SCREEN DESIGN at AFTRS -Sydney is offering three programs in 2011.

The Graduate Diploma in PRODUCTION DESIGN [one year full time]

The Graduate Certificate in ART DIRECTION [one year part-time]

The Graduate Certificate in COSTUME DESIGN [one year part-time]

Applications open September 1st 2010 and close November 1st 2010.  Any questions regarding SCREEN DESIGN programs, please contact sarah.stollman@aftrs.edu.au

Check out issue 4 of the AFTRS journal LUM:NA.  ”Talk Plain: Genre and the Production Designer” [p.135], by Sarah Stollman, considers the role of Production Design in supporting a particular Genre’s story. Purchase a copy online on the AFTRS website.

I’m not surprised everyone wants a different person in the office of the Prime Minister of Australia.  Virtually all the questions in interviews,Q and A shows and “debates” leading up to the election were from citizens about themselves as individuals.  An older person asks how much he will get for a pension; a woman with a disadvantaged child asks if there will be more money for support of the child.  A man of an ethnic minority asks what the government intends to do about racism and prejudice.  Citizens who don’t realize they too are uninvited immigrants, want to know what the government is going to do about the uninvited immigrants currently trying to get to Australia’s shores.  The everyman asks why we need to pay more taxes and what we as individuals are going to get in return, and what we will lose.  These are all important and valid issues, but until people begin to look at larger issues and philosophies first to see which candidate’s approach to running the country will set these issues as priorities, the candidate’s small electoral promises have no strength or basis for commitment.

Who out there is asking how we can prioritise the country’s spending so our tax money is used efficiently; how we can help political and social situations in difficult countries through international relations before their citizens are forced to leave their homes; and if they leave, how we can ethically help them as human beings, not as “boat people;” how we can redirect the focus and priority of this country to a culture of helping those who need help in all areas be they education, health, employment, social issues, not just ticking those issues that benefit “me.”  There are national issues, world issues and earth issues being unaddressed.  As the citizens in this country don’t seem to be reaching outside their front door, no wonder no one can agree on a leader; no one is questioning the larger issues that would actually expose a difference between candidates.  The choice of leader cannot please a majority if each individual is simply looking for a government to solve their individual crisis.  And if this is all the citizens of Australia want in a country, in a culture and in a leader, does it really matter much who is in office?  When the people of Australia start thinking about larger philosophical, ethical and logistical world and earth issues they will have a greater stake in choosing who is leading the country. When people come to appreciate that Australia’s actions will not only effect an individual’s current life but also the lives of generations to come in an individual’s family, in Australia, in the world and on the Earth, the question of who should lead this country will have an importance great enough to throw the balance.

In the meantime, people are purely obsessed with Me.   Me alone does not make a country.  Me alone only makes a place for one to reflect on oneself.  Perhaps in Australia, films could be produced that make a link from ME to the world or the Earth and not continue in this trend of ME, ME, ME films.  Producing an Australian content story could connect Australia’s culture to someone or someplace outside of ME and thus ironically teach people more about Me.

Now it is up to Independent MPs to decide whether Julia Gillard or Tony Abbott should be running Australia.  What have they said is the main issue helping them make this decision?  Regional issues from their own regions.  The slightly larger ME.

Get ready for a fantastic exhibition of the work and films of Tim Burton.

ACMI in Melbourne is exhibiting Tim Burton’s wonderful work curated by MOMA in New York, in direct collaboration with Tim Burton.  The ACMI announcement reads: “An Australian exclusive, Tim Burton: The Exhibition is a landmark exhibition charting Tim Burton’s creative vision and process from his earliest work to the spectacular Alice in Wonderland”.

Beginning his career as an animator, production design has always been a strong aspect to Burton’s storytelling.  Burton has worked with great production designers such as Anton Furst, Bo Welch, Dennis Gassner, Alex McDowell, Dante Ferretti, Wyn Thomas and most recently Robert Stromberg and he mainly works with costume designer Colleen Atwood. Although Burton has always worked with many different  designers specifically talented in supporting each particular project, his visual storytelling is so strong that his own visual stamp gives a consistency to his films.

There have been two events with Tim Burton in Melbourne during June.  Following on are screenings and discussions as well as submissions for an online gallery featuring Burton inspired artwork.  Burton himself will select his fav ten.  Check it out on Flicker : Burton Wonderland Gallery

More updates after seeing the exhibition!  TIM BURTON : The Exhibition runs from June 24 2010 to October 10 2010

Robert Stromberg began his career in film as a traditional matte painter followed by his career as visual effects master.  His unusual career has brought him to the point of production designing two extremely successful films one after the other.   On AVATAR, which he co-designed with Rick Carter,they were awarded with both the Oscar and the BAFTA awards.  Tim Burton’s ALICE IN WONDERLAND gave him the opportunity to solely design the physical and visual worlds that Alice experiences.

The photo above is of Tim Burton’s Jabberwocky based on the original engravings below, by Sir John Tenniel that Lewis Carroll uses in his original book.  It is a beautifully coloured adaptation of a rich and detailed original story.  Check out a great print interview with Robert Stromberg on his work.

