself? “
Prime Video Presents Australia 2021
Creating content in Australia
When asked what Amazon is looking for when choosing original content for its platform, North said that they are looking for grounded Australian stories and want to work with the best creators.
“Our goal is to find and honour the best stories out of Australia that are yet to be told. I want to help us find voices to amplify and stories that are yet unwritten.
“We are trying to work with talent to help them move outside any barriers or boxes that they might be in. We are working with Eva Ona (on the documentary Burning) to make her first homegrown documentary and with Cate Blanchett and moving beyond what Cate might be known for to delve into something that she is incredibly passionate about and to tell a story to Australian audiences.”
Cate Blanchett
North said that when putting together a slate of original content every region is different, and Amazon is attempting to create a slate custom made to the Australian pallet.
“We are focusing on sport and at the same time focusing on unscripted and at the same time focusing on comedy, and also premium scripted drama.”
Creating digital streaming content is still a new beast and North said that it creates exciting questions about the opportunities that direct-to-consumer distribution offers.
“What does that direct-to-consumer relationship mean when you release something simultaneously to over 200 markets in the world? What does that do? I think we are still in the early stages of figuring out what that means but in Australia it is incredibly compelling, we are going to be creating content on a direct-to-consumer basis that is available nowhere else for Australian consumers to enjoy and I think that unearths so many possibilities.”
North said that Amazon is always on the outlook for new and unique stories and source them from a variety of different avenues.
“These ideas come to us in a number of different ways, they come to us from relationships with creative talent and quite often we might start a meeting with somebody and say ‘look, what is the story and what is the project that you have never had a chance to do before? Let’s talk about that’.
“All of these projects we announced today we spent many months in development with the talent to try and figure out what it is that we can do to help shape that content to be the very best version of what they can make.”
The Future of Amazon in Australia
North said that the future of Amazon Prime Video in Australia is very bright as consumers begin opening up to the possibilities of directly receiving content
“The idea of watching content anytime, anywhere at your schedule is becoming more and more ubiquitous. If you think about what that means for Australian storytellers, the more grounded a piece of content is, the more is its competency to travel.
“When I think about a show like Class of ‘07 or a show like Deadloch or The Lost Flowers of Alice Heart or The Moth Effect they are all grounded in Australia and have an Australian earthiness to it but also a universality to the characters that will allow it to travel.”