Australian Screen Education articles from September 2003

Australian Screen Education archives from September 2003

Editorial.
September 22, 2003... In the emotive scrum that surrounds debates on the impact of film and media on kids, it rarely comes up that this relationship is in fact mediated by media educators. It is their task to enable students to critically engage with all media forms...

Remembrance + the Moving Image: are memories like movies? Can they be recorded? Can you capture their yearning, their dread, their jubilation?(New Media Exhibits)
September 22, 2003... REMEMBRANCE + THE MOVing Image is a major exhibition featuring spellbinding artworks by thirteen leading Australian and twenty-three international artists. It will variously move, disturb and delight in the same range of ways that memory does:...

Media images, creative technology, engaged and interactive students! The Australian Children's Television Foundation's teaching resources and curriculum initiatives.(New Media Exhibits)
September 22, 2003... ACTF 'PRIMARY' INITIATIVES: YOUR CLASS AS YOUNG INVENTORS AND CREATORS Teaching media and technology often go together, especially if you are using video, sound or computers in your media classes. This year the Australian Children's...

A landscape of elastic screens: at the centre for contemporary photography.(New Media Exhibits)
September 22, 2003... The arts using computers are too recent to have established any orthodox history or theory of their own. The technology itself is in rapid development and digital and electronic systems allow hybrid links between various technologies that have...

Teaching story structure: when forced to work within a strict framework the imagination is taxed to its utmost--and will produce its richest ideas. Given total freedom the work is likely to sprawl T.S. Eliot.(Animating The Classroom: inside media production)
September 22, 2003... TEACHING STORY OR SCRIPT writing is one of the more difficult tasks faced by media teachers. The reason for this is that few university film courses, if any, provide lectures in film story structure. After studying literature at La Trobe...

Digital grassroots: a practical guide to digital video.(Animating The Classroom: inside media production)
September 22, 2003... SCENE 3 THE PRODUCTION PROCESS FROM STORY BOARD TO FINAL EDIT It doesn't matter whether it's a home movie of a holiday to Woy Woy or a multi-million dollar feature film with a cast of thousands. All movie productions engage, in...

Mickey Mouse Schools: chalkface animation in the middle secondary school classroom.(Animating The Classroom: inside media production)
September 22, 2003... Animation is the illusion of movement. (1) INTRODUCTION Beware! This is not an article for animation purists, or for teachers who are already using sophisticated animation software programmes in their classes. So I apologize...

Family Foibles: a series of five half-hour documentaries airs.
September 22, 2003... KIM AND HARLEY AND THE KIDS Kim and Harley are determinedly keeping their family together against the odds. They live in a Ministry of Housing estate with their four little girls, including 12-year old Gabbv, the eldest. The family show...

Integrating ICT into the English classroom.(Animating The Classroom: inside media production)
September 22, 2003... AT ST BRIGID'S COLLEGE IN Lesmurdie, Western Australia, one of the areas within the curriculum that is currently under review is the integration of ICT into the classroom as a way to enhance the learning experience of girls. St Brigid's is a...

Tertiary education pathways for year 12 media studies students.(Media Education And Training)
September 22, 2003... In an effort to keep Media Teachers informed of the tertiary study options available to their students post-Year 12, Australian Screen Education will be presenting a series of articles profiling tertiary media courses from around the country....

Schools' Television in Victoria: what's happening?(Media Education And Training)
September 22, 2003... The potential of educational media first hit me as a 12-year-old at the Royal Melbourne show. By mid afternoon with my pocket money spent, a free film in an empty tent with comfortable seats seemed an ideal way to fill in the time. On the...

Media training: behind the public face of public figures.(Media Education And Training)
September 22, 2003... There are people and organizations that we admire or feel connected to in some way when they appear on TV or are interviewed on radio or feature in newspaper stories. The messages that we are left with often go something like this; CFA...

The other side of the Rabbit-Proof Fence.(Bringing Film Into Focus For Students)(Critical Essay)
September 22, 2003... DESPITE SOME DUBIOUS and meretricious marketing, Rabbit-Proof Fence (RFP) (Phillip Noyce, 2002) is an important mainstream film that reveals the well-intentioned,but demonstrably misguided and paternalistic government policies on...

