The thesis takes up the question of the representation of the migrant on the Australian screen in terms of a specific set of concerns around the notions of stereotype and self-reflexivity. The stereotype is read as a self-referential image: hence, as a question of film spectatorship and identity; in short as an unconscious reflex or self image. The text of the thesis is in two parts: part one, comprises the production of the film ‘Italians at home’. It is the major component of research and text which, for this purpose, has been copied and submitted hereto on VHS video cassette. Part two, includes an analysis and discussion of the television documentary ‘The migrant experience’, and an exegesis, of the production, narrative and reception of the film ‘Italians at home’. The migrant experience is read and discussed as an exemplary text of dominant, stereotyped discourse of cultural difference; while ‘Italians at home’ is proposed as a parallel text and a self-reflexive reading and criticism of such a text. Both the television documentary and the film, deal with the representation and problematic of homogenised representations of ethnicity. In the case of ‘The migrant experience’, it is argued, that the figure of the migrant as other and self-image, functions as an object of Australian culture and discourse of national identity within a logic of representation of binary structures; while the film ‘Italians at home’, the question of self-referentiality is seen in terms of the viewing subject and a problematic of film representation; thus, the film attempts to make such signifying structures, visual codes and agreed assumptions of otherness visible, while, at the same time, attempting to displace them or pose them as a problem of representation or reading for the viewer.

Australian film has engaged social issues since its earliest days, often within the genre of comedy. Writers and filmmakers have treated a wide range of issues with varying degrees of success in engaging their audience in a level of social discourse. This success has been independent of the specific issue addressed, the government funding policy, cultural policy, the national and international political climate, and available technologies. Rather it can be attributed to the filmmaker's approach to both characterization and narrative. Of the films chosen for examination it appeared that a positively portrayed protagonist in combination with a narrative that provided a clear but balanced opinion on the issue addressed was more successful in engaging its audience in a level of social discourse. The ability of the films to engage their respective audiences was based on criteria such as box office success, critical reception, and media and public discussion of the film around the time of its release as well as more recently. The findings of this investigation arose from the production of a feature length screenplay, The Last of the Wombats, which dealt with the issue of national security. The screenplay follows the Ruddocks along on their journey from personal insecurity, through issues of perceived threat, to the initial response of increasing the physical security measures around their house. These actions produce more problems than they solve, and this state of imbalance forces the main characters (Amber, Brian and Karen) to address their own insecurities and eventually to move beyond them.

"...we, directors and actors, put into practice the practice - we don't practice the theory. I think that if there is no theory of acting, at least there are theoretical laws that we may find, curiously enough, in all traditions of acting. It is true that the term "theory of acting" does not seem fundamentally wrong, but it seems always somewhat imperialistic and pretentious. I prefer to use fundamental laws which we sometimes know but then sometimes lose and forget. It is only practice that all of a sudden can make law or tradition rise to the surface. I will not say then that there is no theory of acting; on the contrary, there have been many of them. Of course, what interests me in these multiple theories are the essential laws that are common to all of them." - Ariane Mnouchkine (from "Building Up the Muscle" in Re:direction edited by R. Schneider and G. Cody, Routledge, London, 2002.) I come to filmmaking from an actor's perspective and believe that the power of each individual performance is the key to audience engagement with a feature film. The technical aspects of filmmaking, for me, exist primarily to serve the story as revealed through the actors' performances. Because performance in film has been a neglected area of research, I set out to explore the different approaches to performance theory which might apply to film performance in an Australian context. In this dissertation, I have asked a number of key questions about how the director communicates with the actor to elicit the desired performance. I framed this thesis around one overarching question: What is the dominant approach used by Australian film directors when working with actors on performance? This study reveals that many Australian filmmakers have been most influenced by a wide variety of approaches to working with actors, particularly because of the way actors are trained in Australia. My interest in this project was partially triggered by my observation that many filmmaking students at QUT seem driven by the technical aspects of filmmaking. Given the complex demands made on actors, filmmakers who do not learn to speak the actor's language arguably fail to capitalize on their working relationships with actors. I have attempted to express my findings in plain English because the whole purpose of this project was to ensure that my findings would be of use to new filmmakers in a practical sense.

