Australian Screen Education articles from December 2004

Australian Screen Education archives from December 2004

Editorial.(Editorial)
December 22, 2004... ISSUE 37 OF SCREEN EDUCATION continues our series on National Cinemas with Brian McFarlane's authoritative discussion of the high and low points of British cinema. As with Australian film, British cinema is difficult to pigeonhole, although...

Screen education events.
December 22, 2004... SUMMER SCHOOLS If you know of a Media related event that other teachers could get excited about, email the details to atom@atomvic.org. We reserve the right to make the final call on whether the event is worthy of listing. Compiled by Amber...

Now and then: the ebbs and flows of British cinema.(2 Britain)
December 22, 2004... WHAT IS IT? British cinema, in Australia at least but probably elsewhere too, has always occupied a sort of middle ground. In the days when it was a recognizable national cinema, with a regular output and with cinemas largely (sometimes...

'Control room' and 'outfoxed'.(In the Realm of the Political Subtext)(Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism)
December 22, 2004... 'OBJECTIVITY IS A BIT OF MIRAGE.' Control Room DOCUMENTARY production in recent years has been marked by the emergence of films with a pronounced political subtext, coinciding with dramatic international events and domestic developments in...

The politics of a political film thoughts on 'Fahrenheit 9/11'.
December 22, 2004... OVER THE PAST YEAR, a stream of overtly political documentaries has been flowing from the United States into the global movie market. Leading the way is Michael Moore's attack on President George W. Bush, Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004), but a number of...

The phenomenon of political television advertising in US presidential elections.
December 22, 2004... 'The idea that you can merchandise candidates for high office like breakfast cereal is the ultimate indignity to the democratic process.' Democratic candidate Adlai Stevenson, 1956 'Political advertising is now the major means by which...

From behind the wire: 'letters to Ali': when Macau-born Clara Law migrated to Australia from Hong Kong with her partner and film co-collaborator Eddie Fong, she found the country so quiet that she could not sleep at night.
December 22, 2004... AUSTRALIA BORE LITTLE SIMILARITY to the urban buzz of Hong Kong, but offered delicate pleasures in its unique flora, its vast landscape and sense of sanctuary. So begins Law's sincere feature-length documentary, Letters to Ali (2004), in which...

Young, dumb and full of lies: the news media's construction of youth culture.
December 22, 2004... Introduction OPEN A NEWSPAPER, watch television news, or tune in to the latest whinge about 'kids today' from Ray Martin or John Laws, and it becomes obvious that the Australian news media has serious problems with your people, This is...

Act your age: the portrayal of secondary school students in their own films: there is an empowering element of filmmaking that has a real attraction for young people. The freedom to use images instead of words allows most students a chance to articulate their exact feelings without compromising their message.
December 22, 2004... The recent advances in digital technologies have furthered filmmaking opportunities. Affordable cameras and editing systems, as well as the introduction of video production classes in most secondary schools, have provided a practical way for...

Get heard: get involved in community radio: giving communities a voice.
December 22, 2004... Community radio exists, in Australia, as a much needed alternative to commercial radio. The general idea behind community radio is that it is radio run by and for the community. This allows community radio stations to provide air space for many...

Classification and censorship: turning eighteen. It doesn't just mean you can get your licence or go to the pub, it also means you can legally watch R rated films. You never watched any before then, right? Yeah right ...
December 22, 2004... IN AUSTRALIA, fifteen and eighteen mark a magical time when you are suddenly considered grown-up enough to watch certain films. These ages supposedly represent a level of maturity and a subsequent change in viewing practices. But just how do...

TV ratings 101.(Australian Television Audience Measurement)
December 22, 2004... Television Ratings measure the number of households or people watching television at a particular time and what program they are watching. Ratings are useful for two key reasons: firstly, to inform the value of advertising; and secondly, to...

The big sell: media audience research and advertising.
December 22, 2004... What is advertising? ADVERTISING IS A TERM THAT PEOPLE USE TO MEAN MANY DIFFERENT THINGS. To me, an academic who has worked in major international advertising agencies, it has a very simple, restricted meaning: it refers narrowly to main...

