Screen Education articles from December 22 2002

Screen Education archives from December 22 2002

Editorial.(Editorial)
December 22, 2002... There is a trenchant and persistent seam that runs through Australian film when it comes to our much quested national identity. With an exacting, unrepentant gaze, film-makers, scholars and critics interrogate the rhetoric of the 'young and...

Beyond Atlantis.(Interview)
December 22, 2002... DAVID EDWARDS: Do you think it's inevitable people will compare your film, Hearts in Atlantis, to the Stephen King novel on which it is based? SCOTT HICKS: I'm sure elements of the audience will focus on the differences. When I made Snow...

Lord of the Rings: insight into a marvellous mode.(Critical Essay)
December 22, 2002... Literature of the fantastic has been claimed to 'transcend' reality, 'escaping' the human condition and constructing superior alternate, 'secondary' worlds... Literary fantasies have appeared to be "free' from many of the conventions and...

From dark to light: an analysis of lighting and colour stylistics in Chopper.(Critical Essay)
December 22, 2002... INTRODUCTION This article explores a 'dark' style in the context of Australian cinema through the prison film, Chopper (Andrew Dominik, 2000). I examine how this film represents imprisonment through its lighting and colour stylistics and...

Australian identity: a cinematic roll call.
December 22, 2002... DEFINING WHAT IT MEANS TO BE AUSTRALIAN HAS VEXED RESEARCHERS IN ALL WALKS OF LIFE, the cinema being no exception. Since the beginnings of cinema in Australia from around 1896, Australian films have charted a range of views of the Australian...

Quirkiness in Australian cinema.(Critical Essay)
December 22, 2002... TOM O'REGAN suggests that the quirky film arrived in Australia in the 1990s (1) and there is little doubt that the quirky epicentre of Australian cinema is 1994, the year of both 'Muriel's satirical nuptials' and 'Priscilla's farcical...

Going home and beyond: an evening with the editors of Rabbit-Proof Fence.
December 22, 2002... JOHN SCOTT, whose editing credits include Sexy Beast, The Cup and Map of the Human Heart, had worked with Phillip Noyce in Australia in 1978 on his pivotal film, Newsfront; and he teamed up with the director again four years later on...

An interview with Bill Russo: the other side of storytelling.(Interview)
December 22, 2002... EDITING IS THE OTHER SIDE of storytelling, the art which makes the vision a reality. In this interview, Bill Russo, Head of Editing at the Australian Film, TV & Radio School (AFTRS), talks about editing, new technology and the place of film...

Dreamtime to Dance.(Study Guide)
December 22, 2002... SYNOPSIS THIS FOUR PART SERIES TAKES THE VIEWER BEHIND THE SCENES OF NAISDA, (NATIONAL ABORIGINAL ISLANDER SKILLS DEVELOPMENT ASSOCIATION) THE SYDNEY-BASED, DANCE COLLEGE FOR ABORIGINAL AND TORRES STRAIT ISLAND STUDENTS. This story...

The paddock on the edge of town.
December 22, 2002... THERE IS NO WHITE SCREEN, BUT ONE OF THE MAIN GATES IS STILL THERE ON A GIANT HINGE, ITS WHITE PAINTED METAL FRAME ONLY RUSTING SLIGHTLY. UNEVEN BLACK LETTERS DONE IN TEXTA, SPELLING 'PRIVATE PROPERTY', DROOP ACROSS ITS MIDDLE. ALONG THE EDGE...

East Timor: Birth of a Nation.(Study Guide)
December 22, 2002... INTRODUCTION EAST TIMOR -- BIRTH OF A NATION looks at how a country is born, literally from the ashes, and how the East Timorese people are working to build a future. Each program in this two-part series tells the powerful personal story...

Ordinary people: one woman, One Nation, two forces collide.(Study Guide)
December 22, 2002... SYNOPSIS Far right and anti-immigration politics are on the rise worldwide. In Australia, as in many other western countries, a new political force is drawing on the discontent of those who feel excluded from the promised benefits of...

Kandahar in the classroom: Barry Duncan finds a powerful feature film set in Afghanistan humanizes a war-torn country that is at the top of the news.
December 22, 2002... I RECENTLY referred to the value of experiential alternatives to the typical mainstream coverage of the war in Afghanistan. These included a tour of a reconstructed refugee camp in the public square of Toronto City Hall and a Canadian...

Fortress Australia: the secret bid for the atomic bomb.(Study Guide)
December 22, 2002... FORTRESS AUSTRALIA uncovers one of the most extraordinary chapters in Australia's history--the brazen attempt by successive Australian governments to fortress the nation with atomic weapons. This groundbreaking film reveals a web of intrigue...

