StoryAlity #114 – ASPERA Conference 2014 (UoN)

ASPERA Conference 2014 (UoN)

On 18th-20th June 2014, I attended the ASPERA Annual Conference 2014 at the University of Newcastle.

Aspera conference 2014

ASPERA is the Australian Screen Production Education & Research Association:

ASPERA is the peak discipline body of Australian tertiary institutions teaching and researching film, video, television and new media as screen based production practices. It was established in 2004 at an initial conference at the Victorian College of the Arts in Melbourne attended by 16 institutions.

(http://www.aspera.org.au/ 2014)

The conference was excellent; so many great presentations and events. The 2014 program is also online here.

Backstory: I attended UoN as an undergraduate in 1991-3 (BA Communication: Screenwriting/Video/Film major) and, I also worked in the UoN Video Department for a year in 1994, (and also tutored at the Wollotuka Centre) so it was also a wonderful and very nostalgic personal experience to return to my young alma mater. At UoN I also studied Journalism (under Lynette Sheridan Burns), and also Photography, and Graphic Design (among other subjects) for my undergraduate degree at UoN. I also studied Horror Screen Studies under Helen Macallan at UoN, and thereby gained an enormous appreciation and even love for Genre films; I studied Screenwriting under Richard Tipping, and as a result of Richard’s influence, I now wear odd socks whenever I can. I also was fortunate to study with (and, have enormous fun making many films with) Jamie B. Lewis of Mikey’s Extreme Romance fame. Okay, so that’s enough backstory [reaches for a Kleenex].

Pro Vice-Chancellor Professor Bill Hogarth opened the 2014 ASPERA conference with a terrific speech, and Bill also mentioned that he is retiring in 6 months, and, that this would be one of the last official academic conferences such as this, at which he speaks. He will certainly be missed upon retirement from UoN.

I also took some snaps during the conference:

University of Newcastle – City Campus

ASPERA conference 2014

Frame left: Jonathan Hutchinson, Syd U, and Richard Huddleston, ABC – “Measuring Social TV: How Social Media Co-Creation is Expanding” – (and, frame centre) Dr Phillip McIntyre UoN, and the 2014 conference convenor, Dr Susan Kerrigan, UoN.

Jeff Julian (Director, Creative Industries, UoN) – “Screen Explosion: Expanding practices, narratives and education for the Creative Screen Industries”

“London Memories – processes for instigating the production of participatory content – exploring the case study platform – http://www.londonmemories.net” – Prof Frank Millward (UoN)

Research Roundtable: “Examination of Screen Production Doctorates” (Moderator: Leo Berkeley)

Research Roundtable: Examination of Screen Production Doctorates

“Pursuing Extreme Romance: Change and Continuity in the Creative Screen Industries in the Hunter Valley” (Dr Phillip McIntyre & Dr Susan Kerrigan)

“Creative Screen Labour: Capital reciprocity in micro-budget corporate documentary” – Samuel Hutchinson (UoN)

“Student filmmakers and what they tell us: innovators or Followers?” – Di Charleson (ACU)

“Using an interdisciplinary collaborative approach to teaching multiplatform production” – Natalia Krikowa (UTS & SAE CMI)

Korsakow Interactive Workshop (Moderator: Adrian Miles, RMIT)

Korsakow Filmmaking – Adrian Miles

“Dialectical Filmmaking and Problem-Based Learning” – John Cumming (Deakin University)

Aspera Research Futures Roundtable (Moderator: Sean Maher, outgoing Aspera president), and frame left: new Aspera President, Tim Thomas (University of Canberra)

Behind the Scenes, at the ASPERA 2014 Official Conference Photo

Susan Kerrigan (UoN Australia)and Pieter Aquilia (UoN Singapore)

Lunch

Dr Craig Batty (RMIT) and ASPERA delegates – (blinded by: the overexposed light)

“My Crew was so Small I Gave Them All a Single-Card Credit” – Dr Donna McRae (Director of the feature film “Johnny Ghost”)

“Researching ‘The Shoot Out Filmmaking Festival’ by Targeting Creativity” – Kristi Street (UoN)

“Four C Models of Creativity” (http://www.jamesckaufman.com/what-is-creativity/) – from Kristi Street’s paper

“Bollywood’s Australian Yarn” – Amit Sarwal (Deakin University)

“There is no one word for it: The challenges of research and creative collaboration in the production of a series of films about Bullying in India” – Alison Wotherspoon (Flinders University)

“Sounding out an Education: Different Pathways, One Industry?” – Natalie Lewandowski (Macquarie University, and editor of Screen Sound journal)

Aspera 2014 – AGM (Sean retires as president, Tim becomes new president)

Gill Leahy (UTS), frame left, as the new Aspera Executive is appointed

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At the conference, I also presented a paper on: Database Documentary Narrative and `The StoryAlity Theory’ K-Film. (30 mins.)

2014 Aspera conference paper

My presentation was filmed, and is below:

JT Velikovsky’s 2014 Aspera paper

if you would like to view the online StoryAlity Theory K-Film i-doc (i.e., Korsakow-film interactive-documentary, 30 mins) click the link below.

StoryAlity #65 – The StoryAlity K-Film: Ep 1 (online i-doc – interactive documentary)

Also, encouraged by Ben Goldsmith (QUT) and Sean Maher’s (QUT) excellent and inspiring paper “Re-thinking Ancillary: Australian Screen Content in Primary, Secondary, and Tertiary Education: Uses and Potential”, I also mentioned the idea of my `Schools of Thought in the Arts / Humanities’ Survey at ASPERA. Many delegates I spoke to seemed to think that such a survey might be a good idea, and also that they would be interested in participating in (and of course, seeing the results of) such a survey. So – when I get time, I will pursue the idea. I am currently looking for feedback, comments and suggestions on the survey design, by all means please make suggestions (as Comments, on that blog-page).

“Database Documentary Narrative and `The StoryAlity Theory K-Film‘ – JT Velikovsky 

Maryella Hatfield (from the UWS) presented on “The Future of Nature”, about her Discovery Channel documentary The Future Makers (2008).

And so – Thanks again also to the University of Newcastle – and to everyone involved – for such a great conference in 2014.

Next year’s ASPERA (2015) conference is at Flinders University in South Australia, and the conference convenor will be Dr Alison Wotherspoon. – Should be another great conference!

Aspera conference 2014

And – for more detail on the evolutionary systems (or, complexity) view of narrative and bioculture in general, see, this book chapter:

StoryAlity #132 – The holon/parton structure of the Meme, the unit of culture – and the narreme, or unit of story – book chapter (Velikovsky 2016)

And for a great consilience & creativity & evolution reading list, see:

StoryAlity #71 – On Consilience in the Arts / Humanities / Communication

Comments, always welcome.

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JT Velikovsky

High-RoI Story/Screenplay/Movie and Transmedia Researcher

The above is (mostly) an adapted excerpt, from my doctoral thesis: “Communication, Creativity and Consilience in Cinema”. It is presented here for the benefit of fellow screenwriting, filmmaking and creativity researchers. For more, see https://aftrs.academia.edu/JTVelikovsky

JT Velikovsky is also a produced feature film screenwriter and million-selling transmedia writer-director-producer. He has been a professional story analyst for major film studios, film funding organizations, and for the national writer’s guild. For more see: http://on-writering.blogspot.com/

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REFERENCES

Velikovsky, J. T. (2016). `The Holon/Parton Theory of the Unit of Culture (or the Meme, and Narreme): In Science, Media, Entertainment and the Arts.‘ In A. Connor & S. Marks (Eds.), Creative Technologies for Multidisciplinary Applications. New York: IGI Global.