Monster Business is a feature film project comprising a horror-thriller feature screenplay and an accompanying exegesis. The screenplay is about a best-selling author who is behind on the delivery of the sequel to his money-spinning first novel and is made an offer by an enigmatic stranger to help rearrange his working environment to facilitate the rapid completion of the manuscript. Over the coming hours, then months, the author discovers just how far the stranger will go to complete the terms of this bizarre and brutal new contract. This accompanying exegesis examines a series of 'paratexts' (a logline, a one-pager and a treatment) that the screenplay has given rise to. The thesis argues that the role of the screenwriter does not end with the production of the core text--the screenplay. Instead, in order to support the development and/or the marketing of the script into a feature film, the screenwriter is an ongoing generator of supplemental documents or paratexts. The paper explores the status and function of paratexts (loglines, onepagers, treatments and explanatory development notes). It further argues that developmental paratexts are a necessary evil, providing a sifting or culling mechanism for producers and production executives, and that they are intended to guide a project toward being 'greenlit' but will more often have, at best, benign or, at worst, negative or destructive effects on its development. In this way, developmental paratexts, although ubiquitous and pro forma, are inherently problematic.

Using an expanded and adapted conception of the Bildungsroman (or novel of development or formation), this thesis examines representations of Italian Australian identities through an analysis of selected English-language literary and film narratives produced by individuals of Italian descent in Australia since World War II. It draws upon critiques of the genre of the traditional Bildungsroman to further contribute to the conceptualisation of a related genre, the ethnic bildungsroman. In applying an interdisciplinary approach, the thesis critically analyses the processes of ethnic identity formation in these Italian Australian narratives in various socio-historical and literary contexts, with particular reference to the intersection of gender and ethnicity. It is argued that not only can the development of individual protagonists’ identities be read in each text, but the narratives selected here chart the journeys of ethnic identification made by Italian Australian protagonists and the varying trends in their modes of identification. This study focuses upon a selection of fiction, biography and autobiography that narrates these identities. These narratives both directly and indirectly address experiences of being of Italian heritage in Australia at various times throughout the twentieth century. It argues that the narrative representation and, more importantly, the narrative self-representation of ethnic identities are integral parts of migration and settlement processes, as well as significant steps in opening up dialogues amongst and between various Australian identities. (For complete abstract open document)

This dissertation excavates the work of early special effects cinematographer Norman O. Dawn in order to explore film spectatorship, the ephemerality of the cinematic image, and motion picture preservation and archival practices. Best known for his innovations of glass and matte shot techniques, Dawn produced 861 composite images while working in the U.S. film industry between 1906 and 1954. Although technological film historians acknowledge the importance of Dawn’s innovations to the development of motion picture special effects, the composite images themselves as well as the films for which they were produced remain in relative obscurity. Rather than attempting to recover these objects for inclusion in an existing film canon, my research interrogates their obscurity by analyzing Dawn’s special effects processes against the broader economic concerns that inform the dominant practices of the US film industry during the first half of the twentieth-century. My research begins with the Norman O. Dawn collection housed at the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, which is the most comprehensive historical record of Dawn’s work in the film industry. Constructed by Dawn himself between 1962 and 1974, this collection consists of 164 poster-sized collages of archival ephemera that illustrate the special effects processes employed in the production of 235 composite images for eighty-five films. While these eighty-five film titles constitute a tentative corpus upon which to base my research, seventy of these films are lost, which raises questions concerning the relationship between motion picture preservation and film history, specifically why these films have not been preserved while others have and to what extent the economic imperatives of the film industry have determined these conditions. I address these questions in my analysis of archival material related to these films, finding that they traverse several distinct domains of film practice—including early scenic footage for newsreels and the amusement park ride Hale’s Tours of the World, early one-reel travel films, silent-era studio shorts, serials, and B features, and poverty row and independently-produced silent and sound feature-length films—thereby situating Dawn’s special effects at the intersection of the early and contemporary cinematic modes often aligned in studies of cinematic special effects. I argue that this heterogeneous corpus points to a studio-era Hollywood cinema alternative to the classical model, largely forgotten because it is dominated by low-budget product intended to supplement more costly feature films. In contrast to the classical model, this alternate cinematic mode emphasizes the scenic and thrilling elements that characterize both early exhibitionist films and contemporary effects-driven blockbusters. In this context, Dawn’s special effects processes constitute a historically marginalized practice precisely because they are non-routine techniques that provide cost-effective means to produce otherwise economically infeasible scenes, and, as such, operate on the periphery of conventional film production.

