The letter A: Aboriginal Australia - indigenous culture and more

Most of our time in class today will be taken up by didgeridoo workshop. Don't know how much we'll be able to cover so here are some interesting links for you:

1. Dreaming.

Dreaming is essential to Aboriginal cultures. It explains the special bond the people have to their land. Below you will find three short clips taken from Australian Screen - an amazing website which archives the best of Aussie TV and film.

Curator’s notes

by Romaine Moreton

Dog Dreaming is a documentary about the journey of two ancestral dogs across the land that became a Dreaming story. In the land that belongs to the people who speak Mengerrdji, two dogs – the male dog called Adjumalar and the female Womarr – named sites as they crossed the land. Jacob Nayinggu follows their path, telling us what happened to Adjumalar and Womarr as they crossed the country, and how Womarr eventually became a dreaming place at the point where she sank into the ground.
Dog Dreaming is an interesting documentary that invites us into Indigenous cultural beliefs about the land being created by ancestral beings. As Jacob Nayinggu follows the dogs’ journey, he informs us what happened to them and the significance of the sites as a result of the dogs’ passage. Here, we gain an insight into how story is a way of mapping territory, and Jacob Nayinggu can tell us what landmark – a waterhole for example – was created and the name the dogs gave it. But it is the story of Dog Dreaming that Jacob follows as he moves through the land.

- Dog Dreaming part 1
- Dog Dreaming part 2
- Dog Dreaming part 3


2. Aboriginal Flag

The Australian Aboriginal flag represents the indigenous people of Australia. It was designed in 1971 by the Aboriginal artist Harold Thomas. Australian government officially recognized it as a flag of Australia on the 14th of July, 1995.



It consists of three colors (red, yellow, and black).

The black is said to represent the Aboriginal people of Australia, the red is said to represent the red ochre of the outback, and the yellow of the sun. Other interpretations of the colors used in the flag say that the red symbolizes the blood spilled when Europeans first came to Australia.

The designer of the flag Harold Thomas was quoted as saying "I wanted to make it unsettling. In normal circumstances you'd have the darker color at the bottom and the lighter color on top and that would be visibly appropriate for anybody looking at it. It wouldn't unsettle you. To give a shock to the viewer to have it on top had a dual purpose, was to unsettle.. The other factor why I had it on top was the Aboriginal people walk on top of the land. It's an obvious fact as well. So it had.. that was the reason why the black was on top was visibly unsettling and because of how I was trained at art school, not to make things too obvious but to have a bit of a shock but also to say that the people walk on the land."

Official Australian buildings often display the Australian Flag and the Aboriginal Flag side by side. The colors of the Aboriginal flag have also become powerful symbols of pride and strength for the indigenous people of Australia.

(from: IndexOz)

3. Adelaide

And a short clip from my favourite traveller/YT poster Overlander



4. Animation in Australia and New Zealand

See if you can see the connection? What do the following have in common?
- The Lord of the Rings
- King Kong
- District 9
- Legends of the Owls
- Avatar

WETA Digital is one of the leading CG/FX houses in the world, along George Lucas' Industrial Light and Magic. Follow the links to visit their website and be sure to watch their commercials (especially "Snowball" ;-) ) and reels.


Australian animated feature films and shorts have won many awards. Here are just two examples.

- Oscar winning short: Harvie Krumpet



The odd biography of a man who has Tourette's Syndrome, chronic bad luck, menial jobs, nudist tendencies, and a book of "fakts" hung around his neck.
- some clips from Happy Feet (click the picture below)

Be sure to be back tomorrow for your "B" topics!

Aboriginal Australia

Sorry Day and the Stolen Generations

This is a fictional "sorry speech" spoofed in one of the greatest satirical series on Oz TV - "The Games".

Listen...



... and compare it with the actual speech.



Which one do you like better? ;-)

For more information on Stolen Generations CLICK HERE.

Here is a summary in a video format:

WELCOME :-)

I hope that all of you managed to navigate here safely :-)


Please be sure to come back tomorrow.

I'll be posting topics that we'll cover in our next class as well as useful links that will help you get prepared.


Also do remember to post your "PUB NAMES" in the comments section, together with the list of who is in which group.



Thanks :-)

Till tomorrow!

