Today we were lucky enough to have a session with Senses of Cinema Editor and film critic on Melbourne radio station Triple R, Alexandra Heller-Nicholas. We discussed authorship and readership, as well as having a screening of the short film “I’m You, Dickhead”, directed by Lucas Testro. We were then tasked with writing a 200-400 word capsule review of the short, which would be critiqued by our peers. As with any crit session, I find it to be incredibly unnerving when someone reads my work, specifically someone who is unfamiliar with my ever-developing authoritative voice as a writer.

Here is a short excerpt from the piece that I was able to come up with in the 30 minutes that we were allocated for this task:

“This existential affirmation is cushioned with earnestly crude and wholeheartedly Australian humour, which exists in an exclusive subculture of dickhead-ery that only true blues can comprehend.”

Other topics that were covered by Alex included:

• Who do you think you are? Why do people care what I am saying? What validates my authority as a writer?
• Keep audience in mind in relation to the film being discussed.
• The amount that you must take in depends on the scale of the writing, what you have to say and how many words you say it in.
• Context and history of the film is integral to writing a quality piece.
• Opinions and individual taste are not criticism.