tag:theconversation.com,2011:/au/topics/film-making-13145/articlesFilm making – The Conversation2023-08-09T01:10:46Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2097862023-08-09T01:10:46Z2023-08-09T01:10:46ZFilm camera departments operate on a system of who you know, so what happens when you’re not a member of the in-group?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540956/original/file-20230803-23-6iheys.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=25%2C0%2C4224%2C2828&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Concerns about power imbalances and toxic working environments in the film and TV industries <a href="https://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/mij/15031809.0006.201?view=text;rgn=main">long pre-date</a> the emergence of #metoo as a global rallying cry against sexual assault and harassment on set. </p>
<p>Well-intentioned policymakers have made many attempts to intervene over the <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/13675494221145307">past 50 years or so</a>, focusing primarily on addressing gender imbalances using a “just add women and stir” approach. </p>
<p>In Australia this is exemplified by the <a href="https://www.screenaustralia.gov.au/sa/media-centre/backgrounders/2021/10-27-gender-matters-2021">Gender Matters</a> policy suite from Screen Australia, which aims to improve the number of women working behind the scenes, and the number of productions telling women’s stories.</p>
<p>Yet while gender inequality is important, it certainly is not all that matters if the ultimate goal is a safe, equitable and inclusive workplace. Instead, we need to take a detailed view of who works in the Australian film industry, and understand the specific challenges they face.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/screen-australia-celebrates-its-work-in-gender-equality-but-things-are-far-from-equal-122266">Screen Australia celebrates its work in gender equality but things are far from equal</a>
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<h2>Building a camera department</h2>
<p><a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/03128962231179379">Our recently published research</a> finds inequitable power dynamics behind the camera on Australian film sets are pernicious and persistent. </p>
<p>Purely in terms of gender discrimination, this industry is a shocker. </p>
<p>Camera departments are highly skewed to male employment. The camera department is headed by a director of photography (DOP or cinematographer), and is made up of a variety of positions including camera operators, camera assistants, gaffers and grips. </p>
<p>An <a href="https://www.screenaustralia.gov.au/fact-finders/cinema/industry-trends/2021-snapshot">industry snapshot</a> in 2021 reported a mere 4% of Australian films employed a woman as the DOP. The percentage of women working as cinematographers in the top 250 Hollywood movies <a href="https://womenintvfilm.sdsu.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/2021-Celluloid-Ceiling-Report.pdf">only increased</a> from 4% in 1998 to 6% in 2021. </p>
<p>Of cinematographers working in Europe between 2017 and 2021, <a href="https://rm.coe.int/female-professionals-in-european-film-production-2022-edition-p-simone/1680a886c5">10% were women</a>.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540960/original/file-20230803-19-bsh4k6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A busy film set." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540960/original/file-20230803-19-bsh4k6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540960/original/file-20230803-19-bsh4k6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540960/original/file-20230803-19-bsh4k6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540960/original/file-20230803-19-bsh4k6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540960/original/file-20230803-19-bsh4k6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540960/original/file-20230803-19-bsh4k6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540960/original/file-20230803-19-bsh4k6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Most people employed in camera departments are men.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
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<p>Our study draws on the survey data collected from 582 people included in the <a href="https://cinematographer.org.au/a-wider-lens-australian-camera-workforce-development-and-diversity-report">Wider Lens Report</a> commissioned by the Australian Cinematographers Society. </p>
<p>Under 2% of respondents who had worked exclusively as the director of photography in the 12 months prior to COVID were women. This percentage lifts slightly to the 4% observed in other industry data when we account for women who worked across multiple camera department roles including director of photography. This discrepancy reveals how women DOPs are more likely than men to work across other (less prestigious) camera department roles. </p>
<p>Beyond focusing on the headline gender statistics, we also wanted to interrogate an <a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-does-intersectionality-mean-104937">intersectional</a> view of discrimination inside camera crews, considering how factors such as racism, sexism, ageism, ableism and homophobia can also impact employment opportunity and experience.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-does-intersectionality-mean-104937">Explainer: what does 'intersectionality' mean?</a>
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<h2>What does a cinematographer look like?</h2>
<p>Looking at the survey data, we identified four main cohorts in Australian camera departments. </p>
<p>Not surprisingly, the dominant and most successful in-group was Anglo-Celtic heterosexual men (37% of the total sample). </p>
<p>Another cohort, sharing some of the same features, is made up of heterosexual men from non-Anglo-Celtic ethnicities (34.5%). </p>
<p>There are also two clear, much smaller “out-groups” comprising of heterosexual women (11.5%) and a significant cohort of sexuality and gender minorities (13.5%) including lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, queer men and women, and gender non-binary people. </p>
<p>(A small percentage of people were not able to be assigned to any of these groupings because of missing information.)</p>
<h2>Workplace power</h2>
<p>Cis-heterosexual men are paid more and occupy higher status roles than women and other groups. Experiences of discrimination and harassment tend to be found in the two “out-groups” and, to a lesser extent, among men from underrepresented ethnicities. </p>
<p>We found 88% of heterosexual women reported experiencing sexism, and 39% of respondents from the sexuality and gender minorities group reported experiencing homophobia.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540961/original/file-20230803-15-bzq062.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A woman behind a camera." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540961/original/file-20230803-15-bzq062.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540961/original/file-20230803-15-bzq062.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540961/original/file-20230803-15-bzq062.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540961/original/file-20230803-15-bzq062.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540961/original/file-20230803-15-bzq062.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540961/original/file-20230803-15-bzq062.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540961/original/file-20230803-15-bzq062.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">88% of heterosexual women working in camera departments reported experiencing sexism.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
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<p>Interestingly, nearly 20% of heterosexual men also claimed to have experienced sexism. From looking at qualitative responses, we found these experiences were linked to respondents’ perceptions that diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives generated disadvantage for straight men. </p>
<p>Experiences of ageism tended to be less concentrated in any one group, although there was one interesting distinction. </p>
<p>In the sexuality and gender minorities group, ageism was more likely to manifest around perceptions of being “too young” and “inexperienced”. For the other groups, ageism was more likely to be linked to the perception of being “too old”. </p>
<p>Experiences of ableism were highest for the sexuality and gender minorities group, with most reported discrimination related specifically to perceptions of mental illness. </p>
<p>Camera departments operate so that “who you know” and being able to “fit in” matter. Those who are not men, not White and not heteronormative often felt they were discriminated against.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-number-one-barrier-has-probably-been-stigma-the-challenges-facing-disabled-workers-in-the-australian-screen-industry-200345">‘The number one barrier has probably been stigma’: the challenges facing disabled workers in the Australian screen industry</a>
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<h2>Rethinking the industry</h2>
<p>It doesn’t have to be this way. In-group dominance does not require hostility and discrimination against out-group members. </p>
<p>Current piecemeal policy responses won’t be enough to overhaul the entrenched systems and cultures that perpetuate toxic workplaces and social inequalities in the screen industries. </p>
<p>Typical policies focus on the idea that individuals from under-represented groups can succeed if they get more training or <a href="https://screenworks.com.au/learn/gender-matters-webinars/">personal skills development</a>. </p>
<p>Instead, we argue, strategies for change need to be targeted at multiple levels, and need to include wholesale reform. </p>
<p>This means rethinking how the agencies and guilds that endorse the industry define its values, how the business and operational layers of the film industry work to reinforce discrimination, and how such inequitable production teams are brought together. </p>
<p>A toxic system is supported by many individual ethical decisions. Some are acts of cowardice or fear. Some are actually bad actions that hurt people. </p>
<p>Some, in defiance of their context, are acts of grace and courage.</p>
<p>On the set and in the boardrooms where decisions are made, screen industry workplaces need to be regulated to ensure zero tolerance for toxic behaviours and structural discrimination. Where there are no real consequences for bad actions, bad actors prosper.</p>
<p>Anything less would be tinkering at the edges of a foundational problem.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/tony-burkes-double-ministry-of-arts-and-industrial-relations-could-be-just-what-the-arts-sector-needs-183623">Tony Burke's double ministry of arts and industrial relations could be just what the arts sector needs</a>
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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/209786/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ben Eltham has previously received funding from the Australia Council for the Arts. He is a member of the Media, Arts and Entertainment Alliance, a union that represents workers in the screen industries. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Bronwyn Coate and Deb Verhoeven do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Our recently published research finds inequitable power dynamics behind the camera on Australian film sets are pernicious and persistent.Bronwyn Coate, Senior Lecturer in Economics, RMIT UniversityBen Eltham, Lecturer, School of Media, Film and Journalism, Monash UniversityDeb Verhoeven, Visiting Fellow, University of Technology SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1323362020-12-14T22:10:15Z2020-12-14T22:10:15Z4 ways independent filmmakers can make the most of small budgets for big results<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/373917/original/file-20201209-15-1g9vlmj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=52%2C44%2C2443%2C1377&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Spend money on morale, and focus on story, by far the most important element to filmmaking. Canadian comedy icon Kevin McDonald stars in Michael Stasko's 'Boys vs. Girls.' </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Jesse Hebert)</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>“Here are your handcuffs. Now, how would you like to wear them?” </p>
<p>Each time I embark on a new low-budget <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/328104/rebel-without-a-crew-by-robert-rodriguez/">independent film</a>, this is the mantra that begins to play on a loop in my head. In the summer of 2018 when I set out on <a href="https://www.uwindsor.ca/communication-media-film/336/mike-stasko">my fifth feature film</a>, <em>Boys vs. Girls</em>, about a 1990 summer camp that goes co-ed for the first time in its 70-year history, I wore the mantra as a flag. </p>
<p>Sure, the so-called “handcuffs” of a small budget are constraining. But realistically and creatively assessing how to make the most of what you have is where your opportunities begin. Here are my four takeaways about meaningful ways to embrace small budgets.</p>
<h2>1. Think globally, act locally</h2>
<p>We’ve heard this as it applies to environmental and social justice causes, but with advances in <a href="https://inurture.co.in/blogs/the-impact-of-digital-technology-on-filmmaking/">digital technology</a>, indie filmmaking has benefited too. </p>
<p>Financiers, distributors and exhibitors still <a href="https://mafilm.org/2018/01/18/the-best-places-to-live-and-work-as-a-moviemaker-2018-big-cities">call big cities like Los Angeles, New York and Toronto home</a>, but it <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1023/B:GEJO.0000026704.17447.7a">doesn’t mean your shoot has to take place</a> in such cost-prohibitive cities.</p>
<p>I shoot most of my projects in my home town of Windsor, Ont., and this has provided me with numerous economic and production advantages. Renting out all locations — hotel rooms, production offices and cast trailers — would normally eat the lion’s share of a budget. But on <em>Boys vs. Girls</em>, we rented an off-season <a href="http://kiwanissunshinepointcamp.com/">summer camp</a> that acted as all three for a fraction of the price. </p>
<p>Usually, I’ll advise my students to not think about the practicalities of filming while constructing the story. However, if you know in advance what kind of budget you’ll be dealing with, look around your hometown. What built-in production values exist in your own backyard?</p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/wY19A0w3ccM?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">‘Boys vs. Girls’ trailer.</span></figcaption>
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<h2>2. Engage enthusiasm</h2>
<p>Being enthusiastic about how much you love singing might not give you Adele’s voice, however, in filmmaking, this is pure fuel. If you can fill up your set with cast and crew who want to be there regardless of their financial stake, at the start of each day you can flick on the proverbial “film generator” and know that it will run until wrap. </p>
<p>On all my film sets, regardless if some people are being paid big bucks, small bucks, doing an internship or volunteering, I keep track of everyone’s total hours. On the <em>Boys vs. Girls</em> set, that included 30 film students enrolled at the University of Windsor.</p>
<p>My approach is to divide everyone’s hours by the group’s final total, and give everyone “ownership” in the film. This means you could have been the <a href="https://www.studiobinder.com/blog/production-assistant-duties/">production assistant</a> (PA) and walked away with a certificate that entitles you to “0.4 per cent of the producer’s net equity.” In the years following the film’s release, and as the film begins to turn a profit, a cheque for a couple hundred bucks could show up in your mailbox as a dividend of sorts. I call this co-op filmmaking, and I find it keeps everyone engaged and pulling in the same direction.</p>
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<img alt="(A crowd outside in front of 'Sunshine Point' sign." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/374302/original/file-20201210-23-ndqlhl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/374302/original/file-20201210-23-ndqlhl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/374302/original/file-20201210-23-ndqlhl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/374302/original/file-20201210-23-ndqlhl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/374302/original/file-20201210-23-ndqlhl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=462&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/374302/original/file-20201210-23-ndqlhl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=462&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/374302/original/file-20201210-23-ndqlhl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=462&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Cast and crew of ‘Boys vs. Girls.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Jesse Hebert)</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
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<h2>3. Spend money on morale</h2>
<p>A film professor at Columbia University explained to me how spending the extra few pennies on Coke instead of no-name cola not only paid for itself, but was far-reaching. Meaning: a crew that worked a long six hours and are heading to a well-deserved lunch will have a slight unconscious boost in morale, knowing they are sipping “the real thing” versus “I don’t care about you too much; our budget is killing us.” </p>
<p>The other place this can pay dividends for itself is in getting a few “recognizable” actors on the set for cameo roles. For <em>Boys vs. Girls</em>, I was able to secure the comedic talents of <a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0595110">Colin Mochrie</a> (<em><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2919910/">Whose Line Is It Anyway</a>?</em>) to play the camp director, Roger, and <a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0567852">Kevin McDonald</a> (<a href="https://gem.cbc.ca/season/kids-in-the-hall/season-1/fb8e4d85-bf7e-4a5f-bc1d-bd4b1467fea2"><em>The Kids In The Hall</em></a>) to play the camp caretaker, Coffee. </p>
<p>As soon as these <a href="https://anchor.fm/followingfilms/episodes/Kevin-McDonald--Colin-Mochrie--and-Mike-Stasko-on-BOYS-VS--GIRLS-eneboi">comedy icons showed up</a>, the rest of the cast and crew immediately felt the rush of “this is the real deal” and everyone’s game stepped up. These actors were only on set for three days out of the 16-day shoot, but their scenes are spread out throughout the entire film, so to a viewer it really raises the perceived production value of the entire project.</p>
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<img alt="A man doing a thumbs up." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/374291/original/file-20201210-13-4xhzg7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/374291/original/file-20201210-13-4xhzg7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/374291/original/file-20201210-13-4xhzg7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/374291/original/file-20201210-13-4xhzg7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/374291/original/file-20201210-13-4xhzg7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/374291/original/file-20201210-13-4xhzg7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/374291/original/file-20201210-13-4xhzg7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Colin Mochrie plays Roger, the camp director.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Jesse Hebert)</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
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<h2>4. Throw time at your story</h2>
<p>Fast, good or cheap? Pick two. This famous <a href="http://www.pyragraph.com/2013/05/good-fast-cheap-you-can-only-pick-two/">project management triangle</a> also applies to filmmaking. By definition, an independent film is already nestled in the realm of “inexpensive,” and no doubt you’re looking for “good” (if not great). So, throw time at your project. Concede early on to the fact that you won’t be able to compete with mainstream Hollywood productions when it comes to production values like <a href="https://www.creativebloq.com/3d/10-greatest-vfx-movies-all-time-21619264">special effects</a> or <a href="https://medium.com/@jasoncherubini/big-names-in-small-films-bringing-star-power-to-an-independent-film-b7b85867abed">star power</a>. </p>
<p>But here’s the good news: 15 years into my filmmaking career, I can assure you that story is by far the most important element to filmmaking; and it just happens to be the one thing you can compete with. When a friend recommends a movie, rarely will they say “You have to see it! <a href="https://www.masterclass.com/articles/what-is-a-gaffer">The gaffer</a> perfectly flagged some spill from the key light during the dance scene.” Or: “<a href="https://www.media-match.com/usa/media/jobtypes/sound-editor-jobs-402783.php">The sound editor</a> beautifully cleaned room tone in the factory chase sequence.” No, they trumpet the story: “You have to see it! This happens, then this happens, then … well, I don’t want to spoil it, just go see it!” Every cast and crew member’s job is important, but they are all there <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.ca/books/321955/on-directing-film-by-david-mamet/9780140127225">to service the story</a>, to ensure they’ve collectively engaged the audience. So, my biggest advice would be don’t spend days or weeks outlining your story: spend months or years.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.mongrelmedia.com/index.php/filmlink?id=a6b07f32-29ac-ea11-a9bc-0edcbcd33718&type=cs"><em>Boys vs. Girls</em> went on</a> to a successful 2019-20 film festival run, including being named Best Canadian Feature Film at the <a href="https://www.imdb.com/event/ev0017001/2020/1/">Canadian International Comedy Film Festival</a> and Best Feature Film as well as the Audience Choice award at the <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/CAxj8apHFyG/">Chicago Comedy Film Festival</a>. The film also won awards for Best Ensemble Cast and Best Writer, Feature Film at the <a href="https://floridacomedyfilmfestival.com/award-winners">Florida Comedy Film Festival</a>. </p>
<p><em>‘Boys vs. Girls’ has its <a href="https://boysvgirlsmovie.ca">video on demand and DVD release on Dec. 22</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/132336/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael Stasko receives some funding from Arts Councils and benefits from Canadian and provincial film tax credits to help finance his creative research. Michael also owns significant shares in all the projects he produces including "Boys. vs. Girls".