Troubled Waters.(A Study Guide)
December 22, 2002... THIS THOUGHTFUL AND CHALLENGING DOCUMENTARY TACKLES A COMPLEX TOPIC OF ONGOING IMPORTANCE: AUSTRALIA'S ATTITUDE TOWARDS AND TREATMENT OF INDONESIAN FISHERMEN. ACCORDING TO THE FILM AND RELATED RESEARCH, AUSTRALIA'S STRICT FISHERY PROTECTION...

Australia is refugees!
December 22, 2002... SCHOOLS PROJECT FOR YEARS SIX AND SEVEN Did you know that many famous and successful Australians were refugees? In the last 50 years, 600,000 new Australians were welcomed here to rebuild their lives after they were in danger, imprisoned...

Drawing the Dammed.(pre-production for the movie Queen of the Damned)(Interview)
December 22, 2002... CARTOONIST ROD TOKELY SIMPLY ANSWERED THE PHONE to book his place as one of the storyboarders on the new vampire blockbuster, Queen of the Damned. 'How you do that?' Tokely explains: You mix with people who do stuff that you ...

My God, he's forgotten to draw us': visual literacy in art and media classrooms.
December 22, 2002... AS A STUDENT ART TEACHER in 1965, a typical lesson involved students interpreting a series of recorded sound effects, such as running footsteps or slamming doors, as a drawing or painting. That was what I thought Art teaching was all about....

Gonzo TV.(New Zealand television during the 1970s)
December 22, 2002... CHRIS GROSZ gives us a run down of life in a small television channel in New Zealand during the 1970s, where a surplus of ideas and a deficit of budget combined to produce innovative effect(s). Seduced from the advertising industry having...

Creating context: expanding the scope of media creation as an educational tool.
December 22, 2002... SOUNDHOUSE[TM] MULTIMEDIA STUDIO | POWERHOUSE MUSEUM SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA. WITH THE ADVENT of affordable and compact digital technology, cinematic video and multimedia production has very quickly become one of the most dynamic creative...

Young film-makers: what understandings do they need?
December 22, 2002... This study involved a group of children aged eleven to thirteen years who were making film clips using a simulated set from a popular New Zealand soap opera. We examined their understandings in a number of ways: through film of the children...

Shadow Magic: a tribute to moving picture pioneers in China.(Study Guide)
December 22, 2002... SHADOW MAGIC (Ann Hu, 2001) recounts the introduction of moving pictures into China. Both the story and the production of this film provide material suitable for use by secondary students. The film could be adapted for use in English, History...

What is film criticism? 'Film criticism' is a critical essay or book written about a film or films by an academic. It is the serious study of film--isn't it? Does that mean that the many reviews, writings or discussions of films that we read in newspapers or magazines or hear on radio or TV don't qualify as film criticism?
December 22, 2002... The Macquarie dictionary defines the word 'criticism' as 'the act or art of analyzing and judging the quality of a literary or artistic work'. This definition suggests that any act of analysis or judgement of a film's quality could be defined...

Lord of the Rings: how well does it work as a film?(Brief Article)
December 22, 2002... LORD OF THE RINGS: THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING has much to offer us both as a book and as a film. With a legion of fans, there was great anticipation for the opening of the first part of the trilogy. Some may regret that the Hobbits have been...

Roddy Doyle: the cinematic man.(Interview)
December 22, 2002... The programme at the 2001 Sydney Film Festival included a retrospective of Paul Schrader's work. Rewatching Light Sleeper (1991), his lyrical ode to the drug dealing sleepwalkers of our nocturnal hours, I was reminded just how many...

2002 ATOM Awards.
December 22, 2002... The 2002 ATOM Awards for Film, Television, Radio and Multimedia were held on the 25 May at the Rivoli Cinema in Camberwell. This was the gala 20th anniversary ATOM Awards and 500 representatives from the industry, education and corporate...

CAMEO: the 2002 International Council of Associated Media Educators Organizations (CAMEO) 10th conference opened on a positive note with 120 delegates and presenters gathering at screensound in Canberra on a balmy autumn afternoon.
December 22, 2002... THE CONFERENCE AIMED TO provide a wide range of activities, workshops and papers and to introduce visiting delegates to Canberra's national attractions. Teachers and educators from widely differing backgrounds and working with varying...

Shakespeare and the cinema.(Critical Essay)
December 22, 2002... THE CINEMA'S FASCINATION WITH SHAKESPEARE'S PLAYS dates back to 1908 when the first adaptation of a Shakespearean play was filmed by D.W. Griffith: The Taming of the Shrew. All of his plays have been filmed in various countries around the...

