Sydney Screen Studies Talks

Over the past decade, the Australian film industry has increasingly engaged in co-productions with China. Screen Australia’s 2013 'Common Ground' report into screen partnerships in Asia highlighted Australia’s intention to develop co-production relationships in the region. Its support of Arclight Films’ Chinalight company in the 2017 round of the Enterprise program funding, gave this intention a physical, development and production company presence that made the hope clear that a stronger relationship with China, its industry and film market was the primary goal. Dr Dave Hare examines the recently-closed Chinalight as a case study that reflects the ways Australia is approaching the China-Australia production relationship. He is joined by Kai Ruo Soh to chat about the various political, cultural and financial implications of this relationship, with the audience present on the day. Seminar: 0.00 - 40min Q & A: 40min - 1hr 30min Produced by the Sydney Screen Studies Network Visit our website: sydneyscreenstudies.wordpress.com Email us: sydneyscreenstudies@gmail.com

Throughout Australia’s television history, Indigenous people have faced considerable misrepresentation in both their characterization and absence from our screens. Graduate student and actress Josie Atkinson looks at three key case studies: Boney (1971-2; 1992) Neighbours (1985-), and The Secret Life of Us (2001-5), revealing that while problems still exist in the representation of Indigenous people in televised media dramas, there have been some groundbreaking developments in this facet of Australian media. Josie is joined by Evelyn Araluen Corr for a Q&A session, where they discuss the issues facing Indigenous actors/actresses, gender representation, and the presence and absence of Indigenous-specific and Indigenous non-specific characterization in Australian television. Seminar: 0.00 - 14min Q & A: 14min - 1hr 02min Produced by the Sydney Screen Studies Network Visit our website: sydneyscreenstudies.wordpress.com Email us: sydneyscreenstudies@gmail.com

"The only thing that can stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun". These are words spoken by NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre in the wake of the Sandy Hook Elementary school massacre. Film scholar Dr Rodney Wallis argues this statement has a peculiar resonance with the mythic ideal of an armed saviour in American culture. He explores how Hollywood has contributed to this ideal through the 1950s Western, particularly focusing on George Steven's 1953 movie Shane. He is joined by Ben Eldridge for a Q&A session, in which they chat about heroism, masculinity, gun culture, race and gender in the Western genre. Seminar: 0.00 - 16min Q & A: 16min - 1hr 02min Produced by the Sydney Screen Studies Network Visit our website: sydneyscreenstudies.wordpress.com Email us: sydneyscreenstudies@gmail.com

What cultural and social value can be found in 1970s exploitation cinema? Doctoral candidate Váleri Codesido explores 1970s Spanish exploitation cinema to question what it can tell us about Spain in both a pre- and post- Franco era, and Spain's relationship with the world, through its explicit portrayal of sex and violence. Váleri also proposes that aesthetic parallels can be found in the Ozploitation films of the 1970s, opening up further questions around the stark differences in Australia's and Spain's political and cultural histories. Váleri is joined by Assoc. Prof. Anne Rutherford (WSU) for a Q & A with the audience present on the day. Seminar: 0.00 - 22min Q & A: 22min - 1hr 13min Produced by the Sydney Screen Studies Network Visit our website: sydneyscreenstudies.wordpress.com Email us: sydneyscreenstudies@gmail.com

The Hero's Journey has proven highly adaptable to the three-act screenplay structure. The problem is it has almost exclusively been applied to masculine heroes. Screenwriter Sophia Riley Kobacker proposes a new narrative template that can be used to tell the story of a more authentic female Hero's Journey. The new template is designed to encourage the production of future female-protagonist-led films. Screenwriter and academic Dr Natalie Krikowa joins Sophia for a Q & A session with the audience present on the day. Seminar: 0.00 - 22min Q & A: 22min - 1hr 13min Produced by the Sydney Screen Studies Network Visit our website: sydneyscreenstudies.wordpress.com Email us: sydneyscreenstudies@gmail.com