A thousand avenues, dark, seedy and glistening with evening rain: revisiting Paul Schrader's "Notes On Film Noir".
December 22, 2004... THE INTENTION OF THIS PAPER, which was presented at the 2004 ATOM Conference, is to revisit one of the seminal articles of noir criticism, Paul Schrader's 'Notes on Film Noir'. (1) It aims to examine the relevance of this text and draw...

Getting media started in the middle school.
December 22, 2004... Media teachers invariably teach senior classes, as very few schools offer Media in the middle years of schooling. This is a shame, as the middle school Media curriculum allows far more creative teaching and learning freedoms to students and...

A week without TV.
December 22, 2004... IN A RECENT AMERICAN STUDY some children were offered a million dollars to give up TV. No one would accept the challenge. One boy asked, 'What would you do?' Can you last a week without TV? What about four days? Why do you think that...

Instant film critic (genre).
December 22, 2004... 1. Viewing: Screen two or three famous short films of different genres. The task then is for each individual in the class to select their favourite film from those viewed. 2. Imagine: Students are to imagine that they are the director of...

Phones, games and virtual worlds: new media in the classroom.
December 22, 2004... Before new media there was old media One thing is certain about the media: there is always something new. Progress continually offers the tantalizing possibility of better, faster, easier and, in an interesting twist, often smaller media...

The essential guide to teaching screenwriting.(Part III)
December 22, 2004... Developing a Screenplay THE SCREENPLAY is the end result of months, perhaps years, of story development as outlined in the previous two Essential Guide articles (see issue 30). By the time students come to this stage they must have...

Directing: the greatest job in the world?
December 22, 2004... 'It's a goddamned impossible way of life.' (Robbie Robertson, The Last Waltz [Martin Scorsese, 1978]) (1) 'The whole process of moviemaking is magical, so magical, in fact, that it often serves as sufficient justification for one to go to...

Persistence of vsion: animation for primary kids.(Primary School)
December 22, 2004... Background CHILDREN ARE INTRIGUED by the concept of animation, the art of making still drawings appear to move on film. Nothing is real, nothing exists as it does in live drama--yet we are able to relate to animation characters as if they...

'Good boy!' A study in filmmaking for young children.(Primary School)(Movie Review)
December 22, 2004... Introduction This study guide has been written for students in years two to four, ages seven to ten. The film is distributed by MGM Home Entertainment (2003) and is rated G. This guide links the film study to outcomes in the Key Learning...

Digital learning portfolios: a critical look.(Primary School)
December 22, 2004... What are Digital Learning Portfolios? Digital learning portfolios are essentially collections of student work that richly represent the learner and provide authentic evidence of learning. They demonstrate evidence of the student's efforts,...

Capturing an experience on film.(Primary School)
December 22, 2004... While this Learning Element involves students in making a video recording of an overnight visit to Underwater World at Mooloolaba in Queensland, the content is flexible and could be transferred to other settings. It provides opportunities for...

Pleasurable texts: popular culture in the classroom.(Middle Years)
December 22, 2004... IT IS NOT DIFFICULT TO ARGUE that popular culture texts, popular screen texts in this instance, are inherently pleasurable to the young reader/viewer. Moreover, this inherent pleasure provides the teacher with a rich resource for textual...

Exploring the production: two brothers: (Jean-Jacques Annaud, 2004).
December 22, 2004... About the film The story DEEP IN THE HEART of the Southeast Asian jungle in the early twentieth century, two tigers are born amidst the ruins of a forgotten temple. The two brothers, Kumal and Sangha, grow up surrounded by moss-eaten...

Friends and families and other funny things: TV comedy in the socially critical classroom.(Middle Years)
December 22, 2004... If classroom work on a text is working well, it should never spoil the text, but rather increase enjoyment by sharpening perception of what it's about and clarifying why we respond in the way we do. I think that fundamentally this is always...

'Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone'.(Middle Years)
December 22, 2004... Introduction As teachers and parents, many have serialized a reading of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone or sat and watched the enchanted world of Harry Potter on screen with children, sharing what they see and hear, watching their...

