RED DOG DOMINATES THE JAMESON IF AWARDS SYDNEY

·       RED DOG takes home seven awards including the Event Cinemas IF Award for Best Box Office Achievement and the Showtime IF Award for Best Feature Film

·       MARGARET POMERANZ and DAVID STRATTON are named the Jameson Living Legend IF Award recipients for 2011

·       EMILY WATSON takes out the Dinosaur Design IF Award for Best Actress for ORANGES AND SUNSHINE

·       JOSH LUCAS wins the IF Award for Best Actor for his role in RED DOG

·       KRIV STENDERS wins the IF Award for Best Direction for RED DOG

·       ANNA MCGAHAN, most recently seen in Underbelly: Razor wins the Out of the Box IF Award

·       RACHEL PERKINS known for First Australians and Bran Nue Dae receives the Docklands Studio Melbourne IF Award for Contribution to Television

 

Full list of winners:

• SAE Institute IF Award for Best Music Video
  Magic by Olivia Newton-John and WACCI
  Director: Dan Murphy
  Producer: WACCI
• Hackett Films IF Award for Best Short Documentary
  Umoja: No Men Allowed
  Director:  Elizabeth Tadic
  Producer: Elizabeth Tadic & Selene Alcock
• South Australian Film Corporation IF Award for Best Sound
  Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole
  Wayne Pashley, Polly McKimm, Derryn Pasquill, Fabian Sanjurjo
• Holding Redlich IF Award for Best Short Film
  When the Wind Changes
  Director:  Alethea Jones
  Producers: Richard Davies & Veeran Naran
• IF Award for Best Script
  Red Dog
  Daniel Taplitz
• IF Award for Best Short Animation
  The Missing Key
  Director:  Jonathan Nix
  Producer: Anna McFarlane & Garth Nix
• The Out of the Box IF Award
  Anna McGahan
  
• AFTRS IF Award for Rising Talent
  Anthony Maras
• Dyson IF Award for Best Production Design
  Oranges and Sunshine
  Melinda Doring
• IF Award for Best Film Festival
  Dungog Film Festival
• IF Award for Best Music
  Red Dog
  Cezary Skubiszewski
• IF Award for Best Documentary
  I Am Eleven
  Director/Producer:  Genevieve Bailey
• Docklands Studios Melbourne IF Award for Contribution to Television
  Rachel Perkins
• Event Cinemas IF Award for Best Box Office Achievement
  Red Dog
• National Film & Sound Archive Independent Spirit IF Award
  Mad Bastards
  Director: Brendan Fletcher
  Producers ; David Jowsey, Alan Pigram, Stephen Pigram & Brendan Fletcher
• IF Award for Best Cinematography
  Red Dog
  Geoff Hall
• Avid IF Award for Best Editing
  Face to Face
  Snowtown
  Veronika Jenet
• Dinosaur Designs IF Award for Best Actress
  Emily Watson Oranges and Sunshine
• Jameson Living Legend IF Award
  Margaret Pomeranz and David Stratton
• IF Award for Best Actor
  Josh Lucas
  Red Dog
• IF Award for Best Direction
  Red Dog
  Kriv Stenders
• Showtime IF Award for Best Feature Film
  Red Dog
  Director:  Kriv Stenders
  Producer: Nelson Woss & Julie Ryan

How many of these Aussie films have folks here made the effort to see (and sometimes, given limited releases, it can indeed be an effort)? What did you especially enjoy recently in home-grown drama (you can include just telly stuff if you like)?

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This July, women all around the world lined up to see the movie spin off of the Sex in The City television series that has been attributed to changing women’s views about sex, relationships and fashion. But while fashionistas flitted about in their uncomfortable toe splitting stilettos, I awaited the return of another female pop icon to the silver screen.

The Right Kind of Role Model

Scully on The X Files. Copyright 20th Century Fox

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She was strong, she was smart, she was cynical and she didn’t compromise her beliefs for a second, despite the all too convincing theories of an overly handsome man by the name of Fox Mulder. She wasn’t obsessed with the latest fashions and used her brains, not her boobs, to pursue her ambitious career objectives.