Everyday brave.(Study Guide)(Critical Essay)
September 22, 2003... SERIES SYNOPSIS EVERYDAY BRAVE IS A SIX-PART DOCUMENTARY SERIES PROFILING Indigenous Australians who have struggled every day against discrimination, apathy and ignorance to make a real difference. These individuals come from across the...

The great Aussie car smash at the end of the world: I'm on the Highway to hell Bon Scott.(Bringing Film Into Focus For Students)
September 22, 2003... OUR LOCAL FILM INDUSTRIES have long had it figured that the car smash, filmed from multiple angles and in slow-motion, mesmerizes its audiences much like staring into a campfire. Just like such combustion, the car wreck plugs into people's...

Not so dirt cheap: David Caesar talks funding and female character machinations.(Bringing Film Into Focus For Students)(Interview)
September 22, 2003... What are your feelings toward Hollywood? One of my little hobby horses is American cultural imperialism. As a film practitioner outside Hollywood it would be weird if you weren't interested in that. When I say American cultural imperialism...

'Come on you kids, move on': flicks in the sticks and 'somewhere to hang out that's legitimate'.(Bringing Film Into Focus For Students)
September 22, 2003... NUNDLE IS A SMALL TOWN with a population of about 300 in a shire of 1392 residents, distributed over 615 square miles (the smallest shire in NSW). Until recently Nundle's most notable association with films had been in 1968 as the shooting...

Moulin Rouge!(Study Guide)(Critical Essay)
September 22, 2003... WHAT'S THE STORY? This study guide analyses the creatively original Australian feature film, Moulin Rouge! (Baz Luhrmann, 2001). The guide looks at how the director, Baz Luhrmann, convinces his audience that the attitudes and values...

Cabaret: a study guide.(SA Film As Text)(Critical Essay)
September 22, 2003... I am a camera with its shutter open, quite passive, recording not thinking. Recording the man shaving at the window opposite and the woman in the kimono washing her hair. Some day, all this will have to be developed, carefully printed, fixed....

Abused by the motherland: the politics of 'Breaker' Morant.(VCE Film As Text)(Critical Essay)
September 22, 2003... WHAT BECOMES APPARENT AS one watches Bruce Beresford's 'Breaker' Morant (1980) is that the enemy is not the motley group of desperate Boer guerillas. The enemy is clearly the British military under the leadership of Lord Kitchener. As with...

The compromised sexual positioning of Orlando: postmodern play in gender and filmic conventions.(NSW Film As Text)
September 22, 2003... THE 1993 FILM, ORLANDO (SALLY POTTER), follows the four hundred year journey of a young British aristocrat who has been graced, or some might say cursed, with immortality. Halfway through his journey, Orlando (Tilda Swinton) undergoes a...

Textual transformations in A Simple Plan.(NSW Film As Text)(Critical Essay)
September 22, 2003... My theme is always one, and ever was Radix malorum est cupiditas' Chaucer, The Pardoner's Tale 'Love of money is the root of all evil'--it's a maxim that remains as relevant today as it did in Chaucer's time. In fact, in a world in which...

Serious laughter: critics of Life is Beautiful and the question of comedy.(NSW Film As Text)(Critical Essay)
September 22, 2003... Roberto Benigni's Life is Beautiful (1998) was an enormous critical and commercial success around the world. Yet it also prompted anger from some critics. Their primary objection was to the use of comedy in a story set (at least for its latter...

Reinforcing the stigma: the representation of disability in GATTACA.(VCE Film As Text)(Critical Essay)
September 22, 2003... IN 1997 WHEN GATTACA WAS released its director, New Zealander Andrew Niccols, said he wanted his movie to entertain audiences and provoke them to consider the direction society is taking (1) Now it's 2002 and as we head closer to the 'not too...

What! Me crazy? Mental illness and the cinema.(Critical Essay)
September 22, 2003... The release of A Beautiful Mind (Howard, 2001) has focused attention on the issue of schizophrenia and its representation in the cinema. As one would expect, mental illness tends to be depicted hysterically, implausibly or dubiously, due to the...