Another film tip

Well, this film hasn't been shot yet, but it's already on my radar. It combines my three favourite phrases:

- stereoscopic 3D
- science fiction

and of course

- Australia

:-)

Below you'll find a great article from Film Ink. But before you read it, check this short film (you will need red-cyan 3D glasses)

S21-3D from S21film3D on Vimeo.

New Directions

by Cara Nash | September 15, 2010 12:41 | Edited September 15, 2010 12:42

We speak to local producer Laura Sivis about a 3D film to be shot in Australia next year.

Nearly three years ago, French filmmaker Olivier Parthonnaud was one of the few to believe in Stereoscopic 3D (S3D) as a viable release format. While James Cameron worked on Avatar in New Zealand, Parthonnaud began moving forward in France with Australian Producer Laura Sivis, and a small but experienced Stereoscopic 3D team.

Parthonnaud wanted to prove that it was technically possible to make a sci-fi live action film in S3D. Sivis says investors were initially reluctant to back the technology because of the cost and the fact that many saw it as a passing fad. "People didn't wish to invest the manpower or resources required to get up to speed," she recalls. "Even those who acknowledged that James Cameron would make a groundbreaking film assumed Avatar would be an event film which would be limited to a few IMAX screens, not an industry changer that would permeate into mainstream expectations."

Parthonnaud and Sivis' currently untitled sci-fi film in the making is an ambitious project, but an exciting one. The story revolves around a lunar prisoner who escapes to earth via a holo-transport link. The lunar station commander finds himself trying to stop a killer hologram that can hold a weapon, but against whom weapons are completely useless. However, the commander then discovers this dangerous prisoner is the creator of the holo-transport link, and must be kept alive at all costs.

As a way of researching and developing the film, Parthonnaud and his team selected parts of the feature that they knew would constitute technical challenges in 3D and began exploring how these could work. Those pieces were rescripted and from them Parthonnaud wove a sci-fi short film titled S21-3D, which won the 2009 Australian SMPTE Dimensionale 3D Film Festival and was released recently in France.

Compiling the short - which tests and incorporates 3D lunar landscapes and vehicles, futuristic city skyscrapers, fight sequences and hologram characters - was an invaluable experience. "Prior to doing the short, we were heading down a different path creatively, but this new path is infinitely more spectacular," Sivis says. "That's very much thanks to our R&D team who used their collective experience and hunger to push the boundaries of what can be done."

Shooting the feature length version of the film is scheduled to begin in Australia in the first half of next year and Parthonnaud and Sivis have already begun assembling an award winning creative and technical team which they hope will feature a mix of local and international talent. "For key cast we are speaking to successful Aussies who are currently based overseas who will happily jump on the next plane back once we set a start date. There will also be a couple of international cast too."

While the film is to be shot in Australia, Sivis acknowledges some of the restrictions in casting local actors. "Packaging films has become much tougher since the world financial crisis. Sales agents and distributors want to see at least four to five internationally known actors even in the smaller films," she explains. "It's understandable that they are trying to mitigate their risk. But it has ramifications. A greater slice of the budget needs to be allocated to cast, sometimes as much as 30-50% of a budget and more for smaller films."

Sivis says our talented crews were an incentive for shooting the film in Australia and she hopes that the film may signal a shift in support of science fiction. "Australian crews are simply really really talented with sci-fi films. Look at The Matrix Trilogy, Star Wars 2&3, Red Planet, Farscape, and Pitch Black," Sivis enthuses. "The irony and the tragedy is that we never make any of our own. It's historically been outside the Australian government funding bodies' brief to make or support Hollywood style blockbuster stories, let alone sci-fi. I for one am hoping that we can swing that around."

From the director of "Not Quite Hollywood"...

... comes another masterpiece!

It is a bit Oz-related as some of filmmakers interviewed in this documentary are Aussies.



(WARNING: blood, gore, sexuality)

Outback Tent Boxing

Another brilliant little documentary I found on YouTube.

Tent Boxing is a crossover of sport and entertainment in which fist fights are organised between professional boxers and the local guys who want to prove to their mates and, above all, to themselves that they can conquer their fear and face a superior adversary - that they are real men. Not so much different from adulthood initiation practices in so many ancient cultures.

It's a bit of Australian identity which - sadly - may become extinct before it even gets known.

Strange Bedfellows

You can enjoy this funny little film free (and legally ;-) ) online.

CLICK HERE