Editing Cinema of Australia (section)

===Boom and bust – 1910s to 1920s===
The 1910s were a "boom" period in Australian cinema. Activity had begun slowly in the 1900s, and 1910 saw four narrative films released, then 51 in 1911, 30 in 1912, and 17 in 1913, and back to four in 1914, when the beginning of [[World War I]] brought a temporary pause in film-making.<ref>{{cite book|first1=Andrew|last1= Pike |first2= Ross |last2=Cooper|title=Australian Film 1900–1977: A Guide to Feature Film Production|location= Melbourne|publisher= Oxford University Press|date= 1998|pages= 1 – 49|isbn = 9780195507843}}</ref> While these numbers may seem small in the 21st century, Australia was one of the most prolific film-producing countries at the time. In all, between 1906 and 1928 Australia made 150 narrative feature films, almost 90 of them between 1910 and 1912.<ref>Albert Moran & Errol Vieth, ''Historical Dictionary of Australian and New Zealand Cinema'', Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press, 2005, 32.</ref>

A general consolidation took place in the early 1910s in the production, distribution and exhibition of films in Australia. By 1912 numerous independent producers had merged into [[Greater Union|Australasian Films and Union Theaters]] (now known as [[Event Cinemas]]), which established control over film distributors and cinemas and required smaller producers to deal with the cartel. Some view the arrangement as opening the way for American distributors in the 1920s to sign exclusive deals with Australian cinemas to exhibit only their own products, thereby shutting out the local product and crippling the local film-industry.<ref>''Australian screen'', http://australianscreen.com.au/titles/picture-show-man/clip1/ {{Webarchive|url= https://web.archive.org/web/20090108092532/http://www.australianscreen.com.au/titles/picture-show-man/clip1/ |date= 8 January 2009 }}</ref>

Various other explanations attempt to account for the decline of the industry in the 1920s. Some historians point to falling audience numbers, a lack of interest in Australian product and narratives, and Australia's participation in the war. Also, an [[Bushranger ban|official ban on bushranger films]] occurred in 1912.<ref>Reade, Eric (1970) ''Australian Silent Films: A Pictorial History of Silent Films from 1896 to 1926''. Melbourne: Lansdowne Press, 59.</ref><ref>[http://archive.sensesofcinema.com/contents/01/18/oz_western.html Routt, William D. "More Australian than Aristotelian: The Australian Bushranger Film, 1904–1914". ''Senses of Cinema'' 18 (January–February), 2002] {{Webarchive|url= https://web.archive.org/web/20101224214514/http://archive.sensesofcinema.com/contents/01/18/oz_western.html |date= 24 December 2010 }}</ref><ref>[[Kathryn Heyman]]'s 2006 novel, ''Captain Starlight's Apprentice'', gives a fictionalised account of the banning of bushranger films in New South Wales.</ref> With the suspension of local film-production, Australian [[cinema chain|cinema-chain]]s sought alternative products in the United States and realised that Australian-produced films were much more expensive than the imported product, which were priced cheaply as production expenses had already been recouped in the home market. To redress this imbalance, the [[federal government of Australia]] imposed a tax on imported film in 1914, but this was removed by 1918.{{citation needed|date=March 2021}}

Whatever the explanation, by 1923 American films dominated the Australian market, with 94% of all exhibited films coming from the United States.<ref>Albert Moran & Errol Vieth, ''Historical Dictionary of Australian and New Zealand Cinema'', Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press, 2005, 30.</ref>