From Aussiewood Movies to Guerrilla Filmmaking: Independent Filmmaking and Contemporary Australian Cinema

Independent filmmaking within the context of Australian cinema is a multifaceted subject. In comparison to the United States, where production can be characterised as bifurcated between major studio production and so-called “indie” or independent production without the backing of the majors, since the 1970s and until recently the vast majority of Australian feature film production has been independent filmmaking. Like most so-called national cinemas, most Australian movies are supported by both direct and indirect public subvention administered by state and federal government funding bodies, and it could be argued that filmmakers are, to a certain degree, “dependent” on official mandates. As this chapter demonstrates national production slates are subjected to budget restraints and cut-backs, official cultural policies (for example pursuing international co-productions and local content quotas) and shifts in policy directions among others. Therefore, within the context of Australian cinema, feature film production operating outside the public funding system could be understood as “independent”. However, as is the case for most English-language national cinemas, independence has long been defined in terms of autonomy from Hollywood, and – as alluded to above – as Australia becomes more dependent upon international inputs into production, higher budget movies are becoming less independent from Hollywood. As such, this chapter argues that independence in Australian cinema can be viewed as having two poles: independence from direct government funding and independence from Hollywood studios. With a specific focus on industry and policy contexts, this chapter explores key issues that constitute independence for Australian cinema. In so doing it examines the production characteristics of four primary domains of contemporary independent filmmaking in Australia, namely: “Aussiewood” production; government-backed low-to-mid budget production; co-productions; and guerrilla filmmaking.

From Frank Miller to Zack Snyder, and Return: Contemporary Superhero Comics and Post-Classical Hollywood

Film adaptations of superhero comic-books offer a particularly rich case study to analyse narrative strategies of contemporary Hollywood cinema. The serial structures adopted by the comics they are based on, as well as their use of the spectacular potential of the image, provide a successful model for current audiovisual productions. Without completely abandoning classical techniques, these adaptations try to find a new balance between narrative and digital phantasmagoria. This paper discusses some significant examples of this genre, including adaptations of classical DC and Marvel franchises and more recent series, as well as other comic-book influenced films such as The Matrix and Unbreakable.

Eye candy for the blind: re-introducing Lyotard's Acinema into discourses on excess, motion and spectacle in contemporary Hollywood

Jean-François Lyotard's 1973 essay ‘Acinema’ is explicitly concerned with the cinematic medium, but has received scant critical attention. Lyotard's acinema conceives of an experimental, excessive form of film-making that uses stillness and movement to shift away from the orderly process of meaning-making within mainstream cinema. What motivates this present paper is a striking link between Lyotard's writing and contemporary Hollywood production; both are concerned with a sense of excess, especially within moments of motion. Using Charlie's Angels (McG, 2000) as a case study – a film that has been critically dismissed as ‘eye candy for the blind’ – my methodology brings together two different discourses, high culture theory and mainstream film-making, to test out and propose the value of Lyotard's ideas for the study of contemporary film. Combining close textual analysis and engagement with key scholarship on film spectacle, I reflexively engage with the process of film analysis and re-direct attention to a neglected essay by a major theorist, in order to stimulate further engagement with his work.

Spectacle and value in classical Hollywood cinema

This is a primarily meta-critical essay and is in direct dialogue with the argument presented in my essay on Gone with the Wind (published in 'Screen'). Here, however, the emphasis is much more on the challenge my definition of spectacle represents for important traditions of film analysis, particularly ‘mise-en-scène criticism’. I argue for the possibility of spectacle to form part of the ‘organic’ whole of a film’s texture and form, while noting the challenge the concept represents (by dint of certain ideological associations and its taint of commercialism) with ‘organicist’ traditions of interpretative film analysis.

Aesthetical and narrative uses of the trench in the Hollywood cinema of 1918-1930

Throughout history of painting, the representation of landscape has been considered a laboratory for the human gaze on the world. The First World War and its new approach to the battlefield altered deeply the classical forms of representation, and replaced them with a mechanised and fragmentary vision, which was related with the development of photography and cinema. As Vicente J. Benet has analysed, Hollywod cinema used these deep changes in its filmic versions of the conflict, although it organised them following a narrative logic. In this text we intend to study how the battlefield and, particularly, the trench, are inserted in this logic of the history of landscape painting. We do so through some Hollywood films from the period 1918-1930. Firstly, we approach the trench as a composition value which can structure the image and guide the camera movement. In the second place, we study how it creates a dialog between its inside, melodrama scenery, and the outside, battlefield and danger. In both cases, we conclude that the trench as a form and as a narrative element plays a structuring and integrative role with the storytelling logic.

Contemporary Hollywood And The Attention Economy

This thesis had two goals: to explore the transformation of Hollywood from the 1930s to present, and to investigate how Contemporary Hollywood functions in a growing attention economy. Evident in the types of films that it produces as well as its evolving industrial structure, Contemporary Hollywood significantly differs from the Classical Hollywood of the 1930s. New digital technologies like surround sound and computer-generated imagery (CGI) have allowed studios to create a different type of film like the blockbuster and to have more extensive control over their films. Additionally, growing exhibition and distribution platforms have also fundamentally altered the industrial landscape of Hollywood. In order to combat this more egalitarian distribution system, Contemporary Hollywood has turned to conglomeratization. But, what has caused such a radical shift in the form and function of Contemporary Hollywood and its films? This thesis argues that Hollywood is failing to thrive in this new media landscape¿not because of changing technologies¿but because of a changing consumer. Richard Lanham theorizes that we are living in a growing attention economy, where human attention is the most valuable commodity in such an information-saturated society. For the current consumer, there is near-constant media over-stimulation: he or she is exposed to any number of screens (mobile phones, laptops, tablets, televisions, etc.) at any given time. Because we can access anything from anywhere at anytime, we¿ve become somewhat schizophrenic and impatient in terms of the media that we consume in our lives.

‘La familia ya no es lo que era’: intercultural lesbian relationships in contemporary Spanish cinema

Este artículo considera el papel variable de las mujeres con respecto a la institución del matrimonio y al entorno familiar a través de la representación cinematográfica de relaciones interculturales y de lesbianas. Sostiene que ese tipo de relación constituye un ejemplo de la visibilidad emergente de formas familiares alternativas al modelo heteronormativo. Tomando en cuenta las dimensiones lingüísticas, temporales, y espaciales de estas relaciones, analiza tres películas: Costa Brava: Family Album, A mi madre le gustan las mujeres y Room in Rome. En resumen, el artículo cuestiona la posición del deseo intercultural lésbico dentro de las representaciones cinematográficas de la familia contemporánea en España.

O cinema ibérico e os óscares: razões para a não selecção dos filmes portugueses ao óscar de melhor filme em língua estrangeira, através da análise comparativa entre as cinematografias de Espanha, Portugal e o modelo de produção de Hollywood

Dissertação apresentada à Escola Superior de Comunicação Social como parte dos requisitos para obtenção de grau de mestre em Audiovisual e Multimédia.

Cinema hollywoodiano no século XXI: o ritmo em abordagem semiótica e os filmes mais vistos de 2001 a 2010

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)

Hollywood's hidden advantage : creative suits

Creativity in Hollywood is not just about telling stories onscreen. Deal making is the name of the game in Hollywood from globally released franchised blockbusters to art house releases. Riding the currents of the twentieth century Hollywood has maintained dominance with its highly diversified production slate built on creative financing solutions. Using historical and recent case studies, the presentation will look behind the images at the numbers and discuss how 'the suits' have been, and continue to be just as creative as the 'creatives' in contemporary Hollywood.