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Many Australian films have significant cultural capital that should also be considered when measuring their level of success. Shutterstock

Speaking with: David Tiley on funding Australian films

Speaking with: David Tiley on funding Australian films CC BY-ND23.2 MB (download)
Vincent O’Donnell speaks with David Tiley, editor of ScreenHub magazine, about financing film production in Australia and looking beyond box office numbers to measure a film's success.
New technologies are allowing us to understand far more about what we see when we watch a screen. Arthur Cruz

Gogglebox and beyond: lifting the lid on eye tracking research

What are we really looking at when we watch a screen? There’s more to it than Gogglebox. Advances in eye-tracking technology are transforming how we understand film and TV spectatorship.
The politics of space governs the relationships between characters in Robin Campanillo’s Eastern Boys. Palace Films

Review: love in the age of mass migration in Eastern Boys

The camera, situated in the middle of the foyer of a public building, looks through large windows into the street and city beyond. The protagonist couple of Eastern Boys – affluent Frenchman Daniel (Olivier…
We can’t talk about “consensual” BDSM without considering the levels of violence against women. Universal Pictures

Violence dressed up as erotica: Fifty Shades of Grey and abuse

This Valentine’s Day, why not ditch the roses and celebrate by watching some sexual violence? That’s a more honest marketing pitch for the Fifty Shades of Grey film. It’s astonishing that, in 2015, sexual…
Peter Sarsgaard stars as the psychologist Stanley Milgram in the new film The Experimenter. BB Film Productions

Milgram was wrong: we don’t obey authority, but we do love drama

Why have the landmark psychology experiments of the post-war era proved so enduring? Designed as dramas about human behaviour, experimenters drew on theatrical techniques and tailored their results for…
Recognition is a super-human process that requires sacrifice …. and a bit of flying. Atsushi Nishijima/Twentieth Century Fox

Is it a Birdman? Is it a play? It’s super meta-textuality!

What do Shakespeare’s Hamlet, The Simpsons, and Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s film Birdman have in common? All three utilise the concept of meta-theatre. The concept of meta-theatre, or meta-text, in its crudest…
Frankie Alvarez as Agustin and O.T. Fagbenle as Frank in Looking. Foxtel

HBO’s Looking: the men on TV who just ‘happen to be gay’

Show a gay man on TV, and you immediately open yourself up to a degree of scrutiny that other artists usually have the privilege of avoiding. Representations of marginalised subjects on screen or in literature…
Cinema has always been about spectacle – it’s not yet walking dead. AAP/Marcus Walters, Gerrit Fokkema

TV’s golden age has freed cinema to do what it does best

At the opening night of the Victorian College of the Arts graduate film screening season this month, keynote speaker Clayton Jacobson (writer/director of Kenny, 2006) mentioned to the audience his belief…
The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies is released around the world this month. Never mind the top tens, this film will skew the box office stats for 2014 and 2015. Image: John Bell as Bain and Luke Evans as Bard. Photo: Mark Pokorny. Warner Bros

Bad Hobbits Die Hard: how to make a better Top 10 movie list

Tis the season to make Top 10 lists. Why? Because we are hurtling with unavoidable haste toward the end of another calendar year. It’s almost impossible to get through the day without some kind of Top…
Do Yourself a Favour recently celebrated the 40th anniversary of the music show Countdown. ABC

Rebooting Countdown would help the Australian music industry

Are there lessons to be learnt from the success of the seminal Australian music program Countdown, and the ways in which it bolstered the Australian music industry during the 70s and 80s? Do Yourself a…
Critics write the obituaries for Australian films the weekend they’re released. Is there a better way to understand the industry? AAP Image/Cameron Oliver

Zombie metrics: why Australian cinema just won’t stay dead

By all reports the Australian cinema is dead. Left for dust by the noisy distractions of big budget movie franchises and the smaller diversions of teeny shiny devices. All you can see in any direction…
Timothy Spall plays the British painter Joseph Turner in Mike Leigh’s latest film, Mr Turner. Transmission Films

Mike Leigh’s Mr Turner is no oil painting

The work of art is that mysterious process that transforms pigment and canvas into an object of great beauty. Depicting that moment of creative inspiration has been a challenge for filmmakers since the…
Got a problem with your script? This man, script consultant Robert McKee, can save it. AAP Image/dmcpr media

It’s not working! Script consultants are the go-to gurus for film

If you’ve seen Brian Cox playing Robert McKee in the 2002 film Adaptation, you probably know what a script consultant does. Following in the footsteps of other internationally-renowned script consultants…
The clincher of the latest season of Doctor Who? The Doctor’s nemesis is a woman. ABC Publicity

The Doctor’s nemesis is a woman? It’s about Time, Lord

The latest series of Doctor Who wrapped up on the weekend with the completion of a startling two-episode finale: Dark Waters and Death in Heaven. This season we’ve seen what is perhaps the darkest, edgiest…
International law is clear on whether sexual consent is possible when civilians are faced with armed soldiers. Instagram/Furymovie

The rape scene in Brad Pitt’s Fury no-one is talking about

Brad Pitt says his new Oscar-tipped film Fury is “a real study in leadership and learning to command respect and because of this, I am now a better father”. But while many reviewers have commented on the…
Positive portrayals of people with mental illness exist in the media but these are the exception rather than the norm. Network Ten

Homeland, Carrie Mathison and mental illness on television

When Homeland first aired in 2011 starring a CIA agent with bipolar disorder, Carrie Mathison (played by Claire Danes), it was commended for its realistic portrayals of people with mental illness. Courtney…
Screen production can enhance our understanding of the complexities of human experience. locrifa/ Shutterstock.com

Should film-making count as research? That’s debatable

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…
Outlander might draw on the conventions of romance, but it’s a mistake to dismiss it as “just” romance. Fox

Outlandish desires: why Outlander is a feminist romance

Television series Outlander made its debut on the small screen in August this year, to the acclaim of both reviewers and fans. Critical tongues are wagging, tumblr gifs abound, and Etsy has been inundated…

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