</span></em></p>Renting locations, hotel rooms, offices and cast trailers can eat the lion’s share of a budget. We rented an off-season summer camp and won best feature film at the Chicago Comedy Film Festival 2020.Michael Stasko, Assistant Professor, Department of Communication, Media and Film, University of WindsorLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1161032019-05-02T13:09:10Z2019-05-02T13:09:10ZWhy my fears about climate change made me cross the line that separates academia from activism<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/271992/original/file-20190501-113852-p5v40z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The author as presenter.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Climate Race Film</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Everybody seems to be <a href="https://twitter.com/CarbonBrief/status/1123571071951757312">talking about climate change</a> again. This time, a great deal of the coverage has been sympathetic to the idea that we are facing an emergency that demands drastic action. </p>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/extinction-rebellion-disruption-and-arrests-can-bring-social-change-115741">Extinction Rebellion’s protests</a> caused some outrage, but also some <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2019/04/22/time-denial-conservatives-have-take-climate-crisis-seriously/">surprising support</a>. Swedish campaigner Greta Thunburg has been <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-48017083">widely admired</a>, David Attenborough has been <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/culture/on-television/with-the-netflix-series-our-planet-david-attenborough-delivers-an-urgent-message">spreading the word</a> with urgency, and <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00049b1">primetime programming</a> has led to serious discussions about climate change across living rooms, offices and social media. </p>
<p>So is this the fabled tipping point in public opinion which will see widespread support for radical changes? That is a question that can only be answered in hindsight. </p>
<p>Yet despite the significant surge in interest and concern, most people are probably unaware of what climate change really means: that it’s not just about nudging our emissions a bit lower or taking incremental action generally. This is a challenge that is perhaps unprecedented in all of human history. </p>
<h2>Crossing the line</h2>
<p>Given that I teach climate change to university students, I can (and do) talk for hours about the importance of global temperature change, or ecological impacts. </p>
<p>But these are academic concerns in the sense that they are almost completely separated from what climate change means to me, my family, friends and pretty much everything else I care about. It’s taken me some time to realise that I was in a sort of denial about climate change. I was able to compartmentalise it. </p>
<p>Reflecting on this led me to take a step over the line that separates academia from activism. I have colleagues and friends who are strict observers of this separation of states. Some of them have deeply principled concerns that advocating for particular climate related policies could undermine their professional objectivity. </p>
<p>Others have little desire to be the subject of the online abuse which often comes with sticking your head above the parapet and into the public debate. </p>
<p>I had these same reservations. But over time they have been gradually worn down by the steady drum beat of bad news and insufficient action. My personal tipping point was an otherwise unremarkable lecture to one of my undergraduate classes. </p>
<p>I was discussing atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere over time, and pointed out that this has been increasing ever since they were born. On each one of their birthdays, there was more CO₂ in the atmosphere than on the same day the previous year. Every additional birthday cake candle celebrated another one, two, or even three per cent annual increase. </p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/pVYt9ZDDfBs?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administrarion Carbon Tracker.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As I spoke, I looked into the faces of a generation that had been completely failed by their predecessors. It is a failure which came despite two decades of the science being perfectly clear that increasing CO₂ concentrations would produce further warming, and that dangerous changes to the global climate were lurking. </p>
<h2>And… Action</h2>
<p>That was when I realised that the positive professional and personal changes I had managed to make were hopelessly inadequate. Yes, I avoided flying where possible, and yes, I had largely eliminated meat and dairy from my diet. </p>
<p>I cycle rather than drive. I had switched to a green energy supplier. All that was good. All that was important. But I keenly felt the need to do more. </p>
<p>So I decided to make a documentary about climate change – about what drives it and what we can do individually, and together, to ensure a stable natural world for our children and future generations. </p>
<p>Why a film? It was a chat with a good friend, film maker Paul Maple of <a href="https://www.globaldocumentary.org">Global Documentary</a>, about our shared frustrations over the lack of climate change programmes being broadcast which led to plans to make our own. </p>
<p>I had no idea what would be involved, and Paul didn’t tell me – perhaps from fear of scaring me off. That was over three years, a thousand miles of travel around the UK, terabytes of data, and countless coffee-fuelled hours in the editing suite, ago. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/271223/original/file-20190426-194616-1wc97xy.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/271223/original/file-20190426-194616-1wc97xy.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/271223/original/file-20190426-194616-1wc97xy.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/271223/original/file-20190426-194616-1wc97xy.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/271223/original/file-20190426-194616-1wc97xy.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/271223/original/file-20190426-194616-1wc97xy.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/271223/original/file-20190426-194616-1wc97xy.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Filming in London.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>All of that work has now been rendered down to the 39 minutes of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_jA8k4YDzlo">The Race Is On: Secrets and Solutions of Climate Change</a>. In making the film, we were extremely fortunate to be able to interview leading figures in climate change science, economics and activism. I wouldn’t be able to name them all here without also naming the 67 people who contributed to the crowdfunding of the project and so help turn our initial sketchy plans into reality. </p>
<h2>A film for a future</h2>
<p>Early on, we agreed that a film, no matter how slick, could only be one part of an engagement strategy. So we planned community screenings, in which the film would be followed by panel discussions and town hall style meetings. We also produced a <a href="https://climateracefilm.org">companion website</a> containing information on practical steps we can all take to reduce our climate impacts. </p>
<p>The journey from academic to film maker activist is not something I can unreservedly recommend. I’ve had to park aspects of my professional and personal life, given how all consuming the project was. And now I seem to have taken up a new role as distributor and promoter, as the film will have no value unless people watch it. </p>
<p>But while I hope that this will be more than offset by generating positive impact, it’s also true that on a personal level it’s been worth it. I’ve met some incredible people, been allowed to go places and do things that otherwise would have been out of bounds (it’s amazing what you can get away with when accompanied by a film crew), and learnt new skills that have helped both my teaching and research. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">The Race is On.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The film project has been a labour of love. At times, a stress test, and finally a ragged race to deadlines – so something like a microcosm of the civilisation-scale climate challenge we all now face. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/263883/original/file-20190314-28475-1mzxjur.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/263883/original/file-20190314-28475-1mzxjur.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=140&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/263883/original/file-20190314-28475-1mzxjur.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=140&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/263883/original/file-20190314-28475-1mzxjur.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=140&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/263883/original/file-20190314-28475-1mzxjur.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=176&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/263883/original/file-20190314-28475-1mzxjur.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=176&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/263883/original/file-20190314-28475-1mzxjur.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=176&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/imagine-newsletter-researchers-think-of-a-world-with-climate-action-113443?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=TCUKengagement&utm_content=Imagineheader1116103">Click here to subscribe to our climate action newsletter. Climate change is inevitable. Our response to it isn’t.</a></em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/116103/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>James Dyke does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>We’re running out of time – so we can’t leave it all to Greta Thunburg and David Attenborough.James Dyke, Senior Lecturer in Global Systems, University of ExeterLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1147692019-04-29T14:00:36Z2019-04-29T14:00:36ZSlow cinema: what it is and why it’s on a fast track to the mainstream in a frenetic world<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/271476/original/file-20190429-194630-1lsflao.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=5%2C0%2C1986%2C1064&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">High Life: where slow cinema is concerned, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Thunderbird Releasing</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>It feels apt that Claire Denis’s new film, <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-front-row/high-life-reviewed-claire-deniss-disappointing-journey-into-space">High Life</a> is reportedly an idea she’d been toying with for 15 years. The movie is already drawing comparison to <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/high-life-review-1141594">Solaris</a>, a science fiction film by the seminal slow cinema director Andrei Tarkovsky. </p>
<p>Denis has dabbled with slow cinema aesthetics before. Her 2009 film <a href="https://filmmakermagazine.com/16134-claire-denis-white-material/">White Material</a> portrays a struggling female coffee producer who elects not to flee an impending civil war. The cinematography revels in stillness and quietude. Denis’s characters are developed through movement and actions more than <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/05/28/the-fearless-cinema-of-claire-denis">dialogue</a>. As the modern world becomes more and more fast paced, the idea of stillness is beginning to become a more desirable commodity.</p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/AtOwfo1ypOw?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>Stillness is one of the hallmarks of slow cinema, along with the use of static shots, long duration shots, pans, tracking shots – as well as a narrative focus on the more mundane aspects of life. This aesthetic has garnered much praise and criticism. Paul Schrader, academic, screenwriter and director, drew attention to certain aspects of this aesthetic in his seminal book, Transcendental Style in Film. </p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/mFcCs8c2n6I?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
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<p>The ideas raised here have since been applied to slow cinema. In recent years, the aesthetic was used frequently within the arthouse sector, garnering critical acclaim and academic interest. But Schrader has <a href="https://nowtoronto.com/movies/features/paul-schrader-slow-cinema-is-dying-a-slow-death/">recently stated</a> that he believes “slow cinema may be running its course”.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>It’s getting closer and closer to the art gallery and museum. It had a real interesting moment in the last 10 years, but now the novelty has worn off, and people are not as mesmerised as they were when the slowness was really being used as a new concept of film time. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>This is a bold statement about an aesthetic that has consistently created a polarising experience, finding its success primarily in the arthouse. Yet, the aesthetic seems to be breaking away from the arthouse sector, seeping into the mainstream in multiple areas, providing the audience with something they require.</p>
<h2>Small moments savoured</h2>
<p>At the 2019 Oscars, <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/oscars-2019-65470">Roma won awards</a> in the categories of best director, best foreign language film and best cinematography. This critically praised film clearly has slow cinema aesthetics running throughout it. There is a focus on the mundane – the small, seemingly insignificant moments in life. The opening sequence is a nine-minute shot of a women mopping the floor and walking through a house. It relies on the use of tracking shots and pans. Situations are frequently shown in long shot, allowing the audience to rove around the frame, not necessarily focusing on the protagonists.</p>
<p>Schrader would argue that Roma isn’t slow cinema – that it is still too focused on a narrative to be the purest form of the slow aesthetic. This is evident from the diagram Schrader created for a new edition of Transcendental Style in Film – the Tarkovsky Ring. The directors placed outside of the ring are the ones who create films that are least concerned with narrative as the driving force of the film.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1002913080358199297"}"></div></p>
<p>Schrader’s <a href="http://cinema-scope.com/cinema-scope-magazine/paul-schrader-deliberate-boredom-in-the-church-of-cinema/">damming opinion of them</a> is that: “There’s not much I’m going to get from Wang Bing or Béla Tarr or Lav Diaz.” (Directors who revel in stillness from China, Hungary & the Philippines). Schrader’s opinion aligns with the mainstream film industry – that narrative is the driving force of film. Yet pleasure can be derived from a slow film in a different way if audiences are willing to consider the viewing practices of film in a different way.</p>
<h2>Drinking alone, in your underwear</h2>
<p>In recent years, European practices such as Hygge have become exceedingly popular. The lesser known Dutch <em><a href="http://www.dutchamsterdam.nl/155-gezellig">gezellig</a></em> (which roughly translates as cosiness, contentment or companionship) also received some attention. At the end of last year the Finnish <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2018/oct/07/how-the-finnish-liftestyle-of-getting-drunk-while-wearing-pants-became-the-new-hygge"><em>kalsarikänni</em></a> (drinking at home, alone, in underwear) was being considered as the next big phenomenon. </p>
<p>All of these lifestyle movements – and countless <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/lists/christmas-alternatives-to-hygge-around-the-world/">others</a> – have one thing in common: escaping the frenetic pace of the modern world and relishing in the small things in life. It could be watching a candle flicker, cuddling in a blanket or just spending time with friends in your home. Escaping the noise of the modern world has been explored by <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/sep/23/the-power-of-silence-in-the-smartphone-age">Erling Kagge</a> in his successful book, Silence: In the Age of Noise. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/271481/original/file-20190429-194606-1huwn1r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/271481/original/file-20190429-194606-1huwn1r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=324&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/271481/original/file-20190429-194606-1huwn1r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=324&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/271481/original/file-20190429-194606-1huwn1r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=324&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/271481/original/file-20190429-194606-1huwn1r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=408&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/271481/original/file-20190429-194606-1huwn1r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=408&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/271481/original/file-20190429-194606-1huwn1r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=408&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Robert Pattinson and Scarlet Lindsay in High Life (2018)</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Thunderbird Releasing</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Apps <a href="https://www.calm.com/">such as Calm</a> are finding popularity, allowing you to find tranquility for a few seconds within the day. Evidently there is a desire for stillness and silence, taking time to find the beauty in the normalcy of life. These desires can be fulfilled in the cinema, as long as audiences are willing to change their narrative expectations and see film in a different way.</p>
<p>Ben Rivers, a UK-based documentary and fiction filmmaker, and Anocha Suwichakornpong, a Thai independent filmmaker, two directors who favour slow cinema aesthetics, have <a href="https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/in-the-holocene#/">crowdfunded</a> their latest film In The Holocene. Roy Andersson has teased his new film at a recent Q & A, About Endlessness, which uses static <a href="https://www.bfi.org.uk/news-opinion/sight-sound-magazine/comment/festivals/about-endlessness-roy-andersson-new-film-seville-2019">compositions</a>. Apichatpong Weerasethakul, a Thai independent filmmaker who has garnered interest on the film festival circuit with his slow cinema aesthetic, is shooting outside of Thailand for the first time, working with Tilda Swinton on his new film, <a href="https://www.filmcomment.com/blog/news-apichatpong-weerasethakul-lisandro-alonso-rip-roeg-bertolucci/">Memoria</a>. It could be that, despite Schrader’s views, 2019 is a bumper year for slow cinema.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/introducing-lucid-dream-cinema-movies-to-watch-while-you-sleep-91195">Introducing 'lucid-dream cinema': movies to watch while you sleep</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Schrader’s comments about slow cinema’s decline hold some sway, but only if you consider film purely as a narrative medium. Why can’t it also be something else? Slow cinema aesthetics are being adopted by more mainstream cinema, not just reserved for the arthouse or festival circuit. </p>
<p>People are searching for ways to escape the fast pace of the modern world and our constant connectivity. Why not find it by relishing the moments of stillness, the static shots of landscapes, the experience of ordinary people living ordinary lives, found in slow cinema.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/114769/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andrew Russell does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Slow movies have until now been largely confined to arthouse cinema, for film aficionados only. Not any more.Andrew Russell, Lecturer in Film Studies, University of PortsmouthLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/714102017-01-17T23:33:29Z2017-01-17T23:33:29ZA genuinely believable CGI actor? It won’t be long<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/153134/original/image-20170117-21148-bpe6qd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Peter Cushing in Star Wars Episode IV - A New Hope</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">LucasFilm</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The recent release of <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3748528/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">Rogue One</a> (2016), has sparked an unexpected controversy. The film features Peter Cushing, a familiar face from the original <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0076759/">Star Wars: IV A New Hope</a> (1977), reprising his role as Grand Moff Tarkin. Cushing appears in new scenes and interacts with fresh characters, despite having died in 1994. More than 20 years later, an actor has been digitally resurrected.</p>
<p><a href="https://qz.com/868278/rogue-one-a-star-wars-story-features-a-controversial-cg-peter-cushing/">Responses have been mixed</a>, to say the least. Some hate the digital version of Cushing because they perceive it to be artificial and distracting. Others have <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/dec/21/peter-cushing-rogue-one-resurrection-cgi">ethical concerns</a> about the use of a deceased actor’s image (although Cushing’s estate gave permission for this). Other viewers just assumed they were watching a live actor.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/153129/original/image-20170117-21172-75b5xj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/153129/original/image-20170117-21172-75b5xj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/153129/original/image-20170117-21172-75b5xj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=314&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/153129/original/image-20170117-21172-75b5xj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=314&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/153129/original/image-20170117-21172-75b5xj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=314&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/153129/original/image-20170117-21172-75b5xj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/153129/original/image-20170117-21172-75b5xj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/153129/original/image-20170117-21172-75b5xj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">British actor Guy Henry worked as a body double for Peter Cushing, with CGI overlaid on his face.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Youtube</span></span>
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<p>As a visual effects artist, I found the work in Rogue One impressive but not totally convincing. There is still, for me at least, an element of the <a href="http://www.strangerdimensions.com/2013/11/25/10-creepy-examples-uncanny-valley/">uncanny valley</a>, that oddly disconcerting gap between the artificial and the real that is yet to be completely overcome in this area. If the computer generated (CG) version of Cushing had been used more sparingly the audience would have had less time to study every detail and search for flaws. (Of course, those of us who knew Cushing was dead seem to have been the only ones distracted.)</p>
<p>The CG version of young Princess Leia in Rogue One was altogether more successful with audiences, though I confess to finding her smooth-skinned youthful face less believably real than digital Cushing’s craggy visage. The acceptance of CG Leia was likely due to the character’s limited screen time – before you had time to fully process what you were seeing the scene was over. Fisher herself is said to have approved of the move. Since her death, however, Disney has emphasised that it will not be creating a digital Leia for future episodes.</p>
<p>Regardless of the success or otherwise of <a href="http://www.indiewire.com/2017/01/rogue-one-visual-effects-ilm-digital-grand-moff-tarkin-cgi-princess-leia-1201766597/">these examples</a>, I suspect we are very close to a genuinely believable CG actor who will fool even experienced professionals. As an artist I find the prospect exciting, though as a human being I have twinges of concern that the technology may not always be <a href="https://youtu.be/gx9eDoS76LM">used wisely</a>.</p>
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<span class="caption">Rogue One included a brief scene with a CG version of Princess Leia.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Youtube</span></span>
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<p>Indeed the ability to digitally replicate actors as photoreal versions of themselves <a href="http://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2016/05/digital-effects-plastic-surgery-captain-america-civil-war">at any age</a> is a tool of such powerful storytelling potential that regardless of public opinion, directors will demand the technology be continually improved. </p>
<p>This has been a long time coming. For at least 15 years, there have been various attempts at recreating photoreal digital versions of living actors. </p>
<p>The efforts range from the ridiculous – such as when Dwayne Johnson’s likeness was mangled to create <a href="https://youtu.be/RYHaarxQTFk?t=24s">the Scorpion King</a> in <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0209163/">The Mummy Returns</a> (2001) – to a digitally rejuvenated Arnold Schwarzenegger who first appeared in <a href="https://youtu.be/vOHmG8b4fEE?t=30s">Terminator Salvation</a> (2009), before various versions of Arnold at different ages appeared in <a href="http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/behind-screen/terminator-genisys-a-cg-schwarzenegger-806508">Terminator Genisys</a> (2015).</p>
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<p>Robert Zemeckis, with his trilogy of motion captured CG films, <a href="https://storiesbehindthescreen.wordpress.com/tag/motion-capture/">The Polar Express</a> (2004), <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0442933/">Beowulf</a> (2007) and <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1067106/">A Christmas Carol</a> (2009), has arguably done more than any single director to push the boundaries of fully CG digital actors.</p>
<p>The characters from these films are oddly unnerving to watch and more than one commentator has called them “<a href="http://www.nerve.com/entertainment/ranked/ranked-robert-zemeckis-films-from-worst-to-best">creepy</a>”. However, they represent key moments in the development of an emerging technology.</p>
<h2>Digital scans and body doubles</h2>
<p>A more common current use for digital doubles is to portray living actors in situations of great danger. There are a couple of options in this scenario. One is an entirely digital character created from a full body scan of the actor. The other option is to digitally paste an actor’s face onto the body of a stunt performer.</p>
<p>Disney has <a href="http://pagesix.com/2017/01/12/this-cumberbatch-body-double-is-basically-a-cumber-twin/">recently denied</a> a rumour that for the next Avengers film it plans to paste Benedict Cumberbatch’s face on to a body double to facilitate shooting around his busy schedule. </p>