Rabbit-Proof Fence.(Screen Zine)(Movie Review)
September 22, 2003... PHILLIP NOYCE, THE CRITICALLY acclaimed and award-winning film director, whose first film Backroads (1977) dealt with the theme of Aboriginality, has extended this theme in his latest film Rabbit-Proof Fence. The three children at the centre of...

In Rabbit-Proof Fence, Philip Noyce successfully brings to a wider audience one of the many tragic and, until recently, untold stories of the Stolen Generation.(Screen Zine)(Critical Essay)
September 22, 2003... IN RABBIT-PROOF FENCE, PHILIP Noyce successfully brings to a wider audience one of the many tragic and, until recently, untold stories of the Stolen Generation--the governments assimilation policy, in which they attempted to convert and 'breed...

With the permission of the survivors the viewers of Rabbit-Proof Fence bear witness to the human face of a dark time in Australian history.(Screen Zine)(Critical Essay)
September 22, 2003... WITH THE PERMISSION OF the survivors the viewers of Rabbit-Proof Fence bear witness to the human face of a dark time in Australian history. It was a time when children were stolen from their families, when a concerted effort was made to...

Film Cliches.(Screen Zine)
September 22, 2003... I LIKE FILMS, AND I KNEW THAT making a short film was one of the tasks of the Year 12 Media Studies course. But enjoying a film and making one are two totally different experiences. During the production of Cliche I had to fight the continuous...

Beyond media perceptions: coming face to face with refugees.(Screen Zine)
September 22, 2003... I REALIZE HOW IGNORANT I AM--these boys speak of places I have never even heard of. Sitting opposite me, they all look so 'normal'--like me or any other Australian teenager--yet I know that I cannot even begin to comprehend the atrocities they...

Hating Dawson's Creek.(Screen Zine)(Brief Article)
September 22, 2003... 'Did you see what happened on Dawson's Creek last night? Oh my god! I can't believe...' THIS IS THE CALLING CARD. The siren that lets us know another episode of this heart-throbbing teenage sitcom has been allowed to air. It plagues my...

Education friendly digital production without feature trade-offs.(Technical Section)
September 22, 2003... REVIEW OF SONIC FOUNDRY VEGAS 4 THE EDUCATOR'S DILEMMA There was a time when anything in a school involving computer technology was the sole domain of computing studies subjects. It's only been ten years since I left high school but in...

Final Cut Express.(Technical Section)
September 22, 2003... FINAL CUT EXPRESS INTRO.PSD Final Cut Express is Apple's new editing package designed to fill the gap between iMovie and Final Cut Pro. It works exclusively in the DV environment (via FireWire) and provides a great stepping stone for...

Christos Tsiolkas The Devil's Playground.(Book Review)
September 22, 2003... CURRENCY PRESS, AUSTRALIAN SCREEN CLASSICS, 2002. Christos Tsiolkas' homage to the Australian film classic, The Devil's Playground (Fred Schepisi, 1976), is reminiscent of a hot summer during which the 'dryness' of naive youth transforms...

Will Davies and Andrea Dal Bosco Tales from a Suitcase--the Afghan Experience.(Book Review)
September 22, 2003... LOTHIAN BOOKS, SOUTH MELBOURNE, 2002 In the Western World, the suitcase evokes expectations of the exotic or the new. Magazine and television advertisements bombard us with smiling people on white, sandy beaches lounging in five star...

3 Seconds from Glory.(Movie Review)
September 22, 2003... WRITTEN, NARRATED AND DIRECTED BY DAVID GOLDIE. EPISODES 1 & 2 DURATION: 60 MINUTES. FORMAT: VHS. DG MEDIA, 1999. 3 Seconds From Glory (1999) was made by film-maker David Goldie, who also made Spirit 2000: An Olympic Games for all...

Bougainville--'Our Island, Our Fight'.(Movie Review)
September 22, 2003... In the early 1990s attempts were made to raise public awareness about Australian complicity in the tragic events occurring only a few hundred miles offshore in Bougainville. In an age driven by images there were none to portray the effect that...

Contemporary Case Studies of love and other relations.(Movie Review)
September 22, 2003... Contemporary Case Studies is the latest short film by Sydney-based writer/director Janet Mereweather. Mereweather studied Production Design and Animation at AFTRS from 1988 to 1991 and since graduating has gone on to write and direct several...