This subject surveys the work of seminal Asian and Australian filmmakers from the second half of the 20th century, whose key works have framed and challenged nation-defining narratives.
Viewing films from China, India, Pakistan, South Korea, Iran, Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Australasia, students are asked to consider how the narrative impacts of key works differ between local, diasporic, and non-diasporic international audiences.
From screening and discussions, students will locate assigned films in their broad historical, economic and political context of production and distribution.
Students are tasked to reflect on how their observations may be incorporated into their own production practice, and to develop strategies challenging cultural stereotyping through informed transcultural nuance.
This subject’s assigned tasks take the learner on a self-reflexive journey from consumer to future producer of film as a purposefully manufactured product of diverse cultural, aesthetic and technological traits.
Films include: indigenous Australian director Ivan Senn’s Beneath Clouds, Charles Chauvel’s Jedda, Hong Kong director Wong Kar Wai’s Days of Being Wild ,Bengali Indian director Satyajit Ray’s Pather Panchali, Hindi director Yash Chopra’s Deewar, Iranian female director Bani-E’temad’s Our Times, South Korean director Park Chan-wook’s Joint Security Area, Taiwan director Ang Lee’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Hong Kong director Wilson Yip’s Ip Man, mainland Chinese director Chen Kaige’s Farewell My Concubine, Japanese director Hayao Miyazaki’s animation Spirited Away, and Pakistani ‘revival’ producer Mahar Zaidi’s Zinda Bhaag.
- Teacher: Guillym Davenport
This subject introduces learners to using individually framed shots as the building blocks of narrative sequence construction.
On successful completion of the subject learners will be able define key elements of cinematic visual grammar used in a variety of western and non-western production traditions, and apply them to optimise audience understanding of directorial intent.
Learners concentrate on storyboarding skills for camera direction in the first half of the subject to define the frame and explore principles of composition.
Exploring the technical and storytelling criteria for frame size selection including application of close up, medium shot, wide shot, over the shoulder and moving camera shots, learners develop directorial skills in converting simple events in actuality to coherent camera-blocked sequences.
In the second half of the subject, learners examine moving camera narrative construction techniques including use of hand-held, dolly, tracking, and craning methods. Particular emphasis will be given to short-form production styles associated with rapid knowledge-transfer media.
Using set exercises featuring common coverage situations involving single and paired performers and objects, learners are challenged to assess their narrative options for covering novel situations, and then swiftly block this into appropriate shot sizes and coverage.
Students will demonstrate technical literacy in clearly conveying storyboarded intent in written and drawn form so that an unrelated production group may then produce the intended sequence faithfully.
Skills and visual protocols acquired in this subject equip learners with a professional vocabulary of cinematic techniques and narrative analysis ability applicable to all Project subjects in the Bachelor of Multinational Film Production.
This subject introduces learners to using individually framed shots as the building blocks of narrative sequence construction.
On successful completion of the subject learners will be able define key elements of cinematic visual grammar used in a variety of western and non-western production traditions, and apply them to optimise audience understanding of directorial intent.
Learners concentrate on storyboarding skills for camera direction in the first half of the subject to define the frame and explore principles of composition.
Exploring the technical and storytelling criteria for frame size selection including application of close up, medium shot, wide shot, over the shoulder and moving camera shots, learners develop directorial skills in converting simple events in actuality to coherent camera-blocked sequences.
In the second half of the subject, learners examine moving camera narrative construction techniques including use of hand-held, dolly, tracking, and craning methods. Particular emphasis will be given to short-form production styles associated with rapid knowledge-transfer media.
Using set exercises featuring common coverage situations involving single and paired performers and objects, learners are challenged to assess their narrative options for covering novel situations, and then swiftly block this into appropriate shot sizes and coverage.
Students will demonstrate technical literacy in clearly conveying storyboarded intent in written and drawn form so that an unrelated production group may then produce the intended sequence faithfully.
Skills and visual protocols acquired in this subject equip learners with a professional vocabulary of cinematic techniques and narrative analysis ability applicable to all Project subjects in the Bachelor of Multinational Film Production.
- Teacher: Guillym Davenport
- Teacher: Fraser Pemberton
This subject introduces students to fundamental film production principles using the simplest and most accessible technology available: their mobile phones.
The subject’s aim is to develop visual literacy skills to commercially employable standards as quickly as possible with the least technical distraction.
Using technical operation skills synchronised to parallel progress in companion subject Skills 1, students work through a series of story-telling exercises to develop technical and aesthetic competencies in ultra-light digital field production.
Technical competencies include operating a variety of mobile phone image capture and editing systems reliably and quickly, and successfully uploading finished materials to local and remote servers for online audience feedback.
Aesthetic competencies include learning to frame shots to optimise meaning, and translating scripted materials into efficient and meaningful sequences of visually grammatical programming.
For their major project in this subject, students use scripts developed in companion subject Screenwriting 1 to tell a short story visually without dialogue.
Completed projects are produced at a standard suitable for commercial web-site use and online news reportage. Projects include a mix of factual and imaginative topics. Producers must submit an appropriate occupational health and safety plan.
Students work in small creative teams to produce exercises in a rapid cycle of praxis and reflection to stimulate learning.
Immediate audience feedback is key to this subject as an introduction to continuous peer-assisted-learning that occurs throughout all production undertaken in the degree.
- Teacher: Guillym Davenport
- Teacher: Fraser Pemberton
This subject builds on and formalizes introductory level picture editing skills for the production of short form content.
It assumes that learners have engaged in some form of video editing their own media histories at secondary school or privately.
This subject also assumes that edit software platforms and operator interfaces increasingly agnostic and generic, whilst technical and financial barriers to participation are decreasing.
Accordingly the subject asks learners to develop an articulate theory and practice of conveying meaning by sequencing images that may be applied to any current and future technology from phone apps to international broadcast systems.
In particular, the subject examines the special editing needs of short form content used in area of high graduate employment including television and online commercials, music videos, business and public education campaigns, digital billboards, and instructional videos.
At the beginning of the subject, students are asked to provide drawn storyboard edit sequences of in-class exercises, and compare these approaches to commonly used samples from broadcast media drawn from Asian and Australian sources.
Learners then move through stepped exercises in the edit skills to learn about constructing narrative from scripted and unscripted documentary subjects, This element introduces an introduction to split editing audio and picture.
In technical skills, learners explore a range of digital visual effects, including an introduction to color correction.- Teacher: Guillym Davenport