<p>However, it is very likely that Cumberbatch will shoot closeups for performance when he is available and digitally altered body double shots will be used for his action sequences. Extensive digital doubles were already used for <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1211837/">Doctor Strange</a> (2016) so there is no reason to assume Disney is about to change its working methodology.</p>
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<span class="caption">Benedict Cumberbatch in Doctor Strange: body doubles were widely used in the film.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Marvel Studios</span></span>
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<p>Less well known is the use of this technology for “beautification”. <a href="http://www.digitalspy.com/showbiz/feature/a653885/11-stars-using-body-doubles-for-nude-scenes-keira-knightley-mila-kunis-owen-wilson/">Body doubles</a> for nude scenes have been used in Hollywood for decades. Now, an actor’s face can be pasted right on top of the body double for a seamless effect, though no actor wants to admit to it and visual effects companies are required to sign non-disclosure agreements.</p>
<p>It is generally only when things go <a href="http://www.digitalspy.com/tv/game-of-thrones/news/a653763/game-of-thrones-star-lena-headeys-walk-of-shame-nude-body-double-is-revealed-as-actress-rebecca-van-cleave/">terribly wrong</a> – such as when viewers noticed obvious signs that Lena Headey’s nude Game of Thrones Walk of Shame involved Headey’s face pasted on to another actress’s body – that it’s noticed. </p>
<p>There is an evolving debate about the ethics of actors being made to appear younger or more attractive. However the “person” on screen has always been a fictional character that has only ever been partially brought to life by a performer. Makeup, wardrobe, lighting, all contribute significantly to their look. Digital effects are just one more tool giving filmmakers added flexibility in the depiction of the character.</p>
<h2>Digitally archiving for beauty</h2>
<p>It is now standard practice for any up and coming young actor who draws the attention of a major studio to have a <a href="http://motherboard.vice.com/read/hollywoods-post-biological-future-where-actors-can-perform-after-death">full body scan</a> completed so that there will always be a digitally archived version of them in their “prime”. </p>
<p>These archives can be accessed for dangerous stunt work, or in the case of unexpected injury or death that may prevent the actor from completing filming, such as when Paul Walker <a href="http://www.polygon.com/2015/10/20/9577863/furious-7-used-350-cgi-shots-of-paul-walker">died before completing Furious 7</a>.</p>
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<p>However it is becoming more common for scans such as these to be used as the basis for <a href="http://mashable.com/2014/12/01/hollywood-secret-beauty-procedure/">beauty work</a>.</p>
<p>Harrison Ford famously <a href="http://www.contactmusic.com/harrison-ford/news/ford-refused-to-cover-grey-hair-for-indy-role_1069416">refused to dye his hair</a> for <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0367882/">Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull</a> (2008) and again for <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2488496/">Star Wars: the Force Awakens</a> (2015). However, not all actors may have the confidence or the industry clout to resist when there is a digitally perfect version of their 25 or 30-year-old self readily available to be used.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/71410/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Peter Allen does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Despite the furore over the ‘ghosting’ of Peter Cushing in Rogue One, directors will continue to push for improved technology enabling digital replication of actors.Peter Allen, Lecturer in Film and Television, Victorian College of the Arts, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/666772016-12-27T21:02:48Z2016-12-27T21:02:48ZVR cinema is here – and audiences are in the drivers’ seat<p>A <a href="http://virtualrealitycinema.com.au/">new kind of cinema</a> has come to the Melbourne suburb of Collingwood. Twelve comfy swivel chairs let the audience explore the entire 360 degrees visible through their headsets. This is proper virtual reality cinema, finally realised. </p>
<p>VR cinema has been a long-promised yet undelivered tease for cinephiles. The nascent boom in VR experimentation in the early 1990s was held back for decades by, among other issues, the technical limitations of creating media for this new form. In recent years, these have largely been overcome. </p>
<p>But what kind of cinema will emerge? Probably not traditional narrative productions: filmmakers must come up with new storytelling techniques to account for a technology that explodes the frame, placing the spectator inside the space of the film.</p>
<p>To explain briefly, VR cinema is filmed on a static camera that can record in 360 degrees. The unlimited perspectives of this camera allow a user wearing a headset to rotate and look at the complete 360 degrees, including along the vertical axis.</p>
<p>For a filmmaker, there are now new issues around such basic techniques as montage. Directors can no longer cut rapidly from image to image, compressing time and space. Audiences literally edit the film for themselves, by choosing what to look at and when. </p>
<p>Artists are already exploring these opportunities. Director Chris Milk’s 2015 work <a href="http://with.in/watch/clouds-over-sidra/">Clouds Over Sidra</a> places the viewer inside the Za’atari refugee camp in Jordan, observing daily life. The film was made in conjunction with the United Nations to highlight the Syrian refugee crisis.</p>
<p>Milk, in his March 2015 TED talk, describes how he was driven by a desire to put the viewer not just “inside the frame”, but “<a href="https://www.ted.com/talks/chris_milk_how_virtual_reality_can_create_the_ultimate_empathy_machine?language=en#t-362175">through the window</a>.” This desire was driven by what he saw as VR’s capacity to accentuate human connection: VR as an “empathy machine”.</p>
<p>The placement of those watching inside the space of the film prompts many VR filmmakers to directly address the viewer, as either a character or a kind of objective camera in the world of the narrative.</p>
<p>The horror short <a href="https://www.jauntvr.com/title/0ed2a6b244">Escape The Living Dead</a>, for example, initially places the viewer as one of a small group of survivors fleeing a zombie invasion in the back of a jeep. It even goes so far as to transform you, the viewer, into one of the zombie horde after you are bitten during the escape. </p>
<p>An inner monologue (addressed to the viewers through their headset) acknowledges “I’m turning!” as your normal vision begins to blur and black out. When you come to, your perception is distorted and licked by flames, and, as you glance from side to side, you realise you are now one of them: a zombie. As such, you now mindlessly pursue the final survivor, your wife, even as she fires bullet after bullet directly at you.</p>
<p>This complete breakdown of the “fourth wall” has tremendous implications for conventional cinematic storytelling. As directors grapple with newly available technology, audiences can perhaps expect to see more films that create “experiences” rather than “narratives”.</p>
<p>One group of filmmakers, the <a href="https://storystudio.oculus.com/en-us/">Oculus Story Studio</a>, has recommended that VR cinema should “let go” of trying to direct viewers’ gaze, to avoid storytelling that feels “forced, staged and artificial.” </p>
<p>Where many early VR projects were inclined to attempt to draw spectators’ attention to one particular part of the 360 degree world, more contemporary projects have embraced its unique facility for immersion and interactivity. </p>
<p>Australian artist Lynette Wallworth used this capacity to help the viewer understand the implications of nuclear testing in the West Australian desert for the indigenous Martu tribe in her beautifully executed work <a href="http://www.collisionsvr.com/">Collisions</a>.</p>
<p>Perhaps the most powerful potential of this “empathy machine” is the possibility for cinematic projects that are able to respond to and react to the viewer’s choices.</p>
<p>This would require database-style narratives, where an alternative path taken by a viewer – for example, where to look and when – would have different outcomes designated by the filmmaker. </p>
<p>This kind of cinema becomes similar to the “Choose Your Own Adventure” series, and has been experimented with in the past: 1967 Czech film <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinoautomat">Kinoautomat</a>, for example, had a moderator who would allow the audience to make a choice between two narrative options at several points during the film. VR, however, could integrate this directly into the viewing experience based on where the viewer directs their attention. </p>
<p>Experimentation in the field is continuing at a rapid pace, with Disney and Lucasfilm developing VR Star Wars projects. There has also been <a href="http://www.slashfilm.com/steven-spielberg-vr/">much speculation</a> that Steven Spielberg, who previously signed on as an advisor with Virtual Reality Company, is making a project solely for VR.</p>
<p>New venues like Collingwood’s Virtual Reality cinema, which uses a custom Group VR system so the audience can see each other, as well as the film, are giving smaller filmmakers opportunities to develop and show VR work. </p>
<p>And the most important basic units of true VR – the immersive headsets, which need to be paired with separate hardware like a computer or phone – are becoming increasingly available to home audiences. </p>
<p>The commercial release of the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive headsets earlier this year, and the recent long-awaited release of the Playstation VR headset, will all undoubtedly encouraged further development in VR cinema, as will the Samsung GearVR and the upcoming Google Daydream. </p>
<p>Virtual reality will probably not replace conventional cinema. But it will create a whole new area of film that is less concerned about constructing a story in images. Instead, perhaps, it will be a realm where artists can immerse us inside imagined worlds in a whole new way.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/66677/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Adam Daniel does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>VR cinema explodes the frame, placing the spectator inside the space of the film. Audiences effectively edit it themselves, by choosing what to look at and when.Adam Daniel, Ph.d Candidate, Western Sydney UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/615782016-06-26T19:59:19Z2016-06-26T19:59:19ZLife lessons from the editing suite of Paul Cox<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/127993/original/image-20160624-30244-xljdkv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Filmmaker Paul Cox pictured with actor David Wenham in 2012.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Julian Smith/AAP</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>I was introduced to Paul Cox at his home office in Albert Park in 2006. I felt nervous as hell as I was ushered through the dark and musty corridors filled with ancient camera gear. I immediately recognised the posters on the walls and they brought back fond memories of sneaking out of bed late at night to watch films on SBS as a teenager.</p>
<p>The first Paul Cox film I stumbled upon was <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0441774/">Lonely Hearts</a> (1982) and I distinctly remember being surprised by how different it was. It seemed so alien and foreign, but also deeply familiar and personal: the actors and the locations … But I was strangely confronted by how emotional the film was. </p>
<p>In Australia, nobody likes a sook and we try to keep our mouths shut when it comes to expressing ourselves, but Paul’s films felt like a reaction against the emotionally restrained Australian caricature. They had a distinct European sensibility which was a heartfelt plea for us to witness all things beautiful before they pass us by … just like meeting the man himself, as I was about to discover.</p>
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<h2>A sculpture inside a block of wood</h2>
<p>As I walked into his office, led by our mutual friend, the actor and editor <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aden_Young">Aden Young</a>, Paul got up from his desk and shook my hand with both of his, repeating my name as if it was some kind of relief to finally have met me – as though these two paths were destined to cross.</p>
<p>Our conversation centred on films, love, art and our mutual hatred for the Grand Prix, held annually in Albert Park. It was a profound experience which I have witnessed with others many times since. Paul had the ability to make whomever he was meeting feel like the most important person in the world – two lost kindred spirits finding common ground in a mad, mad world.</p>
<p>This first meeting took place just before I embarked upon my final year at the VCA Film School. Aden needed me to replace him for a few months as Paul’s editor. </p>
<p>For the next four months, I worked on <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1297299/?ref_=fn_al_tt_6">Salvation</a>, a film starring Wendy Hughes as a TV evangelist. Juggling it between classes at the VCA, I had my very own “one on one” film school with Paul. It was an experience that changed me as a storyteller.</p>
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<p>During the edit, I was always looking to make brash decisions and to cut and hack into the film by playing Tetris with the movie clips on Final Cut, the digital editing software we used.</p>
<p>But Paul’s background was with splicing and taping actual film negatives, so every decision was considered and thoughtful. He worked away at the film as though it was a sculpture waiting to be discovered inside a block of wood. He was always cautious not to make a cut too deep for fear it might damage the end product. </p>
<p>That level of patience – and faith that the work will reveal itself – will always stay with me. Working as Paul’s editor, I was basically acting as his translator for the “machine”, as he called it – the digital technology that eluded him. </p>
<p>He made little progress in understanding computers or digital editing and protested fiercely against them. There were many times that Paul took out his frustrations in the edit room, cursing and growling at how ridiculous the process had become. The computer represented everything that Paul felt had gone wrong with the world, and with cinema. He was frustrated with the embrace of quick cuts and the lack of heart, intimacy and truth that had come from the MTV generation of filmmakers. </p>
<h2>A crew of loyal creatives</h2>
<p>Paul’s films were his art and his soul, so he refused to compromise or to make a film that wasn’t for himself: a true auteur in every sense and, sadly, not so much a dying breed in Australia, more of an anomaly.</p>
<p>Apart from <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0208854/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1">Rolf De Heer</a>, I can’t think of an Australian filmmaker who can compare with Paul’s body of work. This country rarely celebrates filmmakers who put their heart on their sleeve or take risks to occasionally fail and unashamedly explore the melodramatic and absurd nature of being human.</p>
<p>We struggle with that third act and rarely do we completely “go there” out of fear of being cut down or being ridiculed for being too emotional or arrogant. Remember, nobody likes a sook, mate.</p>
<p>It’s a deep-rooted problem that we have with our cultural identity: if we’re not an English colony or an American fanboy/girl, then what are we? The caricatures of Paul Hogan, Chips Rafferty and Steve Irwin paint only a tiny glimpse of the whole picture. And it’s a dated one, a very masculine and stoic view of the country that wouldn’t dare cry or declare love for their fellow man, woman, piece of music or art. </p>
<p>But Cox and De Heer, born elsewhere yet having lived here long enough to truly understand the place, were able to transcend these existential limitations.</p>
<p>As payment for my hours on Salvation, Paul generously gave me half the budget for my VCA graduating short film, <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1336250/?ref_=nm_knf_t4">Hell’s Gates</a> (2008). He also introduced me to my future producer Maggie Miles with whom I ended up making Hell’s Gates, <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1361843/?ref_=nm_knf_t1">Van Diemen’s Land</a> (2009) and Fog, a chapter of <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2322641/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">The Turning</a> films.</p>
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<p>It was Paul who saw Hell’s Gates and recommended that I bypass the traditional funding routes and just go out there and make the feature. Much like he made his films. He said: “You made the 20-minute short for less than 20,000, go out there and make the feature for 80.” </p>
<p>It was his words that inspired Oscar Redding and me to push forward, get a bank loan, beg friends and family for money and make Van Diemen’s Land. Maggie, Oscar and I made that feature for A$260,000. So potentially, without Paul, we may not have a Van Diemen’s Land. </p>
<p>Paul worked outside the system and by his own rules, earning a reputation in the industry for achieving low budgets by working with dedicated crews who shared his passion.</p>
<p>Paul’s trick to keeping the budget low was having a tiny crew of loyal creatives. For example, Chris Haywood, who acted in many of his films, would also often cater, clapper load, art direct, do make-up or whatever else was needed.</p>
<h2>Sanity and creative expression</h2>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/128000/original/image-20160624-30263-aeai3o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/128000/original/image-20160624-30263-aeai3o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/128000/original/image-20160624-30263-aeai3o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=1109&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/128000/original/image-20160624-30263-aeai3o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=1109&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/128000/original/image-20160624-30263-aeai3o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=1109&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/128000/original/image-20160624-30263-aeai3o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1394&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/128000/original/image-20160624-30263-aeai3o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1394&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/128000/original/image-20160624-30263-aeai3o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1394&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Nijinsky: The Diaries of Vaslav Nijinsky (2001).</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Overseas, Paul had <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/23/movies/paul-cox-independent-filmmaker-who-explored-postmodern-life-dies-at-76.html?_r=0">recognition at all the major festivals</a> and enjoyed a close relationship with Roger Ebert – <a href="http://www.rogerebert.com/balder-and-dash/paul-cox-1940---2016">who thought Paul was the bee’s knees</a>. Understandably, as the three films that Paul directed in the early ‘80s, back to back, are some of the finest ever produced in this country: <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0084264/?ref_=fn_al_tt_3">Lonely Hearts</a>, <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0085893/">Man Of Flowers</a> (1983) and <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0087765/">My First Wife</a> (1984).</p>
<p>For those who say he never regained such genius, I urge you to watch <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0103282/">A Woman’s Tale</a> (1991), <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0094269/?ref_=nm_flmg_dr_18">Vincent</a> (1987), <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0295480/">Nijinsky</a> (2001) and <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1978459/?ref_=nm_flmg_dr_4">Kaluapapa Heaven</a> (2007). You can watch any film by Paul and feel like you’re having a heartfelt and honest discussion with the man, regardless of whether they are “successful” films or not.</p>
<p>One of my favourite films, Nijinsky was an exploration of the mind of a brilliant genius. Paul gained insight into Nijinsky’s diaries in a way no other artist could. </p>
<p>You can see that he identifies with the madman. He feels the battle between sanity, creative expression, passion and just plainly being human. Nijinsky said:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>You will understand me when you see me dance. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>I know Paul identified deeply with that quote. His films were an attempt to share a glimpse into the way he saw the world.</p>
<p>I wonder if the reason we don’t celebrate Paul Cox in the ranks of other “new wave” filmmakers such as Schepisi, Weir, Armstrong, Beresford etc etc is because his success wasn’t validated by making films in Hollywood. It’s often the case here and part of the cultural cringe. <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2321549/">The Babadook</a> (2014) needed to be a success elsewhere before we embraced it here.</p>
<h2>Like breathing</h2>
<p>Making films was like breathing for Paul and he made one almost every year. The lack of recognition in Australia has been sad, but I feel it helped drive him. His obsession with Vincent Van Gogh always made so much sense to me.</p>
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<p>If he had more success and money then he wouldn’t know what to do with it. Paul gathered enough money together to buy a corner block in Albert Park in the early '80s and it became his sanctuary. He slowly rented out sections to keep himself afloat. He never craved an extravagant life.</p>
<p>If he had more money then maybe he would have simply paid us even more. Sounds ridiculous, as he wasn’t a saint, but he valued other artists so much. I spoke with Rob Menzies the other day, who played the lead opposite Isabelle Huppert in <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0090784/">Cactus</a> (1986). He said even though he was paid a touch above union rates for the film, he was called into the office and handed an envelope by Paul with over A$5,000 in it:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>We came in under budget, merry Christmas.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>I ended up editing/co-editing Paul’s last three films – if it wasn’t for him I would still be paying off my half of the Van Diemens’ Land loan. I spent many months in those dark rooms and I considered him a mentor and a close friend.</p>
<p>We laughed ourselves silly, wept together at the beauty of the world and cursed passionately at the injustices within it. He always said, “We have to love each other and care for each other, everything else is just fucking bullshit, you know?” Trust me, it sounds much more profound in Paul’s accent and raspy old-man voice.</p>
<p>But I was fascinated by how closely related his anger and passion were. He would be brought to tears about the violence in the world and how people should appreciate art and love more deeply, and then in the same breath call someone a “fucking c…”.</p>
<p>The contradictions made him even more human and relatable. He was as flawed as the rest of us … but he was the most passionate person I have ever met. So driven, stubborn, generous and warm. We who worked with him all loved him deeply for it and will always carry him around in our hearts.</p>
<figure>
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<p>But most of all, I’ll never forget being that film school student, sitting next to an old Steinbeck in the caged editing room below the stairs, watching the actors of Salvation walk past the barred window … Wendy Hughes, Barry Humphries, Kym Gyngell, Chris Haywood, Bud Tingwell, Terry Norris and Julia Blake to name a few.</p>
<p>The beautiful Wendy convinced me on my first day to come upstairs and eat some of Paul’s famous “Albert Park Chicken”, a chicken breast plonked on a roasted sweet potato.</p>
<p>Amongst the walls of clocks, knick-knacks and framed photos of crew from the dozens of films Paul made sat Paul, Aden, Wendy, Chris, TLJ (the actor and producer Tony Llewellyn-Jones), the DOP Ian Jones and soundy James Currie. I pulled a seat at the table and thought I was the luckiest film student alive.</p>
<p>Many of my heroes of Australian cinema sat there and laughed at anecdotes from making old films past – the very films I’d snuck out to watch on SBS. The very house I sat in was a production studio or location for many of these films and it was drenched in a history that I hoped to be a part of.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/CdQKhEnVfeE?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>I could almost imagine Paul’s dear friend, the Man Of Flowers himself, Norman Kaye, or the great John Hargreaves or the writer Bob Ellis sitting there with us. I’m so lucky to have sat at that table as there may not be many like it in the future. Sadly, not many filmmakers will be able to afford a house with room for a table.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/61578/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jonathan auf der Heide does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Editing a movie beside the late, great Paul Cox was like attending ‘a one on one’ film school. The growling auteur was a brilliantly stubborn man, who treated film with reverence and wore his heart on his sleeve.Jonathan auf der Heide, Lecturer , The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/561372016-04-07T20:05:04Z2016-04-07T20:05:04ZFriday essay: Star Wars, Mad Max and the ‘real’ vs digital effects furphy<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/117769/original/image-20160407-13948-1fjwan8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Star Wars: The Force Awakens has been praised for avoiding computer generated effects, but why does CGI deserve such a bad name?</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Image courtesy of Lucasfilm.</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>There has been a lot of talk recently about the superior results achieved with “real” effects and stunts in <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1392190/">Mad Max: Fury Road </a>(2015) and <a href="http://www.imdb.com/find?ref_=nv_sr_fn&q=Star+Wars%3A+The+Force+awakens&s=all">Star Wars: The Force Awakens</a> (2015). </p>
<p>Both films have cleverly traded on audience nostalgia. Indeed uber-
geek Kevin Smith (<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0109445/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">Clerks</a>, 1994) said in an <a href="http://www.torontosun.com/2015/11/06/kevin-smith-the-force-awakens-on-par-with-empire-strikes-back">interview</a> of The Force Awakens, “The moment they
put Han, Luke, Leia and Chewie in it, we knew that he was crafting the fountain of youth, and how much would you pay to drink from the fountain of youth?” </p>
<p>Of course it wasn’t just the casting of aging actors that got fans excited.
