A huge congratulations to B.Comm(Media) grad (and current Honours student) Samuel Harris and fellow alumni of the MIFF Critics’ Campus, who have established the film criticism website Rough Cut. The site will house reviews of films, festivals, interviews and other cinema-related articles.
The website was also recently featured on Criterion Daily, so is getting some serious international traction (and traffic!):
A group of young critics in Australia have banded together and launched an online publication, Rough Cut.Among the highlights so far are Ivana Brehas’s audiovisual essay on “moments of physical opposition” in Elaine May’s Mikey and Nicky (1976), André Shannon’s interview with Carlos Reygadas, and Valerie Ng’s essay on Jacques Tati’s Mon oncle (1958), which “draws humor from the community of things, the collective action, and the culmination of parts—the architecture of rooms, windows, and doors; of people, children, and dogs, materializing a gentle portrait of social practice.”
The Audiovisual Media Design studio from Semester 2 has resulted in a wonderful campaign for Uniting called Food for Families. The studio was responsible for the video content, created across the semester (and well into November!) and now distributed via Uniting’s various media platforms.
Over the last few months the students have worked tirelessly to develop these captivating short videos to demonstrate the impact of ‘giving a little’ to others this Christmas. We’re delighted to share the students’ hard work. We hope these videos inspire you give a little and mean a lot to someone who really needs it this Christmas.
Final year RMIT Bachelor of Communication Media students recently held two ‘Future Media’ events. The purpose of these was to showcase research and media production undertaken for their final degree course (Media 6). Students worked in groups throughout the semester to analyse an aspect of the current media industries and then produced a related media object that embodied a ‘what if?’ proposition about the future. Topics included the future of cinema, video on demand, big data, freelance media workers, podcasting, the analogue revival, youtube careers, digital identity, children and the media, and future video technologies. Course Coordinator Dr Brian Morris explained that ‘the course gives students training in researching where media industries might broadly go next, or at least what key challenges they face now and this assists them in the ongoing process of figuring out individual career trajectories as well as exploring the broader social implications of ongoing technological change’.
Graduate, staff and student work is featured in this year’s St Kilda Film Festival, which highlights the top 100 short films in Australia.
Student Michael Firus has a film selected in the St Kilda Film Festival.
The festival is now an Academy Awards qualifying event, with award-winning films from the festival eligible for consideration in the Short Film Awards and Documentary Short sections of the Oscars.
RMIT is a proud sponsor of the annual festival, providing the Under The Radar Best Youth Film award.
A number of RMIT graduates, a staff member and a current student have had films accepted in 2017.
Films by Bachelor of Communication (Media) graduates showing at this year’s festival include Happy (Stacey Kwijas), Tinseltown (Corrie Chen), Fim Creswick (Emma Haarburger, who also produced two music videos), and Reading the Wind (Adam Ricco).
Firus describes his film A Prickly Affair as a short character-driven documentary focusing on the themes of environment, the vitality of age and Melbourne’s thriving artisanal culture.
He said the most valuable parts of studying at RMIT are the contacts and practical opportunities available to students.
“For example, last year, in my first year of university, I received an internship opportunity through RMIT for the advertising company CHE Proximity in South Yarra,” he said.
“It was there where I met many media professionals who offered advice on my practice.”
Firus wants to use his degree to acquire a position in video advertising with a view to transitioning to a motion picture or commercial documentary director.
Program Manager Rachel Wilson said it was important to acknowledge how unusual and special it is that a film made during a students first year is accepted into such a major festival.
“We are all extremely impressed with Michael’s motivation and dedication to exploring the many opportunities in the field,” she said.
Staff member Ashley Perry, a lecturer in the Bachelor of Communication (Professional Communication) and a graduate of the Bachelor of Communication – Media directed Police Officer TAKAGI which was also selected for the festival.
The St Kilda Film Festival runs from May 18 to 27, 2017 at the Palais Theatre and the St Kilda Town Hall.
Interactive documentaries by a group of RMIT Media program undergraduate students have been selected to screen by Maroondah City Council’s ArtSpace.
Video still frame from Memories in Action by students Anna Miers and Margaret Tanjutco.
The works are part of the ANZAC: through the eyes of young people exhibition supported by the Department of Veteran Affairs, Anzac Centenary fund.
RMIT lecturer and studio lead Dr Seth Keen worked with ArtSpace curator Lisa Byrne and RMIT students on remixes of a documentary made by the Walkley Award winning filmmaker, Andy Drewitt, on a 2016 youth theatre production, ‘Carrying Home’.
Keen said he has a strong interest in integrated scholarship being a part of the Media studios in the School of Media and Communication.