She was Special Agent Dana Scully and she was the heroine at the centre of the sci fi television drama, The X Files. While Mulder oozed sex appeal and crazy theories about the existence of extraterrestrials, Scully was the skeptical, forensic pathologist always there with a rational explanation for whatever paranormal phenomenon they were investigating that week. She stood side by side with Mulder as an intellectual equal. She was a sexy tomboy whose favourite book was Moby Dick and who wasn’t afraid of anything slimy, bloody or just down right gross. Scully stood strong as Mulder turned green and reached for a bucket.

I was twelve years old at the peak of the X Files phenomenon and I was obsessed with Agent Scully. I loved her and I wanted to be her. More than ten years and a degree in science later, I still have a soft spot for this sassy agent. As embarrassing as it is to admit to making career decisions based on a fictional television character, I take comfort in the fact that I am not alone.

The Next Generation

Science based crime solving programs are bigger than ever and so are enrolments in forensic science courses. Coincidence? I think not.

For the week of October 14 2008, four of the five most watched television shows in the US were crime-solving programs. CSI pulled 23 million viewers and was the most watched program in the country. NCIS came in at number three with 16.2 million, Criminal Minds at number 4 pulled 16.1 million and CSI: NY followed close behind with 15.8 million viewers. CSI: Miami, Cold Case and Bones were all in the top 20. Australia is no different. In the same week, City Homicide, CSI, NCIS, The Mentalist and Criminal Minds all appeared in the Top 20 programs. Reality based crime shows such as The Force and Border Security also rated well.

In an article for Science, forensic scientists Jason Linville and Ray Liu explain why shows such as CSI are so popular. “Hollywood focuses on the most interesting aspects of the forensic investigation. Science becomes a gimmick–a technological toy that the hero uses to find evidence the criminal surely hoped was undetectable.”

Taking the Bait

University enrollments in natural and physical science courses have steadily increased in Australia over the past 10 years. From 2000 to 2004, enrollments increased by almost nine percent and only dropped off over the past few years due to the popularity of environmental studies courses. Last year enrollments increased by 3.1 percent and according to Dr Denise Donlon, a forensic anthropologist and lecturer at The University of Sydney, demand for forensic science courses has never been higher.

“There is much greater interest [due to television programs] and this has probably contributed to the growth of forensic science courses in universities,” she says. “I have had to introduce a quota on my course in forensic osteology.”

The story is the same in the US. Students in the US, especially female students, are citing the strong female role models on shows such as Bones and CSI as part of the reason they are entering what was previously an all boys club. (Told you it wasn’t just me.)

In a recent article in the Winston Salem Journal, West Virginia University professor Max Houck identified television as a reason for the increase in student enrollments: “I have to think that there’s got to be some relationship between the roles that are represented on TV and the way women see what’s possible for them as a career.”

Decisions Based On a Lie?

The internet is full of forums jam packed with questions such as “I love ‘insert TV show here’ and I want a job like that. What do I need to study?” But are students making life-changing decisions based on fiction?

Crime drama Bones has often been compared to The X Files. It’s a known formula: take a smart female scientist coupled with goofy FBI agent, add a bucket load of sexual chemistry, a list of weird cases and you have a ratings hit. Based on the life of Kathy Reichs, a best selling author and forensic anthropologist, Bones is now in its third successful season. Emily Deschanel stars as forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan who along with her team of ‘squints’ work with the FBI to solve bizarre homicides.

Donlon says Reichs’ experience has resulted in the show being rather accurate scientifically, but some aspects are highly dramatised for television. “Temperance Brennan has a team of people ready to do all kinds of analyses whereas forensic anthropologists usually work alone,” she explains.

And forget chasing after bad guys. “We don’t get involved in the investigation the way she does,” she says. “Often the last we hear about a case is when we hand in our report.”

But there’s always the fantastic gadgets right? “No one has a fabulous lab like she does,” Donlon laughs. “Usually we just have a small room with a table or trolley in it.”

Temperance Brennan’s Lab in Bones. Copyright 20th Century Fox

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So maybe real life is not a glamorous as it appears on TV, but when is it?

“I know that an actual crime lab has fluorescent lights and old equipment and cinderblock walls. But I also know people don’t want to look at that,” Naren Shankar, the executive producer of CSI told Expert Voices recently. With a PhD in applied physics from Cornell, Shankar says he is aware of taking creative licence for the visual aspects of the show but draws the line at fudging the science.