Throughout production and in the lead up to release, director JJ Abrams and Disney were careful to promote the return to “<a href="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/star_wars_episode_vii_the_force_awakens/trailers/11228207">real sets and practical effects</a>”. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/117767/original/image-20160407-13987-oyrm39.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/117767/original/image-20160407-13987-oyrm39.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/117767/original/image-20160407-13987-oyrm39.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=307&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/117767/original/image-20160407-13987-oyrm39.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=307&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/117767/original/image-20160407-13987-oyrm39.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=307&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/117767/original/image-20160407-13987-oyrm39.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=386&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/117767/original/image-20160407-13987-oyrm39.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=386&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/117767/original/image-20160407-13987-oyrm39.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=386&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The creation of an Imperial Walker model from ‘The Empire Strikes Back’ (1980).</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In other words, they were doing everything possible to distance themselves from George Lucas’s much derided prequel trilogy, which <a href="http://mypicturedesk.com/gal/upload/2011/04/15/20110415162250-cabbdc5c.jpg">wholeheartedly embraced</a> and helped advance the emerging digital technology of the late 1990s and early 2000s.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, Aussie director George Miller relaunched his much-loved dystopian sci fi franchise with Fury Road, a film universally lauded for its prolific use of in camera stunts, made without computer generated imagery (CGI). The <a href="https://www.yahoo.com/movies/watch-how-mad-max-fury-road-pulled-off-its-127798141787.html">stuntwork</a> in Fury Road is undeniably impressive, but so too is the vast amount of digital effects work done by <a href="http://iloura.com.au/news/the-toxic-storm-sequence-of-fury-road-recognized-with-visual-effects-society-award">Australian VFX provider Iloura</a>. (Iloura received a Visual Effects Society award for their work on a sequence depicting a toxic storm.)</p>
<p>What both Fury Road and The Force Awakens have in common are thousands of
digital effects seamlessly integrated into the film - amongst an array of real sets and practical stunts and effects. Yet while exciting, this is not particularly new or revolutionary. </p>
<p>Films are baked from a mixture of ingredients. In very rare cases, a filmmaker like Alfonso Cuaron will choose to test the limits of technology with an almost entirely computer animated film such as <a href="https://youtu.be/rCm3FYp4hdI">Gravity</a> (2014). But for every Gravity there is a <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/film/filmblog/2009/aug/14/moon-sam-rockwell-special-effects">Moon</a> (2009), Duncan Jones’ sci fi film that made extensive use of miniatures, practical sets and props.</p>
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</figure>
<p>Once upon a time, Blue-screen was king, but with the advent of digital technology Green-screen now dominates. With Green-screen, the green areas of an image can be digitally selected and deleted. This allows what remains to be pasted onto a new background. Digital cameras usually have twice as many green sensors as red or blue ones allowing for greater detail around the edges when separating elements from a green background. </p>
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<p>Most films made today fall somewhere between the two extremes, with real props and effects augmented by digital effects.</p>
<p>However there is a growing vocal minority who blame poor CGI for “ruining movies”. Their premise is that at one time movies were real, but now computers make everything look <a href="http://www.cracked.com/blog/6-reasons-expensive-films-end-up-with-crappy-special-effects/">fake and unconvincing.</a></p>
<p>Common complaints are that CGI images result in a plastic look that is too clean and perfect. This can be true, but only to the extent that everything made for a film will look new and clean unless someone makes the effort to “dirty it up”.</p>
<p>There are many examples of realistically aged CGI effects that are rarely noticed by viewers, especially on a show such as The Walking Dead, which must create a <a href="http://uproxx.com/tv/the-undetected-visual-fx-on-the-walking-dead-will-blow-out-your-mindhole/">believably decrepit vision</a> of a post zombie apocalypse. </p>
<h2>A brief history of visual effects</h2>
<p>1993 saw a turning point in the world of visual effects filmmaking. For almost 70 years beforehand, they were created in more or less the same way. </p>
<p>The silent film <a href="https://youtu.be/QJaXxY3citM">The Lost World</a> (1925) - a technological marvel produced by Willis O'Brien - set the standard for decades to come. O'Brien revolutionised filmed special effects by integrating 3-dimensional animated puppets into scenes with footage of actors. While clearly fake by today’s standards, at the time the realistic interaction of light and shadow on the 3D puppets was utterly convincing to audiences who had never seen anything like it. Indeed, the technique was only challenged eight years later when O’Brien refined his own techniques to make <a href="https://youtu.be/Wvs3T1_sSec">King Kong</a> (1933).</p>
<p>The techniques pioneered and refined in these early blockbusters would remain broadly unchanged throughout the 20th Century - until Steven Spielberg filmed Michael Crichton’s 1990 novel Jurassic Park. Spielberg and his creative team had expected that the visual effects would be assembled from the usual matte paintings, miniatures, <a href="https://youtu.be/uEK9mitagS8">stop motion animated creatures</a>, and life sized <a href="http://jurassicpark.wikia.com/wiki/Jurassic_Park_Tyrannosaurus_rex_Animatronics">animatronic robot dinosaurs</a>, which would interact with actors.</p>
<figure>
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<p>However, a small group of technicians and artists at Industrial Light and Magic, George Lucas’s ground-breaking effects company, thought they just might be able to do something with computers. By the early 1990s computers were being used to simulate the interactions of light with various objects and surfaces. The new technology resulted in more convincing images due to highly detailed and extremely accurate digital lighting.</p>
<p>After viewing a short computer animated clip of a dinosaur skeleton running that had been produced entirely by computer (without physical models), Spielberg was convinced to forego stop motion puppets in favour of CGI. At the time this was a risky move that could easily have backfired.</p>
<p>As it happens, <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0107290/">Jurassic Park</a> (1993) did deliver. Amongst the animatronic robots that made up the bulk of the movie’s dinosaurs, were 63 CGI shots - mostly of dinosaurs viewed from a distance or travelling together in vast herds. These 63 shots changed the world of filmmaking forever. By 2014, <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2015381/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">Guardians of the Galaxy</a> had CGI enhancements on 2750 shots - equivalent to 90% of the film.</p>
<p>Of course CGI is a highly misleading term. Computers “generate” images the same way that paintbrushes do, as tools being manipulated by highly skilled artists. When less skilled artists attempt to use the same tools the results are invariably inferior.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/117232/original/image-20160404-6816-e7y2wg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/117232/original/image-20160404-6816-e7y2wg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=452&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/117232/original/image-20160404-6816-e7y2wg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=452&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/117232/original/image-20160404-6816-e7y2wg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=452&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/117232/original/image-20160404-6816-e7y2wg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=568&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/117232/original/image-20160404-6816-e7y2wg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=568&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/117232/original/image-20160404-6816-e7y2wg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=568&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Le Voyage dans La Lune (1902) was the first special effects blockbuster.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>CGI has been lauded as a cheap and efficient alternative to traditional effects. This is only partially true. It is certainly much faster and cheaper to preview images on computer than to go through multiple stages of photographing elements, sending the film to a lab for processing, rephotographing the processed film through an optical printer to combine the elements and sending the new film back to the processing lab. And if something didn’t quite work, having to start all over again.</p>
<p>But how cheap is CGI actually? In 1993 Jurassic Park
cost <a href="http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=jurassicpark.htm">US$63 million</a>. Just four years later James Cameron’s CGI-heavy <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120338/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">Titanic</a> (1997) cost a record-breaking <a href="http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=titanic.html">US$200 million</a>. These days US$200 million-plus budgets for visual effects laden blockbusters are common. The rumoured budget for <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2975590/?ref_=nv_sr_1">Batman vs Superman: Dawn of Justice</a> (2016) is <a href="http://www.cinemablend.com/new/Batman-V-Superman-May-End-Up-Being-Hollywood-Most-Expensive-Movie-89397.html">US$410 million</a>, a total that is admittedly arrived at by combining the US$250 million production cost with another US$160 million in marketing and distribution. </p>
<p>If you wonder what causes modern movies to be so immensely expensive just try sitting through the entire credits of any of the latest Marvel or DC comic book adaptations.</p>
<p>It takes literally hundreds of people to make Superman fly, or to have The Avengers save/destroy New York. All of those people need to be paid and they also need to be provided with expensive computers and even more expensive software. CGI may be ubiquitous but it has most certainly not resulted in cheaper movies.</p>
<h2>Road to ruin – or path to success?</h2>
<p>What about the argument that CGI is “ruining the movies”?</p>
<p>Well firstly, most viewers have no clue just how much CGI is used in films and TV programs. If you are in any doubt as to the prevalence of effects being used in “average” movies take a look at <a href="https://youtu.be/yvwS_E91fZA">this visual effects breakdown</a> from <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2267998/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">Gone Girl</a> (2014) or this one from TV program <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0805669/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">Ugly Betty</a> (2006-2010): </p>
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<p>I have yet to hear of anyone who saw either Gone Girl or Ugly Betty complaining that CGI ruined their viewing experience. </p>
<p>Sometimes CGI will be used to create fantastical characters or otherworldly
locations. But more often it is used for digitally extending sets, removing
unwanted elements in a scene or even eliminating unsightly blemishes from a performer’s skin. </p>
<p>There was a time when something as simple as a boom microphone dropping
into frame meant that a shot was unusable. Now a digital cleanup artist can
simply erase the offending microphone from the image. Of course, as directors became aware of these possibilities they demanded more and more from CGI. </p>
<p>Smart directors consult with visual effects supervisors to plan their effects shots carefully before shooting. Other directors fly by the seat of their pants in the mistaken belief that computers can fix anything. </p>
<p>The result of this failure to plan is usually an <a href="http://uproxx.com/tv/lena-headey-body-double/">obvious CGI shot</a> such as this nude scene in Game of Thrones that even the most forgiving of viewers will feel is somehow wrong. </p>
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<p>Still, only obvious CGI is noticed and remarked upon, such as the <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/movies/ten-things-wrong-with-twilight-20121117-29inf.html">infamous digital baby</a> from the <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1673434/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn part 2</a> (2012), while an overwhelming majority of digital effects go completely unnoticed. When a VFX artist has done their job well their work is invisible.</p>
<p>Secondly, those supposedly “real” movies of yesteryear never actually existed. Movies have never been real. What has changed over the years are the methods by which reality is faked. </p>
<p>Wind and rain machines, studio sets replicating exterior locations, shooting day for night, or dry for wet - all of these techniques have been around for decades. The earliest days of cinema treated film as a stage play, with large painted backdrops and two dimensional mechanical illusions as seen in George Méliès <a href="https://youtu.be/aZfq1uE1zjI">Le Voyage dans La Lune</a> (1902) - the first effects driven sci-fi blockbuster. </p>
<h2>Believable or not?</h2>
<p>Visual effects do not have to be completely realistic to be effective, they simply have to be believable in the context in which they are presented.</p>
<p>Just as 3D puppets and miniatures took over from 2D
paintings due to their superior interaction with light, digital effects have mostly taken over from practical models for the same reason. </p>
<p>Computer simulated effects are able to be scaled up or down while simultaneously adapting to real world physics. This has always been a problem with filmed effects involving water, fire and smoke - just look at any film made before the advent of CGI that used miniatures to depict a dam bursting, a building on fire or a <a href="https://youtu.be/3ftYho4K3FQ?t=1h45m27s">ship sinking</a>. </p>
<figure>
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</figure>
<p>CGI, like any other tool in a filmmaker’s repertoire, can be and often is used badly. But that is hardly the fault of the technology. </p>
<p>Movies inspired by comic books often include characters performing feats so far removed from reality that we should not be surprised when the results appear “cartoony”. </p>
<p>This is less a problem with how the scene is realised technically than with what is being realised. No matter how strong an individual character may be, if that character grabs a passenger jet by the nose and attempts to gently place it on the ground, the weight of the plane would surely tear the metal skin away from his or her grip and disaster ensue. </p>
<p>Jet planes are not engineered to be manhandled in such a way. So no matter how intricately detailed the scene is rendered, it will always feel somehow wrong. </p>
<p>For a great visual summary of how CGI can be used to enhance all kinds of film, take a look at this video from RocketJump Film School: </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/bL6hp8BKB24?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>When skilled artists apply digital effects in a way that both supports the
narrative and honours the laws of physics, the results are much more likely to be accepted as “real”, and more often than not will go completely unnoticed.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/56137/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Peter Allen does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A growing vocal minority blame poor computer generated images for ‘ruining’ the movies. But digital effects can co-exist with real sets and stunts - and films have always been fake.Peter Allen, Lecturer in Film and Television, Victorian College of the Arts, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/519942015-12-08T04:16:13Z2015-12-08T04:16:13ZThree ways Screen Australia can actually improve diversity in the industry<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/104798/original/image-20151208-3108-10deg8x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Australia’s defining narratives are apparently stories by, for and about white cis men.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">George A. Spiva Center for the Arts</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Since the 1970s the argument for government subsidy to the local film industry has been made in terms of the opportunity it provides for Australians “to tell our own stories”. </p>
<p>What isn’t clear in this aspirational statement is that, from the outset, these stories have been told almost exclusively in monotone. </p>
<p>Australia’s defining narratives are apparently, and with rare exception, stories by, for and about white <a href="https://theconversation.com/trans-transgender-cisgender-we-are-what-we-name-ourselves-29788">cis</a> men.</p>
<p>In this context Screen Australia’s <a href="https://www.screenaustralia.gov.au/news_and_events/2015/mr_151207_gendermatters.aspx">recent announcement</a> of a suite of measures intended to address gender equity in the film industry has been widely welcomed. </p>
<p>At the heart of Screen Australia’s response is an endeavour to congregate women creatives (writer, producer, director and protagonist) using a three-tick test (based on a now superseded <a href="http://www.bfi.org.uk/news-opinion/news-bfi/announcements/bfi-announces-1m-diversity-fund-alongside-new-diversity-strands">UK initiative of the same name</a>). But what changes can we realistically expect to emerge from this initiative? </p>
<h2>Piecemeal strategies</h2>
<p>Over the years some attempts have been made to redress inequities in the industry, including:</p>
<ul>
<li>the establishment of a Women’s Film Fund and an <a href="http://www.screenaustralia.gov.au/funding/indigenous/default.aspx">Indigenous Program </a> by the national funding agency</li>
<li>the adoption of affirmative action measures, the development of women’s training courses</li>
<li>and now Screen Australia’s plan, <a href="http://www.screenaustralia.gov.au/getmedia/c7902a0f-6496-43e2-96b2-e24262ea8ba6/Gender-Matters-Women-in-the-Australian-Screen-Industry.pdf">Gender Matters</a>, which include an initiative to establish <a href="https://theconversation.com/reel-action-on-gender-screen-australia-sets-minimum-targets-for-female-led-projects-51894">non-mandatory “targets” for creative teams</a> that are at least 50% female by 2018 year end. </li>
</ul>
<p>The historical evidence suggests that, as substantive game-changers, these piecemeal strategies are doomed. </p>
<p>Despite various attempts to improve gender equity in the Australian film industry <a href="https://www.screenaustralia.gov.au/research/statistics/employmentfeaturefilmmakers.aspx">the data is clear</a>: the position for women in key creative roles has simply worsened. The number of women directors, to take just one metric, is down from 22% in 1992 to 17% in 2014. </p>
<p>It is safe to assume that sporadic equal-opportunity measures or affirmative-action policies that identify the statistical representation of women as the cause rather than the symptom of a problem do not create the conditions for improved diversity throughout the film industry.</p>
<p>It is not the numbers we need to be focused on. It’s the values.</p>
<p>Quotas, compliance measures, targets and even good intentions focused on altering the behaviours of minorities are simply not good enough. The problem isn’t that there aren’t enough women. The problem is that too many men benefit from the current system. </p>
<p>We need to look at the systemic and pervasive bias towards rewarding men in the industry at all levels, including within Screen Australia’s micro-practices and macro-structures. We need to critically examine the culture of male entitlement that underlies the film industry and its administration. </p>
<h2>Women aren’t the problem</h2>
<p>The data tells us that women already tend to work together in the industry: in the past five years <a href="https://theconversation.com/were-right-to-make-a-scene-about-gender-equity-in-the-australian-screen-industry-51728">90% of women directors had female producers</a>. </p>
<p>Male creatives on the other hand, have a demonstrated preference for working with other men. So by proposing an initiative designed to get women to work together, Screen Australia is reiterating the status quo rather than solving an evident problem. </p>
<p>Perhaps more promising is Screen Australia’s (rather vague) commitment to adding the gender and cultural diversity of creative teams as a consideration in its funding assessment procedures. The cautionary language it has used to describe this initiative is quite revealing: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Eligibility will still be assessed on merit, but preference may be given to those who have gender and cultural diversity in their teams. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>The telling use of the word “but” suggests that, for Screen Australia, merit is somehow distinct from diversity.</p>
<p>There is a long literature on how organisations use “merit” as a way of <a href="https://medium.com/@jessnordell/it-s-not-foot-in-mouth-disease-6fdc3e2b08bc#.xrkhk3gi4">defending incumbent organisational biases</a>. And many studies across a range of industries confirm that the perception of bias plays a key role in underrepresented groups avoiding participation.</p>
<p>In Australia, women constitute around half of all film-school graduates. And yet they do not go on to receive the full benefits of a public funding system delivered through Screen Australia. This is a spectacular waste of industry resource and an indictment on the national funding agency which doesn’t, and hasn’t for a long time, served the full national interest. </p>
<p>It is organisational accountability that is sorely lacking. The three-year project based plan proposed by Screen Australia should not be confused with an ongoing open-ended policy commitment.</p>
<p>What we really need is for funding agencies and key organisations to be more accountable for their biases. What we really need to know is how Screen Australia will adopt measures to deal with both explicit and unconscious bias in its own work culture.</p>
<p>First, we need to accept that project evaluation is not objective. Let’s finally admit that Screen Australia’s assessment processes would be made only slightly less defensible if they also involved the use of chicken entrails. </p>
<p>Graeme Mason, the CEO of Screen Australia says <a href="http://blogs.indiewire.com/womenandhollywood/swedish-film-institute-achieves-50-50-funding-distribution-for-male-and-female-directors-20150529">there will not be quotas</a> along the lines of the Swedish Film Institute’s successful intervention. But the truth is we already have quotas. For men. </p>
<p>The point is not to incorporate a few more women in a biased system. The point is to change the system. That means aiming for change at every level – from the way the paperwork is organised to changing the very definitions of what constitutes merit or success.</p>
<h2>A few suggestions</h2>
<p>Here are three quick suggestions for Screen Australia to improve diversity in the Australian screen industries by looking at the problem from a systemic rather than programmatic level:</p>
<ol>
<li> Stop funding producers who have no demonstrated track record for diversity. If you belong to an all white cis male creative team your time is over. </li>
<li> Insist that all project assessors take the <a href="https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/selectatest.html">unconscious bias test</a>. Or even better, develop one specifically for cultural agencies and apply it or use blind review processes.</li>
<li> Apply the <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-the-bechdel-test-doesnt-tell-us-about-women-on-film-20062">Bechdel test</a> or a variation to all government-funded scripts. </li>
</ol>
<p>Use the data to track your own biases and to improve organisational self-awareness rather than to monitor minorities. Gender (or race or ability or age) is not just one thing as crude statistical measures suggest. Take this opportunity to rethink the current definition and management of success and merit in order to embrace difference in a way that doesn’t further stereotype people. </p>