“The partnership with ArtSpace happened when I saw the opportunity for students to work at a professional level with a filmmaker, theatre director and curator,” he said.
“This studio was a challenge in regards to facilitating the students to work with the complex real-world technical and creative constraints of the exhibition brief.”
Byrne said the collaboration was about creating a voice for ANZAC through an intergenerational engagement with some stories that had their origin in Maroondah.
“The students provided more specific engagement with this documentary material through topics such as loss, trauma, women, memory and remembrance,” she said.
“The resulting works that were chosen for the show reflected a thoughtful and engaged consideration of what it was like, particularly for women left at home and the issues they faced.”
The students sourced and added extra material to support their ideas within the films to tell multilinear stories around ANZAC, producing a contemporary, youthful engagement and voice on ANZAC.
At the exhibition launch – Andy Drewitt, Councillor Mike Symon, theatre director Sharyn Mullens and RMIT student Eloise Large.
RMIT student Eloise Large in the Bachelor of Communication (Media) is one of the producers of a selected interactive documentary, and joined City Councillor, Mike Symon, and theatre director Sharryn Mullens as a guest speaker at the launch of the exhibition.
“We, as a collective, were given an opportunity to produce a visual art piece that represented what ANZAC meant to us,” she said.
“For my team, the outcome was unexpected in relation to producing a perspective on trauma, through the use of frame-by-frame animation.
“In our studio, there was a wide variety of perspectives created on ANZAC, and our project is just a small portion of the amazing work completed in our studio.”
Maroondah Mayor Mike Symon said this unique ANZAC exhibition is a refreshing, contemporary engagement with an important part of Australia’s history.
“The collaborative creative process of this exhibition provided RMIT students with the ability to reflect on the emotions of people living during World War One,” Councillor Symon said.
The themes present a contemporary engagement with some of the prominent people of World War One that have a significant legacy in the City of Maroondah.
The ANZAC exhibition runs until Sunday 21 May at ArtSpace Realm, 175 Maroondah Highway Ringwood.
RMIT students had a chance to work nad/or observe behind the scenes through placements in the new ABC drama Newton’s Law.
Some scenes were shot at RMIT’s city campus in the former Melbourne Magistrates’ Court
Students in the School of Media and Communication had an exciting work integrated learning opportunity on the set of the eight-part drama series produced by Every Cloud Productions in association with the ABC, Screen Australia and Film Victoria.
Created by the team behind Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries,Deb Cox and Fiona Eagger, Newton’s Law stars Claudia Carvan as a suburban solicitor who returns to the Bar.
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Co-producer Anna Molyneaux and Development Manager Katherine Fry said Every Cloud Productions is keen to support the development of creative talent, particularly those based in Victoria, by offering students access to a hands-on experience in departments relevant to their studies.
Actor Claudia Karvan as Josephine Newton in Newton’s Law
Maggie O’Shea, who is studying a Bachelor of Communication (Media), was offered an internship in the production office during the shooting of the show.
“Maggie worked with our production manager both in the office and on set, observing and assisting in the many practical areas that keep a production ticking, from attending casting and production meetings to assisting with the daily administration that is essential throughout the production process,” co-producer Anna Molyneaux said.
Professor Lisa French, Deputy Dean (Media), said Every Cloud Productions is leading the industry in efforts to redress the gender imbalance; the company has more women than men in key roles and actively recruits women.
“This is unusual in the film and television industry where women are generally the minority across most roles,” French said.
Some scenes were shot at RMIT’s city campus in the former Melbourne Magistrates’ Court, giving media students on campus the opportunity to observe first-hand prime Australian television drama being shot literally next door to their classrooms.
RMIT’s School of Media and Communication is excited to be one of the Australian partners chosen by Intel’s Global Production Labs (a division of ‘Agency Inside’, the in-house creative and production group of this major tech company) to participate in a paid internships scheme in the San Francisco Bay area (which also includes fully subsidized housing). Internships will be based in the areas of producing, director of photography/shooting, offline editorial, vfx an and audio (sound design, music supervision, recording). Interns will work for three months in a team of 6-8 production specialists and have a chance to hone their production skills while learning the structure and workflow of a traditional ad agency and global corporation. They will also be introduced to leaders from multiple Intel departments and Silicon Valley partners and industry leaders.
The School was lucky enough to have Intel representative, Lisa Effress (Executive Producer of Mentorship, IGPL), recently offer an overview of the new scheme and answer questions.
Applications for the upcoming September and December 2016 intakes close on 1st June 2016. Interested current RMIT media students students and recent graduates (1-2 years out) should contact BComm Media Program Manager, brian.morris@rmit.edu.au for more information including the application form. Good luck to all those who apply!