'Are you going to do it like that, darling?' performance desire in 'Shakespeare in Love.'(Critical Essay)
December 22, 2002... With these words Viola (Gwyneth Paltrow) pierces the heart of the matter of desire in John Madden's Shakespeare in Love (1998). For Viola's story, unlike that of Shakespeare's Juliet, is not a tale of romantic love. Although she yearns for 'a...

Romance and paranoia in The Big Sleep (1946).(NSW Film As Text)(Critical Essay)
December 22, 2002... Ask him to make a film about happiness and he'd have gone fishing, or got drunk, But give him a story about more, murders than anyone can keep up with, or explain, and somehow he made a paradise. Maybe he needed a cover, some way of seeming...

Bleak visions: Ridley Scott's Blade Runner. Director's Cut.(NSW Film As Text)(Critical Essay)
December 22, 2002... PLACING THE FILM IN CONTEXT Phillip K. Dick's science fiction stories are proving to be a popular source of film plots. Minority Report, Total Recall and, of course, Blade Runner have all come from Dick's fertile imagination. The irony,...

Mediated reality. Dear America: Letters Home From Vietnam.(NSW Film As Text)(Critical Essay)
December 22, 2002... Dear America: Letters Home From Vietnam (Bill Couturie, 1987) is one of a series of American films which have explored the American experience of the Vietnam War. Fictional texts such as The Deer Hunter (Michael Cimino, 1978), Apocalypse Now...

Perspectives on Radiance.(NSW Film As Text)(Critical Essay)
December 22, 2002... Radiance (Perkins, 1999) is what they would call in the theatre a three-hander: there are parts for only three principal actors--the other parts are walk-ons and spear-carriers. So that means that there are three principal perspectives in...

Imagining the postmodern: subjectivity and Strictly Ballroom (1).(NSW Film As Text)(Critical Essay)
December 22, 2002... The film Strictly Ballroom (Baz Luhrmann, 1992) could be construed as a postmodern fairytale. It contains many of the hallmarks of traditional fairytales and serves some of the same instructive purposes in the context of the formation of an...

Walkabout.(VCE Film As Text)(Critical Essay)
December 22, 2002... AS A WHITE, MIDDLE-CLASS PERSON, I DON'T WANT TO BE SEEN TO BE APPROPRIATING INDIGENOUS SPACES IN CINEMA. BUT IT IS IMPORTANT TO FREE UP AND EXPLORE THOSE SPACES AT A TIME WHEN THERE IS A NEED TO ADDRESS NATIONAL ISSUSES OF RECONCILIATION...

'Breaker' Morant: colonial underdog versus imperial overload.(VCE Film As Text)
December 22, 2002... WHEN VIEWING A FILM there are two reactions to take note of: the way a film makes you feel and the way a film makes you think. A great film makes you experience powerful emotions, while helping you to think beyond just the scope of the...

Using iMovie 2[TM] in secondary media classes.
December 22, 2002... Many schools offering Media Studies seem to use PC-based editing software such as Premiere or Studio Pro, rather than the Macintosh-developed iMovie. (1) This situation seems weird to me, given the preference for Macs in the media...

CD-ROM interactive design and programming.
December 22, 2002... As a classroom activity, CD-ROM production is an exciting way to integrate design, video production, animation and text. Even mathematics comes into play when you start programming in lingo. (Lingo is the term for code programming in...

Educating with DVD.
December 22, 2002... DVD Players are fast becoming a standard item in the average lounge room, yet few people are aware of just how powerful these players are. More than just high quality sound and vision, the DVD standard allows for a huge range of interactive...

O Brave New World: Two Centuries of Shakespeare on the Australian Stage.(Book Review)
December 22, 2002... CURRENCY PRESS, SYDNEY, 2001 Browse through the state and/or major theatre companies' offerings for 2002, and you will find little or no Shakespeare listed, although the Sydney Theatre Company does include Macbeth in its...

Stop the Bullying: A Handbook for Schools.(Book Review)
December 22, 2002... ACER, AUSTRALIA, 2001 TACKLING BULLIES, VICTIMS AND EDUCATORS Dr Ken Rigby gets in early to justify the need to tackle bullying. He has no time for those who might wish to claim that it doesn't exist in their school or that even if...

Willow Tree and Olive.(Book Review)
December 22, 2002... SCEPTRE (HODDER HEADLINE IMPRINT), SYDNEY, 2001. THE FRAGHENTED STORY OF A JOURNEY TO WHOLENESS The Ancient Greek art of mosaic is often described as one of the highest expressions of art. Originating in Crete in the third century...

I Wish I Could Count to a Million.(Children's Review)(Book Review)
December 22, 2002... SIMON AND SCHUSTER, 1992; HODDER HEADLINE LIMITED, MELBOURNE, 2000 I wish I could... fly like a bird, spin a web like a spider, reach the biscuit tin, catch the tooth fairy... but I can't. I CAN... blow big shiny bubbles, hop, skip,...