<p>Above all, remember that diversity should be the expectation not the exception. Projects that don’t meet diversity standards need to explain why. Not the other way around. </p>
<p>We are all entitled to expect that a government-subsidised cultural industry will tell “our” stories in all their complexity and variety. From this moment on.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/51994/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Deb Verhoeven is a Life Member of Women in Film and Television. </span></em></p>Australia’s defining narratives are apparently, with rare exception, stories by, for and about white cis men. We need more than Screen Australia’s new measures to address gender equity in the film industry.Deb Verhoeven, Professor and Chair of Media and Communication, Deakin UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/507662015-11-18T19:11:07Z2015-11-18T19:11:07ZDeath by misadventure? Reflections on the demise of Tropfest<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/102276/original/image-20151118-23210-19s4uyi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">This year's Tropfest has run into trouble – what does that mean for Australian filmmakers? </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Michael Clarke</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Tropfest, Sydney’s “largest short film festival in the world”, won’t be happening this year, as we discovered last week, less than a month before the event was meant to happen.</p>
<p>Legal action <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/arts/film/tropfest-cancelled-legal-action-launched/story-e6frg8pf-1227605621630">has been launched</a> against the event’s former management company – and the most recent news is that new corporate sponsors might be brought in to make up the six-figure funding gap, for a <a href="http://themusic.com.au/news/all/2015/11/16/fair-trading-questions-tropfest-about-entry-fee-refunds,-festival-to-possibly-return-in-feb/">belated screening in early 2016</a>. </p>
<p>I doubt if we will ever know whether Tropfest’s failure was due to financial mismanagement, as festival founder John Polson <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/movies/tropfests-funding-gap-twice-what-john-polson-had-been-told-20151112-gkx550.html">has claimed</a>, debts carried over from earlier Tropfests, an ambitious expansion of the global Tropfest festival empire, or a board that was disconnected from the day-to-day production minutiae of the event.</p>
<p>So how should we, who love films and Australian screen culture, react to this news? </p>
<h2>A winning concept</h2>
<p>The underlying concept of Tropfest, which has run every year since 1993, was, and is, brilliant. Filmmakers were given a Tropfest signature item for each year’s festival and encouraged to make a short film especially for Tropfest. The 2015 item was a card, and previous examples have included “change”, “kiss” and “the number 8”. </p>
<p>The seven-minute limit allowed 16 finalist films to be easily screened and combined with an awards ceremony, resulting in an excellent – and free – evening’s entertainment for viewers. </p>
<p>Over the years the festival has attracted a high number of celebrity judges and sponsors, including Australian luminaries Cate Blanchett, Geoffrey Rush and Nicole Kidman.</p>
<p>The added bonus for the Tropfest organisers was that copyright of the finalist’s work was held by and in perpetuity by them to <a href="http://www.tropfest.com/media/3873/tropfest-australia-2015-entry-guidelines-and-terms-and-conditions-of-entry.pdf">exploit as they saw fit</a>. </p>
<p>Surviving for 22 years, as Tropfest has, is quite an achievement in an festival environment in which, according to producer Stephen Follows’ <a href="https://stephenfollows.com/many-film-festivals-are-in-the-world/">research</a>, most film festivals run once, a third only last for a year and fewer than 25% survive beyond six years. </p>
<p>Tropfest has clearly evolved. While new creative talent still has the chance to make a splash with a good idea, the South Australian government offered funding for “<a href="http://www.mrc.org.au/make-it/initiatives/tropfest_2012_short_flim_initative">established filmmakers</a>” to enter the festival in 2012. </p>
<p>Ironically, as the festival progressed and the prizes increased, many of the films were made with significant budgets, with <a href="http://www.sbs.com.au/blog/128581/trop">well-known actors and highly experienced filmmakers</a>.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/MvLpRECpK18?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Rebel Wilson in a 2009 Tropfest contender.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Concerns</h2>
<p>But does the end of a short-film festival, even if it is the largest in the world, really matter? For some, Tropfest’s troubles are seen as a <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-11-12/tropfest-short-film-festival-cancellation-leaves-hole/6934316">serious threat to emerging filmmakers</a> in Australia. Some people, on the <a href="https://www.facebook.com/tropfest/?fref=nf">Tropfest Facebook page</a>, were even willing pay to attend this year’s if it would help to bring the event back from the dead. </p>
<p>Of course, for the hundreds of entrants who didn’t got the nod as finalists each year, and all the other emerging filmmakers around Australia who don’t make films for Tropfest, there has always been, and will continue to be, other reasons to make films, as well as alternative ways to enter the film industry. </p>
<p>It’s only the lucky few who ever had their work screen at Tropfest, and who have had opportunities to go onto greater success with the support and nurturing of the Tropfest family. My impression over the years was that to be in the running as one of the 16 finalists it helped if you were young, male and probably Anglo. </p>
<p>The festival has <a href="http://themusic.com.au/news/all/2015/09/25/tropfest-pull-film-depicting-violence-against-women/">drawn criticism</a> for the consistently low number of finalist female directors. Some tone-deaf movies, such as the 2013 winner <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3495170/">Bamboozled</a>’s “twist” around <a href="https://theconversation.com/bamboozled-wins-tropfest-by-turning-gay-sex-into-a-dumb-joke-21290">gay sex</a>, or the inclusion – <a href="http://www.sbs.com.au/movies/article/2015/09/24/tropfests-tropscore-film-sparks-backlash-over-portrayal-domestic-violence">and withdrawal</a> – of <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt4592638/">Remote</a> (2015), have indicated a lack of awareness around domestic and trans related violence. </p>
<p>If Tropfest does manage to attract new corporate sponsorship, senior leadership needs to seriously address those concerns. What started as a group of mates in the Darlinghurst Tropicana cafe has stalled just as it hovers on the brink of its transition to a <a href="http://www.filmink.com.au/features/tropfest-from-little-things-big-things-grow/">serious player</a> on the international film circuit.</p>
<p>A reprieve, should it come, doesn’t mean losing the essential elements of fun, irreverence and the low barrier to entry that made Tropfest great; but a film festival worthy of government grants, <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/private-sydney/john-polsons-tropfest-has-a-history-of-neardeath-experiences-20151112-gkxh5b.html">community support</a> and international recognition should have a clear vision of its values and goals, as well as good financial management. </p>
<p>Ultimately, I want to be able to see this year’s finalists and to be able to encourage my students to enter it next year. Any event that provides us with an opportunity to make, watch and discuss short Australian films can only be a good thing.</p>
<p>So thank you, John Polson, and here’s to you reviving Tropfest in the not too distant future.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/50766/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alison Wotherspoon does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The future of the worlds largest short film festival hangs in the balance. Can Tropfest survive? And, if not, what’s the loss to Australia’s film industry?Alison Wotherspoon, Head of Department of Screen and Media, Flinders UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/479942015-10-29T10:09:52Z2015-10-29T10:09:52ZDo liberal arts students learn how to collaborate?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/99852/original/image-20151027-5007-rswfok.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Dance is about creating work in a collaborative way.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Joseph Mehling</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Liberal arts colleges teach many valuable skills, but collaboration is not often among them.</p>
<p>This is curious, because virtually all human activities involve collective behavior. A conversation, or an article such as this, takes at least two to tango (or tangle, as the case may be). On a much larger scale, the electric companies that power my computer in New Hampshire, where I work, arise from immense cooperative activity. As UCLA anthropologist <a href="http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/anthro/faculty/fiske/relmodov.htm">Alan Fiske</a> argues, “The most striking characteristic of <em>Homo sapiens</em> is our sociality.”</p>
<p>It’s true that a liberal arts education strives to teach students “<a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/cecilia-gaposchkin/just-what-are-the-liberal_b_7829118.html">critical thinking</a>.” And rather than narrow technical competencies, students in the liberal arts develop “<a href="http://chronicle.com/article/If-Students-Are-Smart/230307">writing, researching, quantitative, and analytical skills</a>.” </p>
<p>However, in my view, our liberal arts curriculum doesn’t foster collaboration.</p>
<h2>Moving from individual accomplishment to group work</h2>
<p>At Dartmouth, I teach a number of small, interactive seminars in my Department of Film and Media Studies. In conversations with me and one another, students hone their thoughts and opinions. But beyond that, it’s all about personal accomplishment. </p>
<p>I grade each student individually. This, needless to say, is the nationwide standard. As a result, liberal arts undergrads too often end up thinking of themselves as solo agents, obsessing about grade point averages and pitting themselves against their classmates. </p>
<p>Instead, I believe, they should steal a page from Tina Fey’s advice on <a href="http://women2.com/2012/01/08/tina-feys-rules-for-improv-and-your-career/">improvisation</a>: listen; agree and add something; make positive statements; and learn that there are no mistakes, only opportunities. </p>
<p>They need to think of work as a “collaborative improvisation,” as a stage where they make up the scene on the spot. It is not for nothing that “improv” is being taught at <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2010/BUSINESS/02/18/improvisation.business.skills/">graduate business schools</a>.</p>
<p>My own learning on cooperation and communication deepened while directing <a href="http://www.pilobolusfilm.com">Still Moving: Pilobolus at Forty</a>, a documentary about the <a href="http://www.pilobolus.com">Pilobolus Dance Theatre</a>. </p>
<p>The Dartmouth-born troupe, established in the 1970s, has refined collaboration to a fine art. During its first decade, the company undertook an experiment in democratic artistic production. The six members improvised works together. There was no “decider.”</p>
<p>Such true collaboration is still looking for a toehold in the liberal arts curriculum.</p>
<h2>Scientific research has become more collaborative</h2>
<p>Meanwhile, scientific researchers have become increasingly <a href="http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v490/n7420/full/490335a.html">collaborative</a>. Scholars are teaming up across <a href="http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/boundary-conditions/">international boundaries</a>. The two-decade project to sequence the human genome involved researchers from more than <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Genome_Project">20 institutions in six nations</a>. </p>
<p>However, despite their own practices, as a rule, professors of science do not <em>teach</em> collaboration. At Dartmouth, the exception proves the rule: <a href="http://dartmouth.smartcatalogiq.com/en/2015/orc/Departments-Programs-Undergraduate/Psychological-and-Brain-Sciences/PSYC-Psychological-and-Brain-Sciences/PSYC-11">Laboratory in Psychological Science</a>, a course required for the psychology major, obliges students to “jointly design, conduct, analyse, and present their research projects” for group grades, as <a href="http://dartmouth.edu/faculty-directory/jay-g-hull">Psychology Professor Jay Hull</a> told me.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/99886/original/image-20151027-4963-1u1cs71.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/99886/original/image-20151027-4963-1u1cs71.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/99886/original/image-20151027-4963-1u1cs71.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/99886/original/image-20151027-4963-1u1cs71.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/99886/original/image-20151027-4963-1u1cs71.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/99886/original/image-20151027-4963-1u1cs71.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/99886/original/image-20151027-4963-1u1cs71.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Students collaborate in engineering design courses.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Douglas Fraser</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As elsewhere, such truly collaborative courses remain a tiny minority. The most renowned at Dartmouth may be <a href="http://dartmouthalumnimagazine.com/articles/nuts-and-bolts">Introduction to Engineering</a>, a course the Thayer School of Engineering has offered for more than 45 years. In this hands-on class, undergrads work in teams of four to design original inventions that address real-world problems. Projects are graded collectively. </p>
<p>Yet, very few undergraduate courses, I believe, demand such collaborative engagement.</p>
<h2>Theatrical performance and filmmaking teach collaboration</h2>
<p>On the Dartmouth campus, the most collaborative curricular endeavor may be <a href="http://theater.dartmouth.edu/productions/mainstage">MainStage</a>, a production by the Department of Theater. </p>
<p>Four to six faculty members, numerous staffers and hundreds of undergrads annually bring intellectual and creative muscle to stage a professional play or musical. Individual students take pride in participating, in ways large and small, in something greater than the sum of its parts. </p>
<p>Similarly, the Department of Theater offers a course in Creativity and Collaboration, topics that its website tellingly notes are “<a href="http://dartmouth.smartcatalogiq.com/en/2015/orc/Departments-Programs-Undergraduate/Theater/THEA-Theater/THEA-10-08">rarely taught</a>.”</p>
<p>Anyone who watches the never-ending credits of a Hollywood movie knows filmmaking is an intensely collaborative activity. Inspired by the MainStage theater enterprise, I recently created a Group Documentary production course. Students, several staff members and I work together to make a professional documentary in a 10-week term. </p>
<p>The class gives students hands-on experiential learning in filmmaking, which includes constructing narrative and character, mastering the techniques and aesthetics of image and sound design, and making effective arguments through editing, all abilities culled from the liberal arts.</p>
<p>Fundamentally, however, Group Documentary is a course in collaboration. In an evaluation, one junior wrote:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>FILM39 is unlike any class I’ve taken. It’s a nice change from the atmosphere of an exam-based course. Instead of competing with one another for the highest score, FILM39 requires us to coordinate together to achieve the best possible final product.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In the past three years, students have directed documentaries about a <a href="https://vimeo.com/87765815">bear cub rescuer</a>, a <a href="https://vimeo.com/97435166">feminist comedian</a> and a <a href="https://vimeo.com/129558942">gay, African-American choir director</a>. But this is not to say that collaboration is easy.</p>
<p>Students have to find constructive ways to disagree; criticism alone doesn’t always move the project forward. Plus, some team members slack off and others do more than their share. It’s uncannily like the real world.</p>
<h2>Collaboration is missing inside the classroom</h2>
<p>Outside these rare exceptions, where, at liberal arts colleges, do undergraduates learn how to collaborate intensely? In my experience, only through “extracurricular” activities.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/99888/original/image-20151027-4991-jxzjwq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/99888/original/image-20151027-4991-jxzjwq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/99888/original/image-20151027-4991-jxzjwq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/99888/original/image-20151027-4991-jxzjwq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/99888/original/image-20151027-4991-jxzjwq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/99888/original/image-20151027-4991-jxzjwq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/99888/original/image-20151027-4991-jxzjwq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Truly collaborative courses are few.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Rob Strong</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>These would include orchestra, singing groups and, especially, team sports. Such activities encourage students to develop interpersonal abilities, emotional intelligence, empathy, trust and working with others (whether they like each other or not) on behalf of a greater goal. “‘Sports teach workplace values like teamwork, shared commitment, decision-making under pressure, and leadership,’ says <a href="http://blog.penelopetrunk.com/2006/07/10/the-workplace-favors-athletes-so-do-your-best-to-be-one/">Jennifer Crispen</a>, a professor at Sweet Briar College.</p>
<p>However, at liberal arts colleges, unfortunately, these activities remain "extra” instead of being “curricular.” We need to teach collaboration, because, as science writer <a href="http://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/299687/where-good-ideas-come-from-by-steven-johnson/">Steven Johnson argues</a>, good ideas and major inventions come from connectivity, borrowing, collaborating and networking.</p>
<p>I attended Cornell as an undergrad, in part thanks to my soccer skills. I did graduate studies at Temple and the University of Iowa, important public institutions. Afterward, I taught at Vassar and Middlebury, well-regarded private colleges. </p>
<p>But little that I saw at these institutions over the past 35 years suggests they educate undergraduates - <em>inside the classroom</em> - to collaborate successfully on group projects. I’d love to be proven wrong about this, because, as psychologist Daniel Goleman concludes, “<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/12/education/edlife/how-to-be-emotionally-intelligent.html?_r=0">emotional intelligence</a>” makes for the most successful careers.</p>
<h2>Important to learn to play together</h2>
<p>My daughter’s public elementary school offers day-long team-building exercises, which required her to cooperate with, among others, “a bunch of rambunctious and unruly” kids (her words). But collaborating doesn’t stop after K-12 education; it should continue in college courses. </p>
<p>So, how can we encourage “team-building” through our curricula? In addition to teaching critical thinking, could we agree that collaboration, in the strong sense of the term, ought to play a greater role in the liberal arts curricula of our colleges and universities?</p>
<p>As Pilobolus cofounder Michael Tracy told me about studying in Hanover in the early 1970s:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I discovered that dance had all the physicality of sports, without the broken knees and the killer instinct. Dance was about creating imagery cooperatively. We were being physical, but it was not to destroy the other team, it was to create something together in a collaborative way.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>A liberal arts education still best provides the skills in thinking critically that our rapidly changing society demands. Ideally, it also instills in undergraduates a lifelong love of learning.</p>
<p>But in addition to critical thinking, liberal arts students need to learn how to act in the world, to improvise, to play together, to collaborate and, in the process, to make each other better.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/47994/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jeffrey Ruoff does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Liberal arts institutions teach students critical thinking skills. But rarely do they learn how to collaborate.Jeffrey Ruoff, Associate Professor, Department of Film and Media Studies, Dartmouth CollegeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/442542015-07-08T05:24:24Z2015-07-08T05:24:24ZDo 3D films make you dizzy – or is it just your imagination?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/87622/original/image-20150707-1281-zcu5p7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">3D films had a strange effect on Jason.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The realism of today’s 3D blockbusters can blow audiences away. By using 3D glasses to present different images to the two eyes, stereoscopic <a href="http://journal.smpte.org/content/121/4/24.abstract">3D technology fools the brain into believing it is viewing a real scene</a> rather than a flat image on a screen. Now 3D televisions enable viewers to experience the effect at home as well. </p>
<p>Yet 3D has not become as popular as some might have hoped. Many people say watching 3D gives them unpleasant side-effects such as <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/health/6952352/Do-3D-films-make-you-sick.html">headache or nausea</a>. Scientists don’t fully understand why this is. It’s true that <a href="http://jov.arvojournals.org/article.aspx?articleid=2121032">badly made 3D effects can cause discomfort</a>. However, makers of 3D content are <a href="http://www.sky.com/shop/__PDF/3D/Basic_Principles_of_Stereoscopic_3D_v1.pdf">well aware of the possible issues</a> and work hard to avoid them.</p>
<p>A more fundamental problem may be conflict between different senses. When we watch a film such as <a href="http://www.avatarmovie.com/index.html">Avatar</a>, our visual system may tell us that we are wheeling high in the skies of a distant moon, but other senses tell us that we are sitting motionless in a chair. Of course, 2D films present this kind of conflict as well, but our brains may simply be more used to accepting that 2D content is not “real”. </p>
<p>Some people have suggested that 3D content may cause more serious side effects. For example, <a href="http://www.samsung.com/ca/pdf/3D-tv-warning_en.pdf">Samsung’s safety leaflet</a> links its 3D TV set to a vast range of possible symptoms – not only headache, fatigue, motion sickness and eye strain, but also decreased postural stability, altered vision, dizziness, cramps, convulsions and even loss of awareness. Clearly if 3D TV has such effects, there are important safety implications. But to date, very little work has been done to assess this. </p>
<p>We recently <a href="http://rsos.royalsocietypublishing.org/lookup/doi/10.1098/rsos.140522">invited 433 volunteers</a>, aged from 4 to 82 years, into my lab to watch the film <a href="http://toystory.disney.com">Toy Story</a> on either a 2D or 3D TV. We used two common types of 3D TV, known as “active” and “passive”. Participants carried out a battery of tests designed to assess their balance and coordination, both before and after viewing. They wore two triaxial accelerometers – small devices to record their body movements – as they walked around a simple obstacle course. To assess eye-hand coordination, participants played a “buzz the wire” game, guiding a hoop along a convoluted wire track without allowing the two to come into contact. </p>