They made me do it: the mad world of Donnie Darko.(Film As Text)
December 22, 2004... Occasionally a film will grasp the communal consciousness, offering insight into the way in which we behave towards each other, as well as ourselves. The most effective of these films utilize disparate forms and ideas that cut across boundaries...

In this our life: Hilary and Jackie.(Film As Text)
December 22, 2004... The 1998 film Hilary and Jackie is a dramatization of the life of the internationally renowned British cellist Jacqueline Du Pre. Based on the memoir A Genius in the Family, by her sister and brother Hilary and Piers Du Pre, the film evokes Du...

An allegory on the human condition: woman in the dunes.(Films As Text)
December 22, 2004... Woman in the Dunes (also known as Woman of the Dunes)--the Japanese translation being Suna No Onna (Hiroshi Teshighara, 1964)--is a unique, unforgettable and enigmatic film. On the surface, Woman in the Dunes appears to be a simple tale;...

'I have become a virgin'--Elizabeth.(Film As Text)
December 22, 2004... Historical costume dramas are often rather reverential affairs, with much emphasis placed on the expensive authenticity of the costumes, if not always the language. (1) But in Shekhar Kapur's Elizabeth (1998), although the mise-en-scene looks...

Social constraints and painful growth in a doll's house.(Film As Text)
December 22, 2004... Introduction Henrik Ibsen's stifling realist play about misfortune and illusion demonstrates the problems associated with making mature choices when one is considered a 'doll child'. A Doll's House explores the issues of social convention,...

The invisible deity of 'good form': the age of innocence.(Film As Text)
December 22, 2004... Martin Scorsese might have been seen as an unusual choice of director for a costume drama without a single gangster in sight, as the man who made his name with Mean Streets (1973, which he wrote and directed) and Taxi Driver (1976), and who...

To kill a mockingbird seeing the film through the lens of film language and media literacy.(Film As Text Part Two)
December 22, 2004... In the second installment his four part series for Screen Education, American media educator Frank Baker provides teachers with a framework and background for the study of film and how media literacy concepts can be applied. Frameworks For...

The darkness of Mordor: the sound of evil in the Lord of the Rings: as a mythical tale of the struggle between good and evil, Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings trilogy (2001-2003) delineates the two opposing forces through visual effects, casting, costuming, setting, characterization and, not least, sound design.
December 22, 2004... WITH MOVIES THAT MAINTAIN a visual impact as strong as these, sound as a filmic element could easily be overlooked. But sound design, when enmeshed with the visual image, is a powerful cinematic tool in its own right, adding nuances of meaning,...

Screentech: Digital Cinema, and all the questions this seminal title raises has been a talking point and subject for examination by writers, filmmakers and journalists for quite some time now. 'When is it coming?' and 'Where the hell is it?' being the two most commonly posed questions.
December 22, 2004... Sure, films like the Star Wars prequels were shot in it, and ACMI in Melbourne has a digital projector but apart from the rare talking point exceptions, a big link in the digital cinema chain is missing. Shooting in digital is becoming more...

Steve Parker Our Bodies: The Heart Lungs and Blood Brain and the Nervous System.
December 22, 2004... Steve Parker's Our Bodies series consists of several books, two of which are The Heart, Lungs and Blood (HLB) and The Brain and Nervous System (BNS), both of which address the body parts suggested by their respective titles. Both titles offer a...

... Paul Morrison Wondrous Oblivion.
December 22, 2004... Wondrous Oblivion is a feel good story that is intended for young secondary school students. The story is centred on David Wiseman, twelve years old and passionate about cricket. David is fanatical about the game, he knows all there is to know...

Nicola Morgan Mondays Are Red.
December 22, 2004... Mondays Are Red by Nicola Morgan is a first person narrative aimed at pre-teen readers The central character, Luke, falls ill with meningitis and awakens from a coma to discover that he is experiencing synaesthesia. Synaesthesia, as explained...

Sophie Masson: The Tempestuous Voyage of Hopewell Shakespeare.(Book Review)
December 22, 2004... Warning: Reading this book may result in archaic language spewing forth from thine mouth for many a day following. After reading the back cover, it is hard not to have great expectations of this novel. it promises adventure, a hint of...