K-Pax II: On a Beam of Light.(Book Review)
December 22, 2002... BLOOMSBURY, LONDON, 2001. BETWEEN WORLDS K-Pax II is the second book in the K-Pax trilogy and it continues the themes of the first instalment in an intriguing and satiric blend of science fiction, psychiatry and utopianism. Its main...

The Complete and Easy Guide to the Internet: Internet Training Package - Beginner to Intermediate.(Book Review)
December 22, 2002... INTERACT NEW MEDIA, 2000, A JOINT VENTURE WITH THE SA GOVERNMENT, ACEC AND INTERACT NEW MEDIA, ISBN 1-876784-00-8. Produced in Australia, this award-winning training package is an essential resource for anyone serious about learning...

Anthology: New Words and Pictures by Young Australians.(Book Review)
December 22, 2002... PLUTO PRESS, ANNANDALE, 2001. The word anthology sends an automatic warning to any reader to prepare themselves for a great variety in both quantity and quality, and this collection is no different. It is an admirable aim to promote the...

Ernie Dances to the Didgeridoo.(Book Review)
December 22, 2002... HODDER HEADLINE, SYDNEY, 2000. Alison Lester's Ernie Dances to the Didgeridoo is a fantastic, well-written and beautifully illustrated children's book. One of my favourite aspects of Ernie Dances to the Didgeridoo is its entertaining and...

Blackbird.(Book Review)
December 22, 2002... RANDOM HOUSE, BRISBANE, 2001. Brisbane printer David Crookes has now written three novels, but Blackbird is the first one to gain a major publisher. Determined to get his work read, Crookes ran off some copies of Blackbird himself, which...

Director: Corinna Klupiec Impacts of Tourism: Economy, Environment, Society and Culture.(Brief Article)
December 22, 2002... YEAR: 2001. FORMAT: VHS. DURATION: 22 MINUTES. SUITABLE FOR YEARS 7-12. COST: $85. AVAILABLE THROUGH CLASSROOM VIDEO. PH: (02) 9913 8700. FAX: (02) 9913 8077. EMAIL: CLASSVID@CLASSR00MVIDEo.COM.AU A LAST LOOK AROUND Impacts of...

Directors: Peter Thomas and Kyle Neaves -Compass: The Teacher.
December 22, 2002... ALBERT STREET PRODUCTIONS. YEAR: 2000 On a hillside in North India, in a landscape in the mist, stands the town of Dharamsala, home in exile of the teacher, His Holiness, Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama, reincarnation of the 13th Dalai...

Chill Out!
December 22, 2002... A CROSS-CURRICULA EDUCATIONAL RESOURCE FOR USE IN THE EARLY YEARS OF SCHOOLING (P/K-4) Chill Out! addresses the need for young people to develop the skills required to enable them to deal with violence in our society. In order to...

Hypotheticals: employABILITY.
December 22, 2002... The target audience profile for Hypotheticals would, I suspect, mirror a reasonable description of my good self. So why does this programme appear so clumsily constructed to one of its ready-made supporters? And how might it fare with someone...

Four Corners: 40 Years.
December 22, 2002... DURATION: 90 MINUTES. FORMAT: VHS. YEAR: 2001 'Four Corners was clearly, in those days, the pinnacle for anybody with any ambition in television journalism. It gave you the scope. It gave you the time, both the time in preparation and the...

Written, narrated and directed by David Goldie, Spirit 2000: An Olympic Games for All Australians.
December 22, 2002... SPIRIT 2000 PRODUCTIONS, DG MEDIA, 2000. 120 MINUTES When Australia gained the right to host the Olympics in Sydney, the year 2000 was destined to become a confluence of diverse social, cultural, economic and political forces. Spirit 2000...

Director: Peter Du Cane Playing the Game.
December 22, 2002... EPISODE 1: 'ATLANTIC CHARTER' EPISODE 2: 'AFRICA: BLACK STAR' RISING' EPISODE 3: 'CAMBODIA: THE BLOODIEST DOMINO' 60 MINUTES EACH. 2001 THE VICISSITUDES OF AMERICAN IDEALISM Today, in the Cambodian countryside, farmers...

Ten Million Wildcats.
December 22, 2002... After watching Film Australia's documentary, Ten Million Wildcats, I now know much more about the behaviour of domestic and feral cats than I ever gleaned during my years of ownership of several cats. As every cat owner knows, cats are aloof,...

Mogenic.com.
December 22, 2002... Mogenic. Without a Latin dictionary, I had to rely on my hazy memories of high school science to work out just what I was reviewing here. So, I decided on this formula: 'genic' coming from the Latin genus (species, kind), and 'mo' probably...