<p>We argued that, if viewing 3D made participants dizzy, they would take longer to complete the obstacle course, and/or the accelerometers would show that their body movements were less stable. If it affected their vision, they would take longer to complete the “buzz the wire” game, and/or make more mistakes. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.3deyehealth.org/">Some people have suggested</a> that adverse effects with 3D reflect underlying visual problems. So we also had our volunteers’ vision <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/action/downloadTable?id=t0003&doi=10.1080%2F00140139.2014.914581&downloadType=PDF">thoroughly assessed</a> by eye care professionals before they visited the lab. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/87623/original/image-20150707-1302-7ork3k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/87623/original/image-20150707-1302-7ork3k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=412&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/87623/original/image-20150707-1302-7ork3k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=412&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/87623/original/image-20150707-1302-7ork3k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=412&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/87623/original/image-20150707-1302-7ork3k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=517&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/87623/original/image-20150707-1302-7ork3k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=517&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/87623/original/image-20150707-1302-7ork3k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=517&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Of course, Holly’s nausea had nothing to do with the 1kg of popcorn she’d just eaten.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>On our objective tests of balance and coordination, we couldn’t detect any effects of 3D at all. Not surprisingly, people tended to perform a little better the second time round. But it didn’t seem to matter whether they had watched the film in 2D or 3D, or whether the 3D was active or passive. We also couldn’t find any links between age or eyesight and whether people were affected by 3D.</p>
<p>We did find that people who had viewed the 3D movie reported that the depth was <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00140139.2014.914581">more realistic</a>. They also reported more <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00140139.2014.914581">adverse effects</a>, mainly headache and eye strain, but also including dizziness or nausea. However, it’s not clear that the dizziness was really due to 3D.</p>
<p>Craftily, we gave some of our volunteers 3D glasses, making them think they were viewing in 3D, but showed them the film in 2D. These people <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/na101/home/literatum/publisher/tandf/journals/content/terg20/2014/terg20.v057.i08/00140139.2014.914581/20140704/images/large/terg_a_914581_f0007_oc.jpeg">reported dizziness</a> at about the same rate (3%) as those viewing real 3D. In contrast, people viewing real 3D were much more likely to report headache or eyestrain (around 10%) than people who just thought they were viewing 3D. This suggests that while 3D gives some people a headache, it doesn’t really make people dizzy – people just expect it to. </p>
<p>Of course, it’s possible that 3D caused an impairment that was so subtle or transient that our tests failed to detect it. On the other hand, that also implies less cause for concern in everyday life. We also tested only one 3D film, choosing Toy Story as something fun and engaging for all age-groups. Even if computer-generated 3D from the experts at Pixar doesn’t cause dizziness, it remains possible that less carefully-controlled 3D content – say, live-action football – could do so.</p>
<p>Nevertheless, given the lack of previous work in this area, our study provides welcome reassurance. Can 3D effects give you a headache? Yes, for some people. Can they make you dizzy? Probably not. Do they make Toy Story more exciting? That depends who’s watching.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/44254/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Research in Jenny Read's laboratory is funded by the Leverhulme Trust, the Wellcome Trust and the Department of Health. PhD students co-supervised by Dr Read are currently funded by Epilepsy Action, the Wellcome Trust, the US National Institutes of Health, BSkyB, the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council and the Biology and Biotechnology Research Council. The research study described in this article was funded by BSkyB while Dr Read was also funded by a University Research Fellowship from the Royal Society.</span></em></p>New research suggests if 3D films make you dizzy it’s probably all in your mind.Jenny Read, Reader in vision science, Newcastle UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/427682015-06-03T08:06:58Z2015-06-03T08:06:58ZPhilosophy for the people: commencing a dialogue<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/83791/original/image-20150603-10680-q89wzv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Perth City</span> </figcaption></figure><p>I have always been interested in how we try to understand the world in which we live, and artworks provide us with a great stimulus for such discussions. My research focuses on aesthetics, ethics and education and I believe philosophy has an important role to play in encouraging critical and creative thinking. </p>
<p>My PhD thesis focused on whether or not films could be morally educative and encourage critical and compassionate responses from audiences. The contemporary virtue ethicist, Martha Nussbaum, a philosopher at the University of Chicago, writes about how narrative artworks can help us to practice a moral attitude. </p>
<p>By imaginatively engaging with characters who we may not meet in real life, or by considering scenarios we may never actually find ourselves in, we can practice empathising with others and seeing from another point of view. We can learn from fictions in this way by being open to new experiences that we see in our mind’s eye. </p>
<p>With films, of course, we don’t even have to imagine the scene, as it is depicted in lifelike fashion before us on a screen. These narratives can teach us something new and encourage openheartedness. </p>
<p>When I was writing my thesis, I worried that the majority of blockbuster films portrayed dubious moral messages of, for example, the value of money, beauty, fame and consumerism. That was about six years ago. And it has been fascinating to see how television shows have really come into their own and are now being created about a whole range of topics, most often depicting flawed characters with whom we are asked to identify or at least sympathise. </p>
<p>The contemporary viewer has many choices and they can engage critically with intelligent series, or they can switch their brains off and “veg out” in front of reality TV. Human curiosity is an incredible driving force and we connect with others by telling stories. The stories we tell are important and it’s important to keep telling all the stories, as well as supporting and questioning those voices that are courageous enough to speak up.</p>
<p>I didn’t set out to study philosophy. I knew I wanted to complete a Bachelor of Arts at the University of Western Australia. I had decided not to continue studying music at tertiary level, although I loved playing percussion, I felt I wasn’t passionate enough about it to make it my career. After a gap year spent travelling to England, Greece and Italy, I selected psychology and English literature classes but needed another unit to round out my timetable. Philosophy best suited my schedule, although I expected to find it difficult. By the end of my first year I knew I would major in philosophy, having found something that suited how I thought about life, the universe and everything.</p>
<p>My PhD supervisor, Professor Michael Levine from UWA, has always been an inspiration to me because he keeps writing on the most interesting and current topics. He inspired my thesis topic after I took his Philosophy and Film class in third year. </p>
<p>For my thesis, I chose to concentrate on Hollywood blockbusters because I believed they were the medium most people watched, connected with and enjoyed. I was sure the only way to successfully complete a PhD was if you had a topic you were really interested in, and I enjoyed being able to chat with anyone and everyone about whether or not movies could affect viewers. It’s a subject almost everyone has an opinion on, and I enjoy listening to diverse perspectives. I have always believed that if you can explain something simply enough, everyone can contribute to a thoughtful discussion on the topic. </p>
<p>My mum tells me she raised a philosopher because she always took my “why?” questions seriously. I would chat with her and her friends over dinner, and accompany her to music and dance performances and art exhibitions, never thinking any of this was unusual. She was a potter (ceramicist) and my friends and I would often play with clay in her workshop on the weekends. </p>
<p>When I eventually discovered philosophy for children it was a natural fit for me as it made perfect sense to encourage childrens’ natural inquisitiveness. I’ve been involved with Philosophy in Schools ever since and believe it is of the utmost importance to support critical thinking early on and allow children to question the ideas presented to them.</p>
<p>I am grateful to be a part of this new philosophy blog. Philosophers aren’t always very good at making their voices accessible, and we have a lot of knowledge to share given that philosophy draws on ideas from the beginning of recorded history. </p>
<p>I love that we still ask the same human questions about life and meaning, but we also have very modern questions to consider now that our technology has advanced at such a rapid rate. I also know that women philosophers need to speak up and make their voices heard as well. </p>
<p>There is room for all the stories, and we all have a unique perspective on life given our own experiences, but I believe humans still share the same values of wanting to lead a good and happy life. I look forward to sharing more ideas and entering into a dialogue with many new people.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/42768/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
I have always been interested in how we try to understand the world in which we live, and artworks provide us with a great stimulus for such discussions. My research focuses on aesthetics, ethics and education…Laura D'Olimpio, Lecturer in Philosophy, University of Notre Dame AustraliaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/396702015-04-08T15:33:21Z2015-04-08T15:33:21ZWill more dead actors be coming to a theater near you?<p>On November 30 2013, actor Paul Walker died in a car crash before filming of Furious 7 was complete. The accident meant the franchise’s filmmakers had to resort to workarounds to finish scenes featuring Walker. This was made possible by combining footage from outtakes with the construction of a “digital mask” of the dead actor’s features, which was projected onto motion captured by Paul Walker’s brothers Cody and Caleb, who have similar builds. </p>
<p>Casting actors after they’ve died is nothing new, and neither is the use of many digital tools in film making. The real question is how the acting profession and the audience will react if this practice were to become more commonplace. </p>
<h2>From editing to animation</h2>
<p>Three techniques are currently used to “re-cast” actors after they’ve passed away. The simplest is the juxtaposition of older and newer footage. Outtakes of Larry Hagman’s performance as JR Ewing from the TV soap opera Dallas (1978-1991, 2010-2014) allowed him to appear in episodes not actually filmed until after his death. However in the case of The Sopranos (1999-2007), the same trick lacked emotional depth. Livia Soprano was played by actress Nancy Marchand, who died in 2000, and HBO ultimately decided to give her character an off-screen death.</p>
<p>A second approach, <a href="http://www.motion-capture-system.com/resources/Documents/History%20rotoscope.htm">rotoscoping</a>, allows clever montages using footage from different eras, showing living and dead performers together in the same shot. Notable examples include Bruce Lee in a recent Johnny Walker whisky ad, or Natalie Cole’s Grammy-winning <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uE9zy5UKCTU">duet</a> with her late father Nat King Cole. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7aJkbu0Wi8">A famous Coca Cola ad</a> from the same year featured Elton John and put the deceased Humphrey Bogart, James Cagney and Louis Armstrong in his audience.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/SPyoiOTdHio?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Rotoscoping was used to ‘resurrect’ Bruce Lee in this 2013 Johnnie Walker advertisement.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The third and most complex technique involves the computer recreation of someone’s likeness (facial expressions, skin textures and hair modeling) to create synthetic actors. One landmark of this technological feat was The Lord of the Rings’ Gollum (2001-2003). Computer graphics fleshed out the character as played by actor Andy Serkis, who wore a motion capture body suit. </p>
<p>Oliver Reed died of a heart attack before finishing his role in Gladiator (2000), but computer graphics allowed his image to be recreated. The same is being done with Philip Seymour Hoffman’s character in The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2, set to be released later this year. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/mbW-Zv_kR5Q?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Actor Andy Serkis wore a motion capture body suit to create the character Gollum.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Innovations in computer graphics key</h2>
<p>The high-tech reconstruction of Paul Walker for his uncompleted scenes in Furious 7 is a remarkable feat. But it hardly comes as a surprise given the development of computer graphics, from the early line graphics of the 1960s to the two-dimensional surfaces with simple lighting effects that give the illusion of 3D in the 70s and 80s (1982’s <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3efV2wqEjEY">Tron</a> is one of the earliest efforts to create a feature length film on a computer). </p>
<p>Other milestones include the wireframe spaceships in Star Wars (1977-1983) and the particle rendering that has propelled Pixar to success since Toy Story (1995). But just as important is the demand for immersive graphics in computer gaming, which has driven innovation in chip design and animation software. </p>
<p>Over the past 20 years, accelerating cross-fertilization between computer graphics and film and television has taken place – from the dinosaurs of Jurassic Park (1994) and the video game Doom (1994), to movies like Wall-E (2008) and the video game Mass Effect 3 (2012). </p>
<p>Simply put, without the rapidly scaling demands of computer games, today’s special effect movies simply wouldn’t be possible.</p>
<h2>What are the implications for dead actors?</h2>
<p>As anyone who watches Furious 7 will notice, it pivots on competition between the old and the new – between a predator drone and a 60s muscle car, between an omniscient surveillance chip and urban street savvy. The film, which can be seen as a sentimental tribute to Paul Walker, is poignant also in its juxtaposition of new and old questions about what audiences expect from film stars. </p>
<p>Whose body and whose face is it there on the screen? Who holds the rights to these images, to these performances? Tom Cruise was recorded performing in a motion capture suit for the movie Oblivion (2013), but after it opened in theaters, <a href="http://www.triplewidemedia.com/2013/04/projection-mapping-in-the-making-of-oblivion-starring-tom-cruise/">Cruise acquired the rights</a> to all data recorded during his performance. It’s unknown whether he did this to enable future use or to prevent future use, but less established actors might not have as much clout in this kind of decision.</p>
<p>And then there is the question of what will prove acceptable to the fan base of an actor (and of a movie franchise). To what extent are the re-animators of Paul Walker bound by public perception of the actor? And to what extent are they constrained by available technology? Will other filmmakers resort to casting from the beyond, and how will audiences react? </p>
<p>Ultimately, the technical and emotional range of what can be done with someone’s posthumous digital recreation will be defined – and limited – by our living memory of the actor’s onscreen performances.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/39670/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Peter Krapp does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Paul Walker is only the most recent dead actor to appear on screen. But as the technology develops, what are the legal and ethical limits?Peter Krapp, Professor of Film & Media Studies, University of California, IrvineLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/337782015-02-11T11:22:27Z2015-02-11T11:22:27ZRed Army portrayal of Soviet hockey misses mark<p>Gabe Polsky’s documentary Red Army opens with the film’s main subject – former NHL and Soviet hockey great Viacheslav (Slava) Fetisov – giving the finger to Polsky while checking his phone. At the film’s close, Fetisov has the phone pressed to his ear as Polsky coaxes him to cooperate. </p>
<p>“California boy,” Fetisov chuckles. Off-camera, Polsky feebly corrects him: “Chicago.”</p>
<p>Before retiring in 1998, Slava Fetisov played 23 seasons of Soviet League, NHL and international hockey. He won two Stanley Cups and two Olympic gold medals, and he’s a member of the Hockey Hall of Fame. In recounting a playing career that included stints with Moscow’s Red Army club, the Soviet national team and the NHL’s New Jersey Devils and Detroit Red Wings, Fetisov is engaging and, at times, humorous. But he’s also dismissive, obscurant and, ultimately, unreliable. As we see in the opening and closing scenes, Fetisov is still able to skate circles around an opponent – even a filmmaker. </p>
<h2>Gaps in the narrative</h2>
<p>To be sure, Red Army is an entertaining film. Polsky – a former hockey player himself – had parents who emigrated from the Soviet Union to the US, and the director brings a fan’s enthusiasm to the subject. But he also shows that hockey was about more than entertainment for the Soviets. Success on the rink was a way of demonstrating the superiority of their political system. </p>
<p>With archival film and photographs, the documentary shows us the foundations of Soviet hockey: children skating on outdoor rinks in the 1960s and legendary coach Anatoli Tarasov, the father of Soviet hockey, leading young players through drills. Tarasov borrowed his training methods from the ballet studio and his on-ice strategy from chess masters. Players were able to move freely and improvise during the game, but within a team-focused structure – an expression of the Soviet ideal. The strategy worked. Under Tarasov’s leadership, the Soviet team dominated international competitions in the 1960s and 1970s, winning 12 world championships and four Olympic gold medals. </p>
<p>Some fans will be disappointed that the film skips over these decades. There’s no mention of the 1972 Summit Series between the Soviets and Canadians, nor the Red Army team’s celebrated games with the Montreal Canadians and Philadelphia Flyers in 1975 and 1976. Instead, the film jumps from the early years of Soviet hockey to Slava Fetisov’s first appearance in the Olympics at Lake Placid in 1980.</p>
<p>The US hockey team’s victory over the Soviet Union during these Olympics – the “Miracle on Ice” – is an iconic moment in American sports history. Red Army attempts to present the other side of the story, but falls short. Lingering shots of a silent Fetisov – his expression varying from pensive to irritated – are interspersed with rapid clips from the original broadcast. The editing is jarring (why the tight zoom on Al Michaels’ chin?). It’s also wrong. The montage shows Soviet goaltender Vladislav Tretiak pulled from the ice at the incorrect point in the game, and we see Mark Johnson (number 10) – rather than Mike Eruzione – scoring the U.S. team’s fourth goal, the eventual game-winner.</p>
<p>A hockey film that mishandles the Miracle on Ice is like a baseball film botching <a href="http://m.mlb.com/video/topic/0/v4429233/bknnyg-bobby-thomsons-shot-heard-round-the-world">Bobby Thompson’s Shot Heard Round the World</a>. It’s hard to trust a sports documentary that messes up the big moments. </p>
<h2>Mercurial Fetisov offers a skewed point of view</h2>
<p>In the wake of the second-place finish at Lake Placid, Soviet coach Viktor Tikhonov re-built the squad around Fetisov and other younger players. If there’s a villain in Red Army, it’s Tikhonov. Fetisov casts his former coach as a KGB stooge who owed his job to friends in high places. Polsky buys it. Clips of Tikhonov yelling at his players on the bench are set to a laugh track. Scenes of the coach directing his players in the training room alternate with black-and-white footage of Russian circus bears. </p>
<p>Without question, Tikhonov was a rigid taskmaster hated by many players. But he also led his teams to eight world championships and three Olympic gold medals (including one as coach of the post-Soviet Unified Team, which did not include Fetisov). To present him as a buffoon is a stretch.</p>
<p>Whether due to (or in spite of) Tihkonov’s coaching methods, the Soviet team of the 1980s and early 1990s dominated on the world stage. The core of the team was a unit of three forwards – Sergei Makarov, Igor Larionov and Vladimir Krutov – and two defensemen, Fetisov and Alexei Kasatonov. Their success happened during the stagnation of the late Brezhnev years and the launch of perestroika and glasnost under Gorbachev. As the Soviet state opened to the West, Fetisov and other players sought to move to the NHL. Publicly, Tikhonov and Soviet authorities said the players were free to leave; privately, they pressured them to stay.</p>
<p>The heart of the film is set in these final years of the Soviet team, when the lure of NHL riches, the inflexibility of the Soviet system, and loyalty to homeland tore Fetisov and his teammates apart. Kasatonov and Krutov were interviewed for the film; Larionov and Makarov were not. Their absence skews the story (you can hear their version of events in a <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0412548/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">2004 documentary for Swedish TV</a>), leaving Fetisov free to tell his version of the team’s demise and his break from Tikhonov. </p>
<p>Yet questions from Polsky are often deflected. When Polsky asks about the issues underlying the Cold War, Fetisov dismisses the whole topic: “That’s bullshit.” End of discussion. Earlier in the film, Polsky asks why Fetisov didn’t defect while traveling abroad. “I’m happy,” he answers with a smile. Polsky doesn’t point out – or ask about – the fact that hockey players had access to apartments, cars, and other perks unavailable to most Soviet citizens.</p>
<p>There are few hard questions for Fetisov. Near the end of the film, he speaks of how contemporary Russian hockey has lost its soul. Polsky clumsily asks if he wants the Soviet Union back. </p>
<p>“Gabe, it’s not a proper question,” he replies.</p>
<p>This could be a revealing moment, not only for Fetisov but also for how Russians see their Soviet past; it could offer insight into why people like Fetisov support Vladimir Putin. But the proper question – the pointed, informed question – doesn’t come. </p>
<p>The Soviet hockey teams were a remarkable dynasty. And as the film shows, these teams offer a view of the broader history of the Soviet Union during its years of decline. Unfortunately, the film is less about Soviet hockey than about Slava Fetisov – or, more accurately, about Fetisov, as told by Fetisov. In publicity interviews for the film, Gabe Polsky <a href="http://on.aol.com/video/gabe-polsky-on-getting-slava-fetisov-to-appear-in-red-army-518627812">admitted</a> that the hockey legend finally agreed to his requests for an interview only on the last day of shooting in Moscow. It’s too bad. This could have been a richer and more balanced film if Fetisov had been too busy to return Polsky’s call.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ItfesHOjpwE?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The trailer for the documentary Red Army.</span></figcaption>
</figure><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/33778/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Bruce Berglund does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Gabe Polsky’s documentary Red Army opens with the film’s main subject – former NHL and Soviet hockey great Viacheslav (Slava) Fetisov – giving the finger to Polsky while checking his phone. At the film’s…Bruce Berglund, Professor of History, Director of the Honors Program, Calvin UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/368562015-02-04T11:14:15Z2015-02-04T11:14:15ZAmerican Sniper perpetuates Hollywood’s typical Arab stereotypes<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/70955/original/image-20150203-25540-5i3ddu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Hollywood films have long depicted Arabs in a negative light. Pictured is the movie poster from 1921's The Sheik.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2f/The_Sheik_poster.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The first Iraqis to appear in Clint Eastwood’s Iraq War drama, American Sniper, are a young mother and boy of maybe 12. They are seen from the point of view of the man who will kill them: Chris Kyle, the real-life Navy Seal whose tours in Iraq provide the narrative for this controversial movie. </p>