AFTRS [Australian Film, Television and Radio School] is pleased to announce the return of the Screen Design Program.  In 2010 we are inaugurating two courses:  The Graduate Certificate in Production Design and The Graduate Certificate in Art Direction.  Keep in touch with PRODUCTIONDESIGN.FOKE to see posts by our current students and continued new links and other exciting posts.  Welcome to all our students!

I can’t get enough of the WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE movie.  The production design by K.K. Barrett is so perfect in respecting Maurice Sendak‘s story.  The way Spike Jones tells the story is so moving and the soundtrack by KAREN O and THE KIDS [YEAH,YEAH,YEAHS] is flawless.  I sound like a groupie.  Click on the links to find interviews with Maurice Sendak and key crew members about the film.  Read on to hear my take on the film and it’s Production Design.

When I walked out of the film with my kids and a friend.  The friend, aged 10 who had been going through a complicated time with her parents said to me, “did you get that all of the Wild Things are different parts of Max’s personality.”  I thought about how such a young person instantly got the essence of the structure of the story.  We start in a familar place, home, and run with Max with such fervor until he stops in the land of the Wild Things.  The fast pace of the structure and the careful, subtle production design that holds true to the aesthetic of Sendak’s book creates such an exciting film.  It is almost impossible to separate the sensual experience of the design of the sets with the design of the costumes and with the music.  The treatment of texture and colour in all these areas [music included]  all support the emotional and psychological journey of Max.  The imaginary world of a child made “real” is realised so beautifully through Barrett’s design.  The directness of Carol’s model of the perfect world and the Wild Thing’s attempt to create that world elegantly supports Max’s emotional journey . The ordinary and seamless movement of Max through the streets of his world to the boat, to the sea and to the world of the Wild Things puts the film into the genre of Magic Realism. This may not be the case for every viewer as this newly created genre is extremely subjective and perceptual.  We are in Max’s real world and we escape with him as an ordinary experience  into an other worldly place.  Max never questions the reality of that place and we don’t see his Mother question his experience upon his return.  The beautiful and consistent design is perhaps broken only in Max’s house where there were some opportunities missed to make subtle references to Max’s journey.  Some references were made through drawings and form, and I think I saw Sendak’s book in a pile of books at the door of Max’s room. The exploration of subtle foreshadowing through props and dressing in Magic Realism films is one of the elements that holds that genre together.  More to come on Magic Realism in the next blog.

The subtitle of Doidge’s book is “Stories of Personal Triumph from the Frontiers of Brain Science.”   That is exactly what makes this book accessible to the non-brain surgeon and non-psychiatrist.  Doidge writes about actual stories that are dramatic and engaging and have a hopeful ending.  The stories surrounding  the researchers and doctors involved are equally as dramatic and engaging as are those of the people being helped. 

How does this new understanding help designers to design the visual approach of a screen project?  The spaces people inhabit expose their likes, dislikes, obsessions, desires, problems and skills.  If we don’t have a clear understanding of a character, a background story and a possible future story, we can not clearly make decisions  about how and where characters live their lives.  This follows on with companies, groups of people, different cultures or movements.  This knowledge helps all screen projects, not simply films with a greater philosophical or artistic base.  Straightforward stories are also enhanced through the design of a project that shares a greater communication with the audience about the characters and story.  The follow through of this theory is shown in practice in the book previously reviewed on this blog about the work of Production Designer Dick Sylbert [ "Designing Movies - Portrait of a Hollywood Artist"].  If you read the chapter on Sylbert’s contribution to the film “My Best Friend’s Wedding” directed by P.J. Hogan, the importance for a production designer to have a strong and all-encompassing understanding of human nature is made clear.

I loved reading this book as if it were a suspense novel, I couldn’t stop reading until I reached the end!

So this book is for everyone in any profession or place in life.  This book itself changes the brain just by its reading, through the opening up of the given perceptions of our brain’s limits.

Director/co-writerMichael James Rowland and producer/co-writer Nial Fulton have won the 2009 Kodak Inside Film [IF] Award for Best Documentary [Australia] for the film The Last Confession of Alexander Pearce .  The film examines the final days of the Irish convict during his incarceration in Tasmania.

Rowland, a graduate of AFTRS in Production Design, shot the film on location around the Franklin and Gordon Wild Rivers National Park, North West Tasmania and in Sydney.  Although it has won this award in the Documentary competition, the dramatic film has also been nominated in dramatic film and TV categories for a multitude of awards [see Alexander Pearce blogspot for full list].  While at AFTRS, Rowland wrote and designed the highly acclaimed short film, The Existentialist Cowboy’s Last Stand and wrote and directed the short film, Flying over Mother.  Rowland’s subsequent feature film, Lucky Miles, details the journey of three refugees who arrive by boat to the Western coast of Australia in the middle of nowhere.  Their personal stories illuminate the current debate regarding refugees and their place in Australia in the 21st century.

As Production Designer, AFTRS alumni Felicity Abbott created the authentic and moody look of The Last Confession of Alexander Pearce.  She  also production designed Rachel Perkins’ soon to be released feature film Bran Nue Day and the ABC television drama My Place [also in part directed by Rowland].