A bureaucratic cinema: the fraught relationship between government and film

The interventions by the government in the production and circulation of film in late 1960s transformed the Australian cinema industry into a bureaucratic cinema because of its established agencies and institutions for the benefit of filmmakers. Training options expanded by the commencement of the Australian Film and Television School and the Film, Radio and Television Board of the Australia Council, which ran compulsory orientation seminars and workshops on the use of new equipments, helped the aspiring filmmakers to access money from the council's Basic Production Fund.

The Australian screen producer: Understanding screen production cultures in a period of industrial transition [Abstract]

The screen producer plays a vital role in shaping the creative, commercial and entrepreneurial dimensions of production. And yet Australian film history is most often presented as an appreciation of film directors or an examination of industrial governance measures. On the other hand, public funding agencies in Australia have, for the most part, supported independent film and television production as a producer-led, or producer-as-auteur production system, and as such the producer has played a critical role in shaping the broader independent production landscape. In recent years, fundamental changes to distribution and consumption practices have had a major impact on the nature of screen production. Screen producers are increasingly migrating into emerging online, transmedia and cross-media production; generating both opportunities and challenges for traditional producers. However, the production cultures and motivations of producers operating in these emergent spaces remain poorly understood. This presentation will focus on the largely unremarked role of the producer in Australian screen scholarship. It will explore the ways in which the practice of screen producing is evolving and the migratory pathways of traditional producers moving into digital/new media production. The presentation’s primary findings are drawn from the 2011 Australian Screen Producer Survey; a national study of the activities of Australian screen producers conducted by the ARC Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries and Innovation (CCI), Queensland University of Technology, with support from the Centre for Screen Business /Australian Film Television and Radio School (AFTRS). From longitudinal analysis, the presentation will compare and contrast data from the 2009 and 2011 survey across film, television, corporate production and new media industry segments. In so doing the presentation will delineate the practices, attitudes, strategies, and aspirations of screen producers operating in a convergent digital media marketplace and suggest ways forward for a more industrially cognisant approach to screen history.

News media representations of homelessness : do economic news production pressures prevent journalists from adequately reporting complex social issues

This study used both content and frame analyses to test news-media representations of homelessness in The Courier-Mail newspaper for evidence of restricted journalism practice. Specifically, it sought signs of either direct manipulation of issue representation based on ideological grounds, and also evidence of news organisations prioritising low-cost news production over Public Sphere journalistic news values. The study found that news stories from the earlier parts of the longitudinal study showed stereotypical misrepresentations of homelessness for public deliberation which might be attributed to either, or both of the nominated restricting factors. However news stories from the latter part of the study saw a distinct change in the way the issue was represented, indicating a journalistic capacity to thoughtfully and sensitively represent a complex social issue to the public. Further study is recommended to ascertain how and why this change occurred, so that journalistic practice might be further improved.

Establishing virtual production as a research and teaching activity at QUT

Located within the Creative Industries Faculty, the Animation team at the Queensland University of Technology (QUT) recently acquired a full-body inertial motion capture system. Our research to date has been predominantly concerned with interdisciplinary practice and the benefits this could bring to undergraduate teaching. From early experimental tests it was identified that there was a need to develop a framework for best practice and an efficient production workflow to ensure the system was being used to its full potential. Through our ongoing investigation we have identified at least three areas that stand to have long-term benefits from universities engaging in motion capture related research activity. This includes interdisciplinary collaborative research, undergraduate teaching and improved production processes. The following paper reports the early stages of our research, which explores the use of a full-body inertial motion capture (MoCap) solution in collaboration with performing artists.

Motion capture and the future of virtual production

Motion capture continues to be adopted across a range of creative fields including, animation, games, visual effects, dance, live theatre and the visual arts. This panel will discuss and showcase the use of motion capture across these creative fields and consider the future of virtual production in the creative industries.

QUT Architecture Film Studio (Aus)

Research Statement: An urban film produced by Luke Harrison Mitchell Benham, Sharlene Anderson, Tristan Clark. RIVE NOIR explores the film noir tradition, shot on location in a dark urban space between high-rises and the river, sheltered by a highway. With an original score and striking cinematography, Rive Noir radically transforms the abandoned river’s edge through the production of an amplified reality ordinarily unseen in the Northbank. The work produced under my supervision was selected to appear in the Expanded Architecture Research Group’s International Architecture Film Festival and Panel Discussion in Sydney: The University of Sydney and Carriageworks Performance Space, 06 November 2011. QUT School of Design research submission was selected alongside exhibits by AA School of Architecture, London; The Bartlett School of Architecture, London; University of The Arts, London; Arrhaus School of Architecture, Denmark; Dublin as a Cinematic City, Ireland; Design Lab Screen Studio, Australia; and Sona Cinecity, The University of Melbourne. The exhibit included not only the screening of the film but the design project that derived from and extended the aesthetics of the urban film. The urban proposal and architectural intervention that followed the film was subsequently published in the Brisbane Times, after the urban proposal won first place in The Future of Brisbane architecture competition, which demonstrates the impact of the research project as a whole. EXPANDED ARCHITECTURE 2011 - 6th November Architecture Film Night + Panel Discussion @ Performance Space CarriageWorks was Sydney's first International Architectural Film Festival. With over 40 architectural films by local and international artists, film makers and architects. It was followed by Panel Discussion of esteemed academics and artists working in the field of architectural film.

