Hungry for Drama? 1st Korean Film Festival

Over the last 18 months or so I have been involved with establishing the 1st KOFFIA Korean Film Festival in Australia. And now its just 3 weeks away! Its been a long and busy workload but the response we have had and the general interest in the festival is very pleasing. I invite everyone to come along to Dendy Opera Quays this October long weekend, and experience Korean cinema and culture.

Screen Culture: My video game revival!

(Note: An edited version of this post was previously submitted for my AFTRS Screen Culture course, Animation & Video Games Task, September 2010)

The ominous quote that opens the game

It wasn’t until my AFTRS Screen Culture course on Video Games that I realised how much I missed the form of entertainment that had occupied so much of my youth. An avid Nintendo fan from the Nes through to the Wii, exploring the worlds of Mario and Link, Samus and Donkey Kong was where I spent a large part of my teens. Offered the chance to review my favourite game of all time, I snapped up the opportunity to revisit an old passion. I immediately knew this review would only focus on 1 of 3 possible games: "Perfect Dark" for the Nintendo 64, "Jet Force Gemini" for the Nintendo 64 or "Eternal Darkness" for the Nintendo GameCube. I chose the latter as it more appropriately met the term of ‘complex game’ and is most notable for its wondrous storyline. 

Genre Cinema: Rule Governed Postcode

(Note: An edited version of this post was previously submitted for my AFTRS Screen Culture course, Genre Task, August 2010)

Genre Film has long pushed the boundaries of the cinematic medium. It may be presented in strange forms from gore-ridden horror to alien infested sci-fi or even to more highly regarded streams such as film noir. Despite its different forms and conventions in each case it is essentially used as a mould by filmmakers to ask questions of humanity and reflect societies self-conscious. The result is a mirror image of our world, which has been sifted through a particular genre's iconography. As adaptations and franchises become ever more popular, genre has become less of a dirty word but unfortunately its reputation is still not crystal clean.

The Black President

While 2008 marked the year that the 1st official African-American president was elected to govern the United States of America, Barak Obama was far from the 1st in popular culture. As I sit here with 1998's Science Fiction film "Deep Impact" playing on the TV, it is none more present than through Morgan Freeman's portrayal of President Tom Beck, an entire decade before Obama was sworn in. Sci-Fi films have themes, plots and characters that are a direct response to social anxieties. They not only push the boundaries in terms of fictional science, they also push the boundaries of story telling.

Mise en Scene: Blog, You Sucker aka A Fistful of Screen Culture

(Note: An edited version of this post was previously submitted for my AFTRS Screen Culture course, Mise en scene Task, October 2010)

Sergio Leone is one of the most distinct filmmakers in the history of the medium. A significant element that led to his distinct style or auteur signature is his use of Mise en scene. There is little to a 'Leone' film that is not immediately identifiable as such, and the only films that challenge this identification are made by directors who were significantly influenced by the Italian born director. From blocking and shot selection, to music beats and performance, a Leone film is a true experience.

Mise en scene in full force

The element I feel that is crucial to a Leone production, is something many people may not first think of, and that is blocking or staging. A production design area often lost on filmmakers of today, and something they can never touch on with regards to classical films. These days sets are rarely built in full for a scene's staging to be laid out, they are manufactured in pieces and the sense of space and environment is never established. Leone was the exact opposite. He knew the exact amount of paces and time it would take a character to walk from one side of the room to the other.

You're Terminated: Story Development

(Note: An edited version of this post was previously submitted for my AFTRS Screen Culture course, Development Task, March 2010) 

To start off the new course that is the Graduate Certificate in Screen Culture at AFTRS, we began by discussing the topic of Development. An area often under thought and under explored in the Australian industry, the creators of the course specifically placed it as the first subject for the year. This instilled in our minds the importance of the general basis of the idea for a film. As is you cant sell a 27 word concept for the film, how can you sell the film itself?

I had previously explored these story development concepts in the Cracking Yarns scriptwriting course I undertook with Allen Palmer, now a lecturer at AFTRS. In this course we discussed screenwriting in much greater detail, but again Allen also stressed the most important element to a good script, the basic concept of it. Whether it be high-concept (a story easily described by a succinct statement) or something more in depth, the importance of these 27 precious words should not be understated. They should be referenced throughout the entire production, to identify what the film is actually about and what it is trying to say.

 Arnold made a big impression

Eternal Night of the Blogless Mind

Well yes, I have finally managed to blog again! Let's hope I can still 'Recall' my opinions and replicate them here for you. Following on from my blog entry about 'experimental film', and the fact that despite its appearance, it still heavily relies on a set pattern of elements and common form, I now extend this discussion by analysing Alternatives to the 'Classical Hollywood Narrative'.

In the 'Story' module of the Screen Culture course that I am undertaking at AFTRS, Michel Gondry's "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" was a prime source of defining Alternatives to the Classical Hollywood Narrative. Gondry's take on Charlie Kaufman's script is exactly that, a piece of multiform narrative that seems completely detached from the Classical Hollywood and yet upon closer inspection matches the Classical almost to a tee.