Director, performer or author? UNSW Honours student Zach Karpinellison interrogates these three roles occupied by German filmmaker Rainer Werner Fassbinder. These roles, Zach argues, allow Fassbinder to exert greater control over the moral and political reception of his work. He also explores the filmmaker's important cultural value as both an auteur and a key figure in New German Cinema. Dr Michelle Langford joins Zach for a Q&A after his talk. Produced by the Sydney Screen Studies Network Visit our website: sydneyscreenstudies.wordpress.com Email us: sydneyscreenstudies@gmail.com

Are we influenced by what we watch? Psychologist and media consultant Danya Braunstein talks us through some of the vital research into how individuals' thoughts, attitudes and beliefs are affected by the media they consume. She dispels some of the myths around media effects, and she proposes how media producers can adopt a socially responsible approach to producing their content. Danya is joined by her Macquarie Uni colleague Chanelle Tarabay for a Q & A at the end. Seminar: 0.00 - 38mins Q&A: 38mins - 1hr 10mins Produced by the Sydney Screen Studies Network Visit our website: sydneyscreenstudies.wordpress.com Email us: sydneyscreenstudies@gmail.com

Film scholar Dr Sharon Mee explores the role of the pulse and rhythm in film. She examines a series of experimental films - Brakhage, Kubelka, and Duchamp - which visually inscribe rhythm onto the image. She extends this analysis into horror film, specifically the work of George Romero, to argue that the pulse is a response to the experience of 'felt' time; the human pulse is integral to the connection between the viewer and the rhythmic images on screen. Dr Richard Smith responds to Sharon's talk with his own analysis of Michael Haneke's cinema, and the discussion continues with the audience present on the day. Sharon's talk: 0.00 - 33min Richard's response: 33min - 51min Q & A: 51min - 1hr 09min Produced by the Sydney Screen Studies Network Visit our website: sydneyscreenstudies.wordpress.com Email us: sydneyscreenstudies@gmail.com

Within the film industry, methods traditionally used to conduct audience analysis include utilising surveys and statistical data such as box office revenues. However, with the rapid growth of digital technology, collecting data on audiences’ opinions towards a specific content, product or services, has eased the process through electronic word-of-mouth communication. Kai Soh (U. Wollongong) examines the data from Chinese social networking site – Douban – to understand Chinese audiences’ opinions on the current highest grossing film in China – The Mermaid (2016), a co-production between Hong Kong and China. She examines the factors behind the film’s success, the effects of transnationality in Chinese cinema and the reception behind the fluidity of censorship in Chinese cinema. Kai is joined by Dr Collin Chua (UNSW) for a Q&A after her talk. Seminar: 0.00 - 27min Q & A: 27min - 52min Produced by the Sydney Screen Studies Network Visit our website: sydneyscreenstudies.wordpress.com Email us: sydneyscreenstudies@gmail.com

Rebecca Lelli, a Macquarie Uni graduate student, examines the plethora of viewing environments and platforms used to watch films today. She challenges the traditional assumption that the public theatre is the 'best' place to watch a film. Rebecca uses a case study of queer cinema to explore how new, intimate, digital viewing spaces allow for queer youth identity development and drastically change queer politics around film and media engagement. Rebecca's talk is followed by a Q&A session with Dr Tara McLennan. Seminar: 0.00 - 38min Q & A: 38min - 1hr 15min Produced by the Sydney Screen Studies Network Visit our website: sydneyscreenstudies.wordpress.com Email us: sydneyscreenstudies@gmail.com

UNSW postgraduate Charu Maithani explores the new kinds of interactions enabled between viewer/spectator and screen in the postmedia age. She examines changing aspect ratios, interactivity, and film production technology through the past 50 years, and questions: Can screens be studied as a new way to reconfigure postmedia? How do these technologies change the way we interact with screens? She is joined afterwards by Melanie Robson for a Q&A with the audience, where they chat about the effect of new technologies (iPhones, 3D, streaming services) on the viewing experience, and the death of cinema. Seminar: 0.00 - 31min Q & A: 31min - 1hr 14min Produced by the Sydney Screen Studies Network Visit our website: sydneyscreenstudies.wordpress.com Email us: sydneyscreenstudies@gmail.com