<p>Through his high-powered scope on a nearby rooftop, Kyle watches the mother, shrouded in her burqa and ḥijāb, hand a grenade to the boy and send him through the rubble towards a squad of American troops. </p>
<p>Kyle, though tortured by having to do it, executes them both. </p>
<p>But the movie does not pause to register the tragedy of their deaths. The drama in the scene – and throughout the movie –- turns on the crisis for Kyle, of the moral and emotional consequences of the war for <em>him</em>. </p>
<p>The woman and child, like all Iraqis in the film, are rendered as conspicuously “other”: distant, dangerous, unknowable and malevolent. In this scene, for example, Eastwood does not show us their fear or anguish. Filming the action from Kyle’s point of view keeps them at a remove from the viewers’ sympathies.</p>
<p>What’s more, the movie fails to provide any kind of larger context that might explain their actions. Except for a few throwaway lines, American Sniper does not delve into the circumstances surrounding the Iraq War and what many consider the US crimes and fabrications that led to it. </p>
<p>It certainly doesn’t present a point of view in which Iraqis, still reeling from the trauma of decades of totalitarian oppression, are seen as protecting their homeland from brutal foreign occupiers. </p>
<p>Instead, the Iraqis are derided as “savages” in the film by Kyle and others. And though that may represent attitudes held by the characters, Eastwood does not make it clear enough that the filmmakers don’t share their views, one of the reasons why the liberal U.S. media <a href="http://www.salon.com/2015/01/25/the_ugly_truth_of_american_sniper_partner/">has criticized the film</a>.</p>
<p>These critics are correct when they say that American Sniper is consistent with historical representations of Arabs in Hollywood movies. As Jack Shaheen, who has done pioneering work on the subject, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Reel-Bad-Arabs-Hollywood-Vilifies/dp/1566567521">writes</a></p>
<blockquote>
<p>Seen through Hollywood’s distorted lenses, Arabs look different and threatening. Projected along racial and religious lines, the stereotypes are deeply ingrained in American cinema. From 1896 until today, filmmakers have collectively indicted all Arabs as Public Enemy #1 – brutal, heartless, uncivilized religious fanatics and money-mad cultural “others” bent on terrorizing civilized Westerners.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In his work, Shaheen has analyzed virtually every Hollywood feature ever made that depicts Arabs, ranging from The Sheik (1921), to Disney’s Aladdin (1992), to Rules of Engagement (2000). He found that they are almost invariably depicted as “brute murderers, sleazy rapists, religious fanatics, oil-rich dimwits and abusers of women.” </p>
<p>Of course, these characters certainly don’t reflect the diversity and multiplicity of real Arabs who number in the hundreds of millions and contribute to a mosaic of cultures, languages and religions throughout the Middle East. </p>
<p>While other non-white groups, such as African Americans and Latinos, have arguably seen their representation in Hollywood films improve and diversify over time (at least marginally), Arabs and others of Middle Eastern descent continue to be maligned and silenced, still used as easy villains in recent movies such as Iron Man (2008) and Lone Survivor (2013). Even films that humanize them, such as Three Kings (1999), Syriana (2005), and The Hurt Locker (2008), still operate from white, American points of view and often feature Arabs as weak and backward. </p>
<p>Despite what could be described as more racially progressive work in earlier films – Flags of Our Fathers (2006), Letters From Iwo Jima (2006), Gran Torino (2008) – Eastwood engages in these traditional patterns of representation in American Sniper. </p>
<p>In one scene, Kyle and his men kick in the door of a family to use their house as a staging area. After a time, the family invites Kyle and his men to dinner. During the meal, Kyle suspects that the man is an insurgent. He leaves the table and searches the house, finding a cache of weapons: the man is the enemy he is suspected of being, and Kyle brutalizes him. Later, like so many of the Iraqis in this film, the man is mowed down by a US machine gun. </p>
<p>Compare this to a scene in Gran Torino, in which Eastwood’s character, a curmudgeonly old Korean War vet living in Detroit, is invited to dinner at the house of his next-door neighbors, who are Hmong people from Laos. The scene runs for almost ten minutes, as Eastwood lingers on three generations of immigrants – their customs, hardships and relationships to one another. Eastwood does more then humanize the Hmong in Gran Torino; he attempts to normalize them as people no different from their white neighbors, and portrays them with great deal of empathy.</p>
<p>Empathy is what’s missing in American Sniper – at least towards the Iraqis. And it’s Eastwood’s more progressive work that especially renders American Sniper such a disappointment. Given the opportunity to represent Iraqis with the depth and humanity he’s shown to non-whites and non-Americans in previous films, he instead succumbs to the same patterns of representation that have demonized Arabs in American film for a century.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/36856/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael Green does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The first Iraqis to appear in Clint Eastwood’s Iraq War drama, American Sniper, are a young mother and boy of maybe 12. They are seen from the point of view of the man who will kill them: Chris Kyle, the…Michael Green, Film and Media Studies Lecturer, Arizona State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/359962015-01-30T10:43:55Z2015-01-30T10:43:55ZHow foreign governments can influence American media – and tried to block my documentary<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/70329/original/image-20150128-22325-qq0dfb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Foreign PR campaigns have been waged for decades. Films like 1930's All Quiet on the Western Front were significantly altered to appease Germany's Nazi Party.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.filmjunk.com/images/weblog/2011/07/allquiet.jpg">filmjunk.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Feature films and television shows notoriously play fast-and-loose with the facts. When prologues proclaim “Based on a True Story,” they’re gracefully implying that what follows is mostly fiction.</p>
<p>Awards shows and moviegoers seem to have few problems distinguishing narrative films from documentaries – and assign different editorial standards accordingly. Case in point: last year’s box office behemoth Gravity <a href="http://science.time.com/2013/10/01/what-gravity-gets-right-and-wrong-about-space/">was rife with scientific inaccuracies, large and small</a> – and took home seven Academy Awards. </p>
<p>Foreign governments are another story. No matter if films are purported to be fact or fiction, governments care how their countries are being portrayed. And though some may think of the media as immune to foreign influence, history – along with my personal experience – tell a different story. </p>
<h2>Foreign PR campaigns have been waged for decades</h2>
<p>Last month, North Korea conducted a now-infamous cyberterrorism campaign against Sony Pictures in an attempt to block the company from releasing The Interview. </p>
<p>North Korea may have lost the war, but they did win one censorship battle: before Sony distributed the film overseas, its rattled producers <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/12/15/exclusive-kim-jong-un-assassination-comedy-the-interview-will-allegedly-be-censored-abroad.html">decided to tone down the gore</a> in Kim Jung Un’s death scene. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/70320/original/image-20150128-22317-4x54vi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/70320/original/image-20150128-22317-4x54vi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=871&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/70320/original/image-20150128-22317-4x54vi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=871&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/70320/original/image-20150128-22317-4x54vi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=871&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/70320/original/image-20150128-22317-4x54vi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1095&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/70320/original/image-20150128-22317-4x54vi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1095&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/70320/original/image-20150128-22317-4x54vi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1095&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Showtime’s Homeland has come under fire from the Pakistani government.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://c2.staticflickr.com/8/7126/7710721506_c6abcaa32c_b.jpg">blur95/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>And Pakistan <a href="http://nypost.com/2014/12/27/pakistani-officials-furious-over-countrys-portrayal-in-homeland/">recently complained</a> about the Showtime series Homeland for portraying its country as “a grimy hellhole and war zone where shootouts and bombs go off with dead bodies scattered around.” </p>
<p>“Nothing is further from the truth,” a Pakistan embassy spokesman said. </p>
<p>If Pakistan looks like a much more welcoming place on Homeland next season, maybe their not-so-quiet diplomacy will have fostered subtle censorship.</p>
<p>In fact, American media outlets have feel external editorial pressures for decades. Whether it was Hollywood executives <a href="http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/how-hollywood-helped-hitler-595684?page=showT">running scripts by Nazi officials for approval in the 1930s</a>, or studios <a href="http://articles.latimes.com/2012/jun/12/entertainment/la-et-china-censorship-20120612">inserting subtle, pro-China messages into their films</a> to cull favor with China’s notoriously strict censors, foreign countries have long exerted influence on the final products emerging from America’s television and film studios.</p>
<p>And studios have ample reasons to capitulate. From overseas box office receipts to retaining access to foreign filming locations, it doesn’t hurt to be on the good side of a foreign regime.</p>
<h2>Hired from within?</h2>
<p>But unless more emails of diplomats and media executives are hacked and published, we can only guess how frequently these events are unfolding among insiders. What many don’t know is that American lobbyists also play a part in the process – and work as paid mouthpieces for foreign governments. Aside from an act of cyberterrorism or a diplomatic complaint, if a foreign country wants to lawfully –- and effectively – influence the editorial direction of American news and entertainment, it hires a Registered Foreign Agent.</p>
<p>Registered Foreign Agents are individuals and organizations paid by a foreign government or business for lobbying, public relations and advocacy within the United States. The <a href="http://www.fara.gov">Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA)</a> was passed in 1938 to levy criminal penalties against Nazi propagandists from unduly influencing the US political process. The law forces strict reporting requirements on every means of communications and every meeting. </p>
<p>Some lobbyists <a href="http://www.law360.com/articles/270024/time-to-be-aware-of-fara-enforcement">choose to break the law rather than do the paperwork</a>. But those who violate the FARA regulations have to pay hefty fines and risk up to five years in prison. The Justice Department also can seek an injunction that would bar violators from acting as a foreign agent for a certain amount of time.</p>
<p>Today, thousands of Registered Foreign Agents collect – and spend – many millions of dollars each year to make sure that their foreign clients’ interests are represented in the corridors of Capitol Hill.</p>
<h2>Joseph Califano, Jr., Turkey, and my documentary film</h2>
<p>Joseph Califano, Jr. has been in the news recently. In an op-ed penned for the Washington Post, the former adviser to President Lyndon B. Johnson declared the film Selma <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-movie-selma-has-a-glaring-historical-inaccuracy/2014/12/26/70ad3ea2-8aa4-11e4-a085-34e9b9f09a58_story.html">unfit for awards consideration</a>.</p>
<p>“Contrary to the portrait painted by Selma,” Califano wrote, “Lyndon Johnson and Martin Luther King Jr. were partners in this effort. Johnson was enthusiastic about voting rights and the president urged King to find a place like Selma and lead a major demonstration… The movie should be ruled out this Christmas and during the ensuing awards season.” </p>
<p>As an expert witness, Califano effectively exercised his right to discredit a fiction film for its supposed historical inaccuracies. But how, then, does he contend with the fact that he was paid by a foreign country to lobby for the censorship of my 1988 documentary film, which sought to unearth historical truths related to events surrounding the Armenian Genocide? </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/hYT0R-l2ovs?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Author Ted Bogosian’s 1988 documentary An Armenian Journey.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In 1988, according to his “Short-Form Registration Statement Under the Foreign Agents Registration Act of 1938, as amended,” Joseph A. Califano, Jr. served as Registered Foreign Agent No. 3759.</p>
<p>Califano listed his business address as his prestigious Washington, D.C. law firm, Dewey Ballentine, and his occupation as “Attorney.” Asked to “describe in detail the services you have rendered” on behalf of the “foreign principal” (The Embassy of the Republic of Turkey) that “made it necessary to you file this form,” Califano entered</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Representation involves the application of Section 396(g)(1)(A) of the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967 to the broadcast of the film “An Armenian Journey.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In April 1988, PBS scheduled a nationwide, primetime broadcast of the WGBH-Boston presentation <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYT0R-l2ovs">An Armenian Journey</a>. This hour-long documentary – which I wrote, directed and produced – would focus on a historical event that remains controversial 100 years later:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>A bitter debate has raged over the deaths of more than a million Armenians in Eastern Turkey during World War I. Were they simply casualties of war, or the victims of a calculated effort by Turkish officials to exterminate the Armenian people?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The press kit describes the film as “a personal quest for the truth” by “an American journalist of Armenian descent” to reconcile “stories of the atrocities committed against our people by the Ottoman Turks…with Turkish government denials.”</p>
<p>Califano and several other Registered Foreign Agents working for the Republic of Turkey, including the late Frank Mankiewicz, organized a strong effort to dissuade PBS from broadcasting the film, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/1988/06/02/arts/tv-notes.html?emc=eta1">according to the New York Times</a>.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Frank Mankiewicz, the vice chairman of Hill & Knowlton, the public relations firm that is representing the Turkish Government, said that the [Turkish] Embassy and an umbrella group called the Assembly of Turkish American Associations were considering such actions as picketing and a lawsuit.</p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/70316/original/image-20150128-22295-5u6hek.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/70316/original/image-20150128-22295-5u6hek.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/70316/original/image-20150128-22295-5u6hek.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/70316/original/image-20150128-22295-5u6hek.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/70316/original/image-20150128-22295-5u6hek.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/70316/original/image-20150128-22295-5u6hek.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/70316/original/image-20150128-22295-5u6hek.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Joseph Califano, Jr. – whom Turkey paid $122,334.37 – sought to block the author’s film from being broadcast on PBS.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/lbjlibrarynow/13744903365/">LBJ Foundation/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Unlike Sony’s response to North Korea’s cyber attack, PBS, WGBH and hundreds of other local public television stations resisted this attempt by Turkey and its Registered Foreign Agents to censor a motion picture presentation inside the United States. </p>
<p>The Times continued: “PBS said there was nothing wrong with the film, as did WGBH, the public television station in Boston that was co-producer. Letters have gone back and forth, one side enumerating alleged flaws, the other refuting, and the accusers refuting the refutations.”</p>
<p>An Armenian Journey was broadcast as scheduled around the day of the annual Armenian Genocide commemoration, April 24. Nielsen ratings indicated that more than two million US households tuned in to the broadcast that week.</p>
<p>TV Guide touted the program as “fascinating viewing.”</p>
<p>For his unsuccessful efforts to block the broadcast, Califano reported under FARA that his compensation was $122,334.37. In fact, his private, personal attempt at censorship earned Joseph Califano, Jr. more money than I did. His fellow Registered Foreign Agents were also well compensated, according to FARA records.</p>
<p>Thankfully, all of us were able to compete freely in the marketplace of ideas, but the events in France this month prove how perilous editorial disputes can be. Je Suis Charlie.</p>
<p>I have yet to meet Califano, but if I ever do I will thank him for filing his FARA paperwork so thoroughly, even though it was his legal obligation. Otherwise, the American public would be much less informed about how foreign censorship is waged against the media elite and producers.</p>
<p>Fortunately for myself and the makers of Selma, Califano and others like him were unable to steer audiences away from our efforts to present well-made films with high standards of journalism and craft that offer alternative points of view.</p>
<p>Months from now, the Registered Foreign Agents of North Korea and Pakistan will file their FARA paperwork. Anyone who wants to uncover the roster of Americans who profited from the attempts of these countries to censor the theatrical release of The Interview or the transmission of Homeland can do their patriotic duty: follow the money trail that leads to censorship by visiting www.fara.gov.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/35996/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ted Bogosian does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Feature films and television shows notoriously play fast-and-loose with the facts. When prologues proclaim “Based on a True Story,” they’re gracefully implying that what follows is mostly fiction. Awards…Ted Bogosian, Instructor and Visiting Filmmaker, Duke UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/367062015-01-25T22:06:32Z2015-01-25T22:06:32ZBitter Lake: Adam Curtis is both self-indulgent and fascinating<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/69964/original/image-20150125-24510-11kzvpg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Curtis is one of few BBC film-makers given great artistic freedom</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/ari/13004145/in/photolist-29DFp-4kWNJS-m5qyAH-zscdV-7NaAU-aGrM3n-bCFJQK-fPMw3u-dZT6c5-bu3dE5-dZZvPy-bBxt4c-bBxsPR-8U3n8y-99eqTU-8U3kE9-fFWLzS-am7omR-bYU6Tw-m5qx5g-4fAVs4-m5rhUS-m5rxXY-m5q1XK-m5rscj-m5q3Ja-m5rqUu-m5rDoN-m5q4Xn-m5qTM8-m5qkSD-m5qfJT-m5qhJK-m5rBZL-m5rE8J-m5qKtV-m5qGQP-m5q7Ma-m5qJAT-m5qekR-m5qDYM-m5q2Lt-e8pBmf-puBac4-9QUBHs-67DZA7-3sqo8-aoDR6w-8etrkD-impLVy">Steve Rhodes</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Most broadcasters – especially those who work at the BBC – must produce their programmes to conform to strict guidelines. They must be within five seconds of the required length, they must comply with a rigid format and they must meet the approval of layers of executives.</p>
<p>There are a handful of prominent programme makers who are allowed to set their own guidelines. <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b007ght1">Alan Yentob (Imagine)</a> is his own executive producer and allows himself the freedom to make his programmes as long as he thinks they should be. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.screenonline.org.uk/people/id/510844/">Stephen Poliakoff</a> has spent much of his career not bothered by the constraints placed on other writer/directors at the BBC. When casting Radio 4’s <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qykl">In Our Time</a>, Melvyn Bragg probably doesn’t have to run his guest list of obscure academics past any “higher ups”.</p>
<p>Many will argue that is how it should be, that these people are the very essence of the BBC. As a teenager, I was certainly grateful that <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio1/johnpeel/">John Peel</a> didn’t comply with a rigid playlist, even if I didn’t always want to listen to his selection of Bulgarian throat music.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adamcurtis">Adam Curtis</a> is in this select group of BBC programme makers. His made-for-TV documentaries have been ground-breaking and innovative. They are visual and audio interpretations of his thoughts and analyses of the world, unfiltered by executive producers or the demands of focus groups. They’re often beautiful, frequently compelling, always thought provoking.</p>
<h2>Bitter Lake</h2>
<p>With his latest programme <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02gyz6b">Bitter Lake</a> he has given himself even more freedom by making it solely for the BBC iPlayer. The film is nearly two and a half hours long. It is experimental and uses footage, in ways that at first appear random, to construct a narrative that attempts to explain the complexities of the modern world.</p>
<p>“Increasingly we live in a world where nothing makes sense any more,” states Curtis in his first piece of narration over a shot of the moon appearing from behind a mountain as the shot is constantly reframed. Thus begins a feature-length process of explaining the uncertainties of the world through the prism of Afghanistan.</p>
<p>It starts with a 1945 meeting at Bitter Lake in Egypt between <a href="http://www.biography.com/people/franklin-d-roosevelt-9463381">Franklin D Roosevelt</a> and <a href="http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/280827/Ibn-Saud">King Ibn Saud</a> of Saudi Arabia, in which the US pledges support for the Saudi state in exchange for oil; and it ends with the withdrawals of troops from Afghanistan in late 2014 (though <a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/u-s-delay-2015-afghanistan-troop-withdrawal-chuck-hagel-n262906">some are</a> still there).</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/69966/original/image-20150125-24521-1srdeog.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/69966/original/image-20150125-24521-1srdeog.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/69966/original/image-20150125-24521-1srdeog.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/69966/original/image-20150125-24521-1srdeog.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/69966/original/image-20150125-24521-1srdeog.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/69966/original/image-20150125-24521-1srdeog.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=474&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/69966/original/image-20150125-24521-1srdeog.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=474&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/69966/original/image-20150125-24521-1srdeog.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=474&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Franklin D Roosevelt and King Ibn Saud at their fateful Bitter Lake meeting in 1945.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Franklin_D._Roosevelt_and_King_Ibn_Saud_of_Saudi_Arabia_at_Great_Bitter_Lake_in_Egypt_-_NARA_-_197295.jpg#mediaviewer/File:Franklin_D._Roosevelt_and_King_Ibn_Saud_of_Saudi_Arabia_at_Great_Bitter_Lake_in_Egypt_-_NARA_-_197295.jpg">US National Archives</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Dual-track approach</h2>