Adopting virtual production for animated filmaking

Virtual Production is a rapidly growing approach to filmmaking that utilises 3D software, virtual camera systems and motion capture technology to visually interact with a real-time virtual environment. The use of these technologies has continued to increase, however, little has been done to document the various approaches for incorporating this new film making technique into a production. This practice-led research project outlines the development of virtual production in the entertainment industry and explores possible strategies for adopting aspects of this new film making technique into the production of short animated films. The outcome is an improved understanding of possible strategies that could be utilised to assist producers and directors with the transition into this new film making technique. - See more at: http://dl4.globalstf.org/?wpsc-product=adopting-virtual-production-for-animated-filmaking#sthash.DLzRph4Z.dpuf

Book Review: "Below the Line: Producers and Production Studies in the New Television Economy by Vicki Mayer", Duke University Press, 2012

Vicki Mayer’s book is unusual in that, despite its title, it is not about television producers at all, or at least not in the sense that scholars and the television industry itself have traditionally understood the role. Rather than referring to those in creative, managerial or financial control, or those with substantial intellectual input into a program, Mayer uses the term in a deliberately broad sense to mean, essentially, anyone ‘whose labor, however small, contributes to [television] production’ (179).

Sydney's media cluster: Continuity and change in film and television

A significant media city globally , Sydney is the production and design centre for the Australian media system and a subsidiary node of larger international systems principally headquartered in Los Angeles and London. Its media cluster is undergoing transformations to improve its position internationally by increasing capabilities and ties to other Australian and international production clusters. Sydney’s media cluster is a collection of suburbs forming an “arc” along major transport corridors stretching from Macquarie Park in the north to Sydney airport in the south. As a dispersed rather than tightly bound cluster, it is defined by the functional proximity provided by automobile and telecommunication networks Sydney’s media cluster is considered here along two dimensions—that of Sydney’s place within the ecology of Australian and international media and that of its internal organization within the geographical space of metropolitan Sydney. The first examines Sydney’s media cluster at the level of the metropolitan area of Sydney within its state, national and international contexts; while the second digs below this level to explore its working out in urban space.

Location and labor: Critical crossroads in global film and television

I approached the editorial prompt as an opportunity to work through some of the concerns driving my current research on creative labor in emergent or ‘peripheral’ media hubs, centers of production activity outside established media capitals that are nevertheless increasingly integrated into a global production apparatus. It builds from my research on the role that film, television and digital media production have played in the economic and cultural strategies of Glasgow, Scotland, and extends the focus on media work to other locations, including Prague and Budapest. I am particularly drawn to the spatial dynamics at play in these locations and how local producers, writers, directors and crew negotiate a sense of place and creative identity against the flows and counter-flows of capital and culture. This means not only asking questions about the growing ensemble of people, places, firms and policies that make international productions possible, but also studying the more quotidian relationships between media workers and the locations (both near and far) where they now find work. I do not see these tasks as unrelated. On the one hand, such queries underscore how international production depends on a growing constellation of interchangeable parts and is facilitated by various actors whose agendas may or may not converge. On the other hand, these questions also betray an even more complicated dynamic, a process that is shifting the spatial orientation of both location and labor around uneven and contested scales. As local industries reimagine themselves as global players, media practitioners are caught up in a new geography of creative labor: not only are personnel finding it increasingly necessary to hop from place to place to follow the work, but also place itself is changing, as locations morph into nebulous amalgamations of tax rebates, subsidized facilities, production services and (when it still matters) natural beauty.

European audiovisual production companies adapting to strategic challenges

These are turbulent times for audio- visual production companies. Radical changes, both inside and outside the organizations, reach across national markets and different genres. For instance, production methods are changing; the demand from audiences and advertisers is changing; power relations between the actors involved in the value chain are changing; and increasing concentration makes the market even more competitive for small independent players. From a perspective of the structure–conduct– performance paradigm (Ramstad, 1997) it is reasonable to expect that these changes on a structural level of the industry will cause the production companies to adapt their strategic behaviour. The current challenges for media companies are a combination of rising complexity and uncertainty in the market (Picard, 2004). The increasing complexity can for instance be observed in the growing number of market segments and in the continuing trend towards cross- media strategies where media companies operate in multiple markets and on multiple platforms...

(Un)dead Japan: A genre analysis of the Japanese zombie film

This study is an in-depth examination of the stylistic and generic characteristics of the Japanese zombie film and its relations to Japanese horror cinema and the conventions and tropes of Western zombie movies more generally. Through generic analysis of key Japanese zombie films released over the last 15 years, this study establishes the sub-genre's ties to transnational production practices and cult cinema. The first monograph length study of this kind, this study provides insight into the growing sub-genre of Japanese zombie films while concurrently broadening current scholarship and understanding of the zombie film genre.