Where is transnational cinema going? Dr Timothy Laurie looks at the numerous high budget action films emerging in the US, China, and India in the past decade that employ both international casting and transnational narratives. He argues these films create new kinds of masculine heroes as well as signalling deep cultural differences. Prof. Meaghan Morris joins Tim after his talk to further discuss masculinity, K-Pop stars, and underrated action films. Seminar: 0.00 - 53min Q & A: 53min - 1hr 32min Produced by the Sydney Screen Studies Network Visit our website: sydneyscreenstudies.wordpress.com Email us: sydneyscreenstudies@gmail.com

Since Liverpool local Amy Jackson’s debut in 2010, where she played a young British woman in the Tamil period-drama Madrasapattinam, Jackson has played exclusively Tamil/Indian characters in all of her films. Despite her Caucasian background, Jackson is nativised for these roles, her skin spray-tanned, her hair dyed, and her blue eyes hidden behind dark-brown contact lenses. Grad student Meena Saverimuttu explores Jackson and a recurring reference to Jackson’s characters as “the white chick” in two of her more recent Tamil films Thangamagan (2015) and Gethu (2016). These films position two vastly different Amy Jacksons: the on-screen Indian and the off-screen westerner. Meena takes into account how audiences make meaning of the character through their knowledge of the actress herself. Dr Michelle Langford joins Meena for a Q&A with the audience after her talk, where they talk about gender, whiteness, film distribution. Seminar: 0.00 - 28min Q & A: 28min - 1hr 05min Produced by the Sydney Screen Studies Network Visit our website: sydneyscreenstudies.wordpress.com Email us: sydneyscreenstudies@gmail.com

Video games present an interesting challenge to other visual media: they are neither wholly narrative, nor wholly interactive. Ben Eldridge (USyd) explores mainstream interactive media with a brief case study of two texts splattered with violence and security content – Crytek’s video game Crysis 2 (2010) and Peter Watts’ subsequent novelization of the game, Crysis: Legion (2011). Crysis 2 is an interchangeable example of the so-called First Person Shooter (FPS); formulaic, uninspiring, and ideologically suspect. Ben contrasts the visual grammar of the game with the textual grammar of the novel. Dr Ari Mattes offers a response to Ben’s paper and they explore the video game as spectacle, gaming as a military recruitment strategy and more. Seminar: 0.00 - 45min Q & A: 45min - 1hr 10min Produced by the Sydney Screen Studies Network Visit our website: sydneyscreenstudies.wordpress.com Email us: sydneyscreenstudies@gmail.com

Recent developments in cinematic VR open up vital questions around how much this new mode can draw on established cinematic paradigms, such as linear narrative progression, techniques of montage, and emotional engagement via identification with diegetic characters. In this talk, PhD candidate Adam Daniel examines VR’s potential as a medium of ethical experience. He expands ethical experience beyond an intellectual consideration of moral or ethical dilemmas, to examine how images can affect us in a multimodal sense: cognitively, but also emotionally, corporeally, and sensorially. Dr Robert Sinnerbrink presents a response to Adam’s talk, and the two sit down for a Q&A with the audience. Adam's talk: 0.00 - 24min Robert's response: 24min - 45min Q & A: 45min - 1hr 13min Produced by the Sydney Screen Studies Network Visit our website: sydneyscreenstudies.wordpress.com Email us: sydneyscreenstudies@gmail.com