<p>The story is told by mixing between two distinct streams. The first is an archive-rich retelling of political history since the Bitter Lake meeting. The footage is familiar Curtis style – shots given a new beauty and meaning by the way they are juxtaposed, linked by his usual clear, concise doubt-free voiceover. This is the trademark Curtis style that we are familiar with from films like <a href="http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/the-century-of-the-self/">The Century of the Self</a>, <a href="https://archive.org/details/ThePowerOfNightmares-Episode1BabyItsColdOutside">The Power of Nightmares</a> and <a href="http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/all-watched-over-by-machines-of-loving-grace/">All Watched Over By Machines of Loving Grace</a>. </p>
<p>The second stream is a seemingly randomly constructed montage of unedited footage from the Afghanistan war. Scenes of extreme violence and missile attacks are cut with, for example, long quiet scenes of a soldier befriending a wild bird. There is no sense to be made of this but its rawness is shocking and memorable. It’s as though Curtis is suggesting we can begin to make some sense of the events from past decades but more recent events are too fresh to be processed.</p>
<p>Both streams illuminate the argument but also to distract from it. Period archive often tells two stories. During a shocking section in which the Mujahideen talked of regularly stoning Russians to death, I found myself wondering if that was the voice of a young Jeremy Paxman asking the questions. I was focusing on a very 80s collar and tie combo when I should have been concentrating on the arms fair that the presenter was touring. </p>
<p>Equally, Valerie Singleton’s ankle-length, fur-trimmed leather coat is surely enough to distract anyone from the 1971 visit of the king of Afghanistan that she is covering for Blue Peter.</p>
<p>The uncut, recent war footage has real power in places – building a true sense of the disorganisation and lack of strategic focus of the mission. We see people dead, dying and murdered on screen. There’s a section of an interview of a father and daughter. The young girl is maybe six, wears a toy crown and is recovering from horrific injuries, including an amputated hand. </p>
<p>There’s a sequence in which two British Army Officers negotiate the hire of a photocopier. What does it all mean? You’d have to ask Adam Curtis, though I’m not sure he would be able to tell you either. Which may be part of the point.</p>
<h2>The problem with artistic freedom</h2>
<p>As a practice-based academic with a background in TV production, I am intrigued and slightly disapproving of the freedom Curtis has given himself by producing this film for iPlayer. The television schedule is divided into rigid time slots. Masterchef must finish in time for Silent Witness that must finish in time for the news that absolutely must start at 10 o’clock. There is no room for a programme as long as Bitter Lake – nor one that is an untidy two hours 17 minutes. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/69967/original/image-20150125-24503-n6cch7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/69967/original/image-20150125-24503-n6cch7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/69967/original/image-20150125-24503-n6cch7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=364&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/69967/original/image-20150125-24503-n6cch7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=364&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/69967/original/image-20150125-24503-n6cch7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=364&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/69967/original/image-20150125-24503-n6cch7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=458&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/69967/original/image-20150125-24503-n6cch7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=458&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/69967/original/image-20150125-24503-n6cch7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=458&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Is the discipline that comes from the editing demands of TV schedules a good thing?</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/cat.mhtml?lang=en&language=en&ref_site=photo&search_source=search_form&version=llv1&anyorall=all&safesearch=1&use_local_boost=1&search_tracking_id=AhkU_VzOpQQ_mRj9CMVWlw&searchterm=film%20editing&show_color_wheel=1&orient=&commercial_ok=&media_type=images&search_cat=&searchtermx=&photographer_name=&people_gender=&people_age=&people_ethnicity=&people_number=&color=&page=1&inline=126134792">Maradonna 8888</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>On the whole, I would argue that the strict TV schedule is a good thing and benefits the programme maker. There are very few films that wouldn’t be better if they were shorter. Admittedly, slightly less than two and a half hours isn’t very long to explain the events that created the confusions and complexities of the modern world. Curtis probably thinks Bitter Lake is as long as it needs to be. But I think it’s longer than that. I think he has made a long film because he didn’t have time to make a short one. </p>
<p>I once made a documentary for TV that had five executive producers. Which is four too many – but not five too many. One good executive producer will be able to help even the best programme makers to make better programmes. They’ll ask what the photocopier scene is saying and suggest that if we could just get the film under two hours then many more people will watch it.</p>
<p>Adam Curtis is one of the BBC’s greatest documentary makers. His programmes are an event – this one no less so for being shown on the iPlayer. But it will be interesting to see how many people watch Bitter Lake compared to a typical TV audience. The risk is that by removing himself from the discipline and strictures of TV production, he has removed himself from too many viewers.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/36706/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Paul Tucker does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Most broadcasters – especially those who work at the BBC – must produce their programmes to conform to strict guidelines. They must be within five seconds of the required length, they must comply with…Paul Tucker, Senior Lecturer in Broadcast Production, University of the West of ScotlandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/353922014-12-19T06:15:29Z2014-12-19T06:15:29ZCrowdfunding can drive new documentary filmmaking and build grass-root audiences<p>The taxi driver was mystified by the long queue waiting to go into Leeds Picturehouse cinema on a recent Sunday afternoon. He was clearly surprised when I explained that what turned out to be a capacity audience was there to see a documentary about the 1984-5 miners’ strike. </p>
<p>There have been similar scenes at independent cinemas across the country as the film, <a href="http://the-enemy-within.org.uk/">Still the Enemy Within</a> – of which I am one of the executive producers – climbs up the documentary chart. Given the size of the box office for blockbusters such as Paddington and The Hunger Games, published weekly in Charles Gant’s <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/film/series/at-the-british-box-office">influential weekly film blog</a>, documentaries rarely make it into the weekly top ten. However, our returns, and unpublished figures from the ranking company Rentrak, suggest that it will make the top 20 of cinema documentaries.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/67505/original/image-20141217-31034-pjpld6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/67505/original/image-20141217-31034-pjpld6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/67505/original/image-20141217-31034-pjpld6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/67505/original/image-20141217-31034-pjpld6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/67505/original/image-20141217-31034-pjpld6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/67505/original/image-20141217-31034-pjpld6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/67505/original/image-20141217-31034-pjpld6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Big budget, big box office.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Lionsgate</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Big growth in documentary film</h2>
<p>Our documentary is just one of scores of documentaries that will be released in cinemas this year – compared with a handful just ten years ago. <a href="http://www.bfi.org.uk/sites/bfi.org.uk/files/downloads/bfi-statistical-yearbook-2014.pdf">Research by the BFI</a> showed that in 2013, 89 documentaries were released in UK cinemas compared with just four in 2001. The figure will probably break 100 this year. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/67508/original/image-20141217-31049-1nv10r4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/67508/original/image-20141217-31049-1nv10r4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/67508/original/image-20141217-31049-1nv10r4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/67508/original/image-20141217-31049-1nv10r4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/67508/original/image-20141217-31049-1nv10r4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/67508/original/image-20141217-31049-1nv10r4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/67508/original/image-20141217-31049-1nv10r4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/67508/original/image-20141217-31049-1nv10r4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Top 20 non-concert feature documentaries at the UK box office, 2001-2013 (excluding IMAX and shorts)</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.bfi.org.uk/sites/bfi.org.uk/files/downloads/bfi-statistical-yearbook-2014.pdf">BFI RSU analysis of Rentrak data</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>There are several reasons behind this growth. The digital revolution has reduced the cost of making films and – probably more importantly – screening them. Once producers needed a film print to show a film in a cinema, each print costing many thousands of pounds. With digital projection, the cost has fallen to under £100 per cinema. </p>
<p>At the same time cinemas – especially independent or art-house – have become more flexible, willing to show a film just once, instead of running it for a week. This can make financial sense for a cinema now that so many are multiplexes.</p>
<p>Despite stand-out successes in the past decade such as Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004), Senna (2011) and last year’s One Direction: This is Us, we still need a sense of proportion – they are still a minority interest. For example, seven documentaries were released in the UK on the weekend of November 7, grossing £10,200 at the box office, compared to £5.38m for Interstellar which opened the same weekend. According to the BFI, during the whole of 2013, documentaries took just under £11m at the box office, out of a total of £1,154m.</p>
<p>And of course, One Direction have a huge fan base already in place. Nick Cave’s drama-documentary: 20,000 Days on Earth, looks like being this year’s top UK documentary, but is unlikely to beat One Direction’s £45m (worldwide) takings.</p>
<p>Subjects with a big fan base – sports, music and work by internationally known journalists – make the most successful cinema documentaries. Yet, the majority of documentaries don’t fall into this category. Human rights, politics, the relatively obscure sports and music stories and personal tales which reflect on the human condition – these are the staple of many. And they do not make money. </p>
<p>So, why do we do bother? That’s the easy question – every documentary filmmaker has something they want to say. A well-reviewed film in a cinema is still one of the best ways of a film getting heard about so that the people pay attention, possibly buying DVDs and downloads and even perhaps persuading television to buy it. <a href="http://www.statista.com/statistics/274947/vod-use-and-online-video-purchases-in-the-united-kingdom-uk-by-genre">Recent figures show</a> a substantial growth in the importance of online viewing, especially for documentaries.</p>
<h2>Hope online</h2>
<p>The internet has been the big hope for independent filmmakers – a way of reaching international, niche markets, without the conventional intermediaries of broadcasters. Producers would spend many hours doing alluring back-of-the-envelope sums: if there are 100,000 people in the world who would like to see my film for £5, then I can make a living. The challenge was – and is – how to reach and persuade those people to pay for your film. And as online distribution has grown, so has the number of filmmakers turning to crowdfunding to finance their films.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/67511/original/image-20141217-31021-1vmfub4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/67511/original/image-20141217-31021-1vmfub4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=418&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/67511/original/image-20141217-31021-1vmfub4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=418&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/67511/original/image-20141217-31021-1vmfub4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=418&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/67511/original/image-20141217-31021-1vmfub4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=525&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/67511/original/image-20141217-31021-1vmfub4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=525&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/67511/original/image-20141217-31021-1vmfub4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=525&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Tapping directly into the crowd.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/analogica/8661000014/sizes/o/in/photolist-eckTys-p74cjL-fQHSxs-m15u5K-m16UvW-m15ZVe-gEvtTU-fuPcKY-oqkv1n-o8QSxt-o8RXnV-oq8jmE-oq8jsS-o8QSVx-o8QVGd-oqkve8-ooiFvh-o8QN4u-iQ7HNi-extBUY-fUGLSp-9ygKRY-9ygLr1-gTUutQ-pKFBTQ-pMxe6z-pvnJPY-pMxeLx-pvhjZn-pMxevH-oQYvSx-pvnJyY-pvnJFb-pvnJZ7-pvnKcb-oQYwmP-pKFCcf-pKFBvL-oQVq4f-pKFCgJ-oQYvGH-9gSuQQ-dNThHa-fWqosf-ggsZZR-ggtqoi-ggsK9h-ggsKCU-ggsKes-ggsKof-ggt1uj/">Rocio Lara</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
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<p>Crowdfunding barely existed ten years ago – the leading crowdfunding websites Indiegogo and Kickstarter only stated in 2008 and 2009. It is now estimated that there are more than 500 such sites worldwide and in 2013 <a href="http://www.crowdmapped.com/crowdfunding-trends-and-statistics/">more than US$5 billion was raised through them</a>. The principle is easy: appeal to a global crowd and attract a lot of investors putting in a small amount of money – as little as £1 in some cases. </p>
<p>Filmmakers were quick to see the potential of crowdfunding. Best known was Spike Lee, who raised US$1.4m from more than 6,000 backers for his new feature film. He is not alone – a quarter of the projects on Kickstarter are for films, though only about 40% achieve their target. As the veteran of several crowdfunding campaigns – successful and otherwise – I can vouchsafe that they are far from easy; they need proper planning and execution. </p>
<h2>Building audiences</h2>
<p>To use them as a last resort is to miss one of the attractions: the crowd which helps fund the film is part of a social network which helps to promote the finished product – you don’t need <a href="https://theconversation.com/my-low-budget-film-i-dont-need-money-i-need-a-distribution-deal-23983">the skills of a distributor</a> to deliver audiences, as you can do that yourself. An important part of Still the Enemy Within’s funding raised this way and from donations from trades union branches. This helped create the virtuous circle of funding and audience outreach. And once the film was shown, we were able to attract new funders to support the completion and release.</p>
<p>We came in the tradition of filmmakers like Franny Armstrong – one of the pioneers of crowdfunding – who made Age of Stupid, Amir Amirani, who raised more than US$92,000 for his film We Are Many, about the 2003 anti-war march – and the makers of the recently-released photography film, Finding Vivian Maier, which raised more than US$100,000.</p>
<h2>The right ingredients</h2>
<p>From successful crowdfunding appeals, there are several ingredients nearly all of them have: making it a full-time job, planning properly, constantly building your audience and making it viral. But, while these are necessary conditions, they are probably not sufficient. The really successful campaigns are ones where there is already an in-built audience: the fans of photography and Vivian Maier, the millions on the anti-war march, the film from the director of Helvetica, a film based on a best-selling memoir and so on.</p>
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<p>We are just <a href="https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/john-pilger-the-coming-war-documentary">about to test these theories</a> when we try to raise £60,000 for journalist John Pilger’s next film. </p>
<p>Like his last two it’s a cinema film; has some grant funding and some broadcaster money in it and is an important international story. Pilger is just one of the ingredients that may help it to success. But it will be a test of whether we can also build that personal relationship with consumers and audiences which the internet has for so long alluringly promised.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/35392/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Christopher Hird is Managing Director of Dartmouth Films and is currently involved in a film crowdfunding project.</span></em></p>The taxi driver was mystified by the long queue waiting to go into Leeds Picturehouse cinema on a recent Sunday afternoon. He was clearly surprised when I explained that what turned out to be a capacity…Christopher Hird, Film maker and Visiting Professor , City, University of LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/333712014-10-28T01:10:45Z2014-10-28T01:10:45ZShould film-making count as research? That’s debatable<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/62810/original/c83cfkwt-1414374325.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Screen production can enhance our understanding of the complexities of human experience.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">locrifa/ Shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In the film industry, research is commonly understood as audience research. Films, in contrast, are entertainment or a form of audiovisual communication. But can film-making also be a form of academic research? </p>
<p>Within the academic community, research is about new knowledge and is done through experiments or surveys, not through the creative process of film production. But it is also done using interviews and ethnographic observation.</p>
<p>Many people can accept that making a documentary film involves activities commonly associated with research, such as the systematic investigation of a question or problem. </p>
<p>But what about a fiction film, a drama or a comedy? Or even a TV soap opera? That may be going too far.</p>
<p>While there have been recent moves to <a href="http://www.arc.gov.au/era/default.htm">recognise creative works</a> as research outputs, films are more commonly seen as a way of communicating other people’s research, rather than a research activity in their own right. </p>
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<p>Unlike the Australia Council for university-based artists, state and federal government screen-funding bodies have been reluctant to fund productions occurring in universities, using a “double dipping” argument that makes little sense in the absence of this work being funded anywhere else. </p>
<p>Funding from the Australian Research Council has also proven difficult in the past for creative film projects, competing against well-established fields of research in the sciences and humanities. </p>
<p>Film-maker/ academics are caught in the middle, wishing to develop their knowledge of their field through their creative practice but without appropriate funding, publication opportunities, institutional support or wider recognition. </p>
<p>This also feeds one of the main objections to claims for film-making as research, that it is a contrived attempt by filmmaker/ academics to access research funding to meet university pressures for research performance. Unfortunately, this objection carries more weight in the absence of a clearly articulated position by filmmaker/ academics on the arguments supporting their claims.</p>
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<p>The discussion about film-making as research often focuses on distinctions made between creativity and knowledge, or between the emotional and rational dimensions of human experience. </p>
<p>But it could also be argued this is a side-issue that focuses too much on the film medium’s ability to convey content. </p>
<p>Both fiction and non-fiction films are always “about” something and it is tempting for non-filmmakers to reduce the creative work to this content – a story or subject matter abstracted from the work on the screen. But in many cases that’s not where the research is located. </p>
<p>The academic peers who evaluate whether any film work contributes knowledge to the field of film production should be other film-makers, who do so on the basis of how effective the work is in exploring and extending our knowledge of the potential of the medium. </p>
<p>This knowledge of the medium could be in relation to the film’s use of images and sound to tell a story, formal and stylistic experimentation, the use of new technology, production techniques, platforms or many other possibilities. It could be in relation to the production process and not apparent in the final work at all, such as the use of innovative business models, methods of working with actors or the many other production personnel involved.</p>
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<p>Another contested issue that often clouds the debate of film-making as research is the use of audiovisual expression over written language in communicating the research. </p>
<p>Proponents argue it is appropriate to communicate research in the language of the field and this offers possibilities for conveying human experience in new ways that deepen and extend understanding, while critics query the perceived ambiguities of meaning that seem to flow from visual communication. </p>
<p>It is often asked whether a film can make an argument. I would argue that in some cases it clearly can but it is incumbent on practitioners in the field to provide evidence of the various ways this can be achieved, which arguably has not occurred to the extent required.</p>
<p>Many academic filmmakers believe they have fallen between the cracks in relation to research funding, a situation that is impeding the development of the field. To rectify this situation requires advocacy by the discipline, articulating its position with greater clarity and depth. </p>
<p>The broader academic community and the screen production industry also need to recognise that research into the creative practice of screen production has much to offer – developing innovation in the screen industries and the ability of screen production to enhance our understanding of the complexities of human experience, in all its dimensions.</p>
<p>The majority of our universities have popular undergraduate and postgraduate courses in screen production. Film, television and other media production is a large, viable and significant higher education sector, feeding graduates into employment in an increasingly audiovisual world. </p>
<p>Yet without a corresponding research sector, the discipline seems like a body without a head.</p>
<p><br></p>
<p><em>Many of these issues will be explored at <a href="http://www.rmit.edu.au/mediacommunication/sightlines">Sightlines</a>, a hybrid film festival/ conference being held at RMIT University on November 23-25.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/33371/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Leo Berkeley received funding from the Australian Learning & Teaching Council for a research grant on
'Developing a collaborative national postgraduate research program for 22 Australian film schools' as Victorian coordinator on a national research project led by Murdoch University (2011-2013).
He is affiliated with ASPERA, the Australian Screen Production Education & Research Association, the peak body for film production academics in Australia.</span></em></p>In the film industry, research is commonly understood as audience research. Films, in contrast, are entertainment or a form of audiovisual communication. But can film-making also be a form of academic…Leo Berkeley, Senior Lecturer in Media Production, RMIT UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.