When film, fashion & interiors collide: Designing the After Darkly Graduate Fashion Show

In 2013 QUT Interior Design and Fashion Disciplines partnered to design the Catwalk for the QUT After Darkly Graduate Fashion Show. The ephemeral work (catwalk canopy and cinematic affects) was developed through collaboration between the authors based upon an undergraduate interior design unit ‘Filmic Interiors’ in which students were tasked with designing a fashion show. Filmic Interiors exploited the potential of film to influence, understand, and develop novel interior spaces through consideration of mise-en-scene, cinematic effects and atmospheric design strategies engaged by key film directors Jean Pierre Jeunet and Darren Aronofsky. The design outcome represents a hybridisation of student design proposals, contemplating both film and emerging collections from graduate fashion students. The work explored a number of iterations each testing material qualities and immaterial cinematic affects, as a means to develop new space. The process was led by experimentation undertaken by the designers through previous studio explorations surrounding the theme of ‘Strange Space’ and design practice ‘Making Strange’(Lindquist & Pytel, 2012). In doing so, the work paralleled the material formations of ‘obsessive collections’ and ‘making do’ evident in Jeunet’s scenography, rendering uncanny hybrid space (Ezra, 2008). Evocation of the immaterial found in much of director Aronofsky’s work, also became critical in the atmospheric experience intended for the show. This paper explores the process of collaboration and material experimentation in design, approached through a filmic lens. It provides insight into what happens when one enters into what can be termed an ‘ecology of production’, whereby the experimental making becomes the collaborative agent between designers, disciplines, and between stage and spectators. Finally it underlines the importance of ‘finding the work’ through material making and testing rather than through more controlled formalistic responses.

Empowering PNG Women through Building Media Arts Production Capacity as Cultural Drivers: Showreel

The creative work comprises six short digital screen stories and emerges from a collaboration between the Discipline of Film Screen and Animation at Queensland University of Technology and the Centre for Social and Creative Media at University of Goroka, funded via the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade's Australia Awards Fellowship. Six fellows traveled from Papua New Guinea to Brisbane for a two-week intensive course to learn the advanced skills necessary in order to create media that will empower women and girls to make more of their own economies in Papua New Guinea, and increase the representation of women and their well-being through leadership and decision-making. The resulting creative work is evidence of innovative media teaching-making methods designed to build human and cultural assets in PNG and address the increasing demand for media materials driven by the influx of mobile phones and internet services. The creative work provides a platform to directly address and positively impact gender issues in PNG and builds on the success of the Pawa Meri project, which trained six female directors to tell stories of women in leadership roles in PNG. One of the directors was a producer of this creative work. The creative work frames but problematises the complex issues influencing gender equity through the selection of content and narrative structures in ways which address the dynamics of male/female relationships and power in PNG society and will include strategies to illustrate transformed male and female behaviours. The creative work adopts a scaffolded approach, incorporating the findings of the Train the Trainer approach developed by UoG and QUT for the Life Drama research project. The creative work takes into account current developmental themes and approaches in the production of rich media products, and skills the key participants so that they are able to in turn train others in the wider community. The creative work was presented to partners and key stakeholders on 3 July 2015 at the Glasshouse, QUT Creative Industries Precinct and at the Dean’s Research Seminar Poster Exhibition 15 July 2015 at Room 212-213, Level 2, J Block, Gardens Point QUT and subsequent eBook. It has since returned to PNG to be showcased and distributed, and the skills and strategies disseminated.

The effect of polyterpenol thin film surfaces on bacterial viability and adhesion

The nanometer scale surface topography of a solid substrate is known to influence the extent of bacterial attachment and their subsequent proliferation to form biofilms. As an extension of our previous work on the development of a novel organic polymer coating for the prevention of growth of medically significant bacteria on three-dimensional solid surfaces, this study examines the effect of surface coating on the adhesion and proliferation tendencies of Staphylococcus aureus and compares to those previously investigated tendencies of Pseudomonas aeruginosa on similar coatings. Radio frequency plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition was used to coat the surface of the substrate with thin film of terpinen-4-ol, a constituent of tea-tree oil known to inhibit the growth of a broad range of bacteria. The presence of the coating decreased the substrate surface roughness from approximately 2.1 nm to 0.4 nm. Similar to P. aeruginosa, S. aureus presented notably different patterns of attachment in response to the presence of the surface film, where the amount of attachment, extracellular polymeric substance production, and cell proliferation on the coated surface was found to be greatly reduced compared to that obtained on the unmodified surface. This work suggests that the antimicrobial and antifouling coating used in this study could be effectively integrated into medical and other clinically relevant devices to prevent bacterial growth and to minimize bacteria-associated adverse host responses.