In the 1990s, Australian experimental and avant-garde film traditions were displaced – at the level of theory, policy and practice. The 1994 ‘Creative Nation’ policy announced the Keating Government’s enthusiasm for innovation and digital media. Australian artists and organisations scrambled to claim ground, funds and relevance in an era marked by insistent declarations of the end of the avant-garde, the end of cinema and the inevitability of a digital future. Two decades on the innovation rhetoric is louder than ever, but there is a near vacuum of funding for experimental film practice through film funding agencies. Dr Maura Edmond presents a historical take on the question of where-to-now for film (and film studies) in an era of convergent screen media, by looking at a period in which those questions were considered at length by filmmakers, institutions, critics and policymakers. Maura is joined by Phoebe Macrossan for a Q&A where they discuss some of these issues with the audience. Seminar: 0.00 - 46min Q & A: 46min - 1hr 20min Produced by the Sydney Screen Studies Network Visit our website: sydneyscreenstudies.wordpress.com Email us: sydneyscreenstudies@gmail.com

Complex transnational and local factors have made way for alternative channels of film circulation to emerge all around the globe. What is significant about these channels is not just that they are illegal, but the ways they transform the films, culturally and politically. PhD candidate Mahsa Salamati explores this transformation through Jafar Panahi’s This is not a Film (In Yek Film Nist, 2011) and his ongoing ban from filmmaking. Mahsa is joined by Melanie Robson for a Q&A with the audience, where they discuss the general state of Iranian film censorship, Panahi’s political standing, and his apparent ‘re-invention’ of cinema. Seminar: 0.00 - 23min Q & A: 23min - 57min Produced by the Sydney Screen Studies Network Visit our website: sydneyscreenstudies.wordpress.com Email us: sydneyscreenstudies@gmail.com

Between 1937 and 2016, Walt Disney Animation Studios released 56 animated theatrical films for children. Since 2000, the teenage and young adult female protagonists from 12 of these films have been retroactively grouped into a media franchise called the Disney Princesses. Although most research around the Disney Princesses relates to the franchise’s appropriateness for children, they are not the only demographic with an investment in this franchise. Adults online produce fan works, listicles, discussion, campaigns and humour featuring adoring, critical and satirical interpretations of the Disney Princesses. UNSW PhD candidate Emily Chandler argues that adult fandom around this franchise can be attributed to a combination of their appeal to nostalgia, their use within identity politics, and their transgressive potential through satire. Emily’s paper is followed by a Q&A session facilitated by Meg Russell and involving the audience present on the day. Seminar: 0.00 - 41min Q & A: 41min - 1hr 26min Produced by the Sydney Screen Studies Network Visit our website: sydneyscreenstudies.wordpress.com Email us: sydneyscreenstudies@gmail.com

In this talk, Dr Karina Aveyard examines the embodied elements of the film viewing experience across the range of public and private environments. The proliferation of internet-based technologies has given rise to renewed scholarly interest in the phenomenological aspects of media. It is frequently argued that cinema gives rise to intense and focused mode of viewing. Non-theatrical viewing, in contrast, is regularly assumed to be more distracted and sporadic. This talk refocuses this debate through the lens of phenomenology as a more critical approach for exploring the different bodily experiences of film viewing. As a format with perhaps the widest register of screens (from the cinema through to the smart phone), film is uniquely placed to expand the field of phenomenology. It invites us to think about not just how bodies interact with screens, but also how they interact with objects and screening spaces. Adam Daniel conducts a Q&A session at the end of Karina’s talk. Seminar: 0.00 - 36min Q & A: 36min - 1hr 04min Produced by the Sydney Screen Studies Network Visit our website: sydneyscreenstudies.wordpress.com Email us: sydneyscreenstudies@gmail.com

Film critic and PhD candidate Lauren Carroll Harris uses a case study of US comedy HITS (David Cross 2015) and the BitTorrent Now website to explore how filmmakers are using file-sharing networks to monetise film distribution and reach their own fanbases. This seminar presents an argument for how file-sharing can be a valid, legal form of reintermediation that supports independent film culture, and reinserts filmmakers into the film value chain with a minimum of interference from gatekeepers. Lauren is joined by Jessica Ford who conducts a Q&A with the audience present on the day. Seminar: 0.00 - 22min Q & A: 22min - 51min Produced by the Sydney Screen Studies Network Visit our website: sydneyscreenstudies.wordpress.com Email us: sydneyscreenstudies@gmail.com