Professionals Convinced or Confused?

But it is not only students and potential forensic scientists who are influenced by these programs. Detective-inspector Bob Sitlington from Victoria Police’s Forensic Services told the The Australian and New Zealand Forensic Science Society that even police are fooled.

“Police officers watch these CSI shows like everyone else. Unfortunately, they think what they see on these shows is reality. We have had detectives at crime scenes ring forensics and say, ‘I have seen a certain forensic technique on television. Are you capable of doing it?’

Jokes aside, the writers of these programs take accuracy very seriously and this year for the first time, a television show was acknowledged by the US National Science Board for the promotion of science in the community. A crime solving show that features a mathematician at its core, Numb3rs was honoured “for innovative use of the entertainment medium to promote interest in mathematics education and mathematic applications in everyday life.”

The CSI Effect

An unexpected byproduct of the rise of forensic science has been its effect on the justice system. What has become known in US court rooms as ‘The CSI Effect’ is the impact of ‘whodunnit’ crime shows on the expectations of juries. In an article in the Yale Law Journal, Andrew Thomas says jury members have unrealistic expectations in the courtroom because of CSI.

“In real life, the false expectation of plentiful scientific evidence can create a bias in the jury if this issue is not properly addressed at trial,” writes Thomas.

Jeffrey Toobin’s piece in the New Yorker about the CSI Effect was the topic of a news story by Anderson Cooper on CNN.

Seriously?

The television industry is a fickle market. It is always evolving and changing and it is not uncommon for a show you once loved to disappear into pop culture history. Great television is rare, but when it happens it can change your world. So my advice is, enjoy your favorite shows, take from them what you will but don’t forget that the same people who bought you The X Files are also responsible for Sex in the City.

The Australia Council, an organisation in almost constant flux, has again spun the bingo barrel and pulled out a new round of surprises in its funding announcements — this time in the theatre sector. Eleven new companies have been granted triennial funding by the Council’s Theatre Board, while the same number have had their funding axed.

The announcement continues a recent history of wrenching change in the Commonwealth’s arts funding agency. In 2005, then-CEO Jeniffer Bott pushed through an organisation-wide restructure (labelled a “refocussing”) that led to two of the Australia Council’s funding boards being abolished. Out went specific Boards to support new media and digital arts, and community arts. In came some impressive-sounding “community partnerships” and a special department called the “Inter-Arts Agency”.

As respected ANU academic Jennifer Craik has argued in her book Re-Visioning Arts and Cultural Policy the Bott restructure was not really about addressing the major issues facing the Australia Council and its client organisations. Instead, “the restructure was more about bureau politics than policy reform.”

The current upheaval dates back to 2006, when the Australia Council’s Theatre Board announced a sweeping new policy reform called “Make It New”. “Make It New” was a comprehensive look at the Theatre Board’s funding arrangements in an environment where much of the most exciting work was being made by companies who couldn’t get a look in amongst the Board’s established clients. Theatre Board Director John Baylis acknowledged this problem, and sought to reshape the Board’s funding arrangements towards “contemporary performance” and to allow room for new organisations — “artistic explorers” in the Theatre Board’s jargon — to access three-year funding agreements.

Unfortunately, you have to throw out some babies when you change the bathwater. Take Polyglot Puppet Theatre, for instance, which was de-funded despite an apparently successful recent track record. Or Brisbane’s second theatre company, La Boite, which appears to have been punished for some safe programming in recent years. La Boite may or may not be artistically innovative, but it certainly performs a lot of contemporary Australian drama.

The Theatre Board’s John Baylis makes a good point when he argues that space needs to be made for fresh talent to enter the system. But in terms of the Australia Council’s overall operations, which remain dramatically skewed towards the support of the 29 so-called “major” performing arts organisations, there’s more than a little hypocrisy in the “Make It New” crusade. After all, how “contemporary” are the orchestras or opera companies?

The Major Performing Arts Board hasn’t kicked anyone off for decades and only allows new members on “by invitation.” Apparently, that doesn’t matter — the Major Performing Arts Board is a separate fiefdom of the Australia Council, where making it old is still quite acceptable.