After experimental beginnings in the 1970s, a commercial push in the 1980s, and an underground existence in the 1990s, from 2000 to 2007 contemporary Australian horror production has experienced a period of strong growth and relative commercial success unequalled throughout the past three decades of Australian film history. This study explores the rise of contemporary Australian horror production: emerging production and distribution models; the films produced; and the industrial, market and technological forces driving production. Australian horror production is a vibrant production sector comprising mainstream and underground spheres of production. Mainstream horror production is an independent, internationally oriented production sector on the margins of the Australian film industry producing titles such as Wolf Creek (2005) and Rogue (2007), while underground production is a fan-based, indie filmmaking subculture, producing credit-card films such as I know How Many Runs You Scored Last Summer (2006) and The Killbillies (2002). Overlap between these spheres of production, results in ‘high-end indie’ films such as Undead (2003) and Gabriel (2007) emerging from the underground but crossing over into the mainstream. Contemporary horror production has been driven by numerous forces, including a strong worldwide market demand for horror films and the increasing international integration of the Australian film industry; the lowering of production barriers with the rise of digital video; the growth of niche markets and online distribution models; an inflow of international finance; and the rise of international partnerships. In light of this study, a ‘national cinema’ as an approach to cinema studies needs reconsideration – real growth is occurring across national boundaries due to globalisation and at the level of genre production rather than within national boundaries through pure cultural production. Australian cinema studies – tending to marginalise genre films – needs to be more aware of genre production. Global forces and emerging distribution models, among others, are challenging the ‘narrowness’ of cultural policy in Australia – mandating a particular film culture, circumscribing certain notions of value and limiting the variety of films produced domestically.

Over the period of candidature, write and direct a feature film to completion. Furthermore, undertake a thorough reflective phase which involves the analysis of each aspect relating to those key components, writing and directing. Through this form of creative practice and utilising state of the art digital filmmaking techniques it is hoped that an addition to knowledge will be achieved.

An interpretative methodology for understanding meaning in cinema since the 1950s, auteur analysis is an approach to film studies in which an individual, usually the director, is studied as the author of her or his films. The principal argument of this thesis is that proponents of auteurism have privileged examination of the visual components in a film-maker’s body of work, neglecting the potentially significant role played by sound. The thesis seeks to address this problematic imbalance by interrogating the creative use of sound in the films written and directed by Rolf de Heer, asking the question, “Does his use of sound make Rolf de Heer an aural auteur?” In so far as the term ‘aural’ encompasses everything in the film that is heard by the audience, the analysis seeks to discover if de Heer has, as Peter Wollen suggests of the auteur and her or his directing of the visual components (1968, 1972 and 1998), unconsciously left a detectable aural signature on his films. The thesis delivers an innovative outcome by demonstrating that auteur analysis that goes beyond the mise-en-scène (i.e. visuals) is productive and worthwhile as an interpretive response to film. De Heer’s use of the aural point of view and binaural sound recording, his interest in providing a ‘voice’ for marginalised people, his self-penned song lyrics, his close and early collaboration with composer Graham Tardif and sound designer Jim Currie, his ‘hands-on’ approach to sound recording and sound editing and his predilection for making films about sound are all shown to be examples of de Heer’s aural auteurism. As well as the three published (or accepted for publication) interviews with de Heer, Tardif and Currie, the dissertation consists of seven papers refereed and published (or accepted for publication) in journals and international conference proceedings, a literature review and a unifying essay. The papers presented are close textual analyses of de Heer’s films which, when considered as a whole, support the thesis’ overall argument and serve as a comprehensive auteur analysis, the first such sustained study of his work, and the first with an emphasis on the aural.