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Creative careers are responding rapidly to new creative practices, new audiences, emerging digital platforms and technologies. These careers are well paid, resistant to automation and permeate all aspects of society. Yet students’ and teachers’ perceptions and attitudes are not in alignment with the reality of a job in Australia’s Creative Industries. Research exploring the perceptions of a creative career in high schools showed there was a significant disconnect between perceived jobs and actual jobs, impacting on student aspirations to work in the creative industries. Current narratives in schools need to shift beyond an outdated idea of traditional “Arts” towards the realities of a contemporary creative workforce which combines digital, entrepreneurial and creative skills. A mixed method Australian state case study, was conducted in regional school communities, collecting data from across creative classroom practice, surveys and interviews. The findings point to a limited understanding of creative careers held by specialist teachers, careers advisors and students. This resulted in severely limited advice being provided to high school students in terms of choices of secondary curriculum and educational pathways for a creative career.

Addressing the question “how is a podcast created?” – four podcasters document their practice as research, framing their experiences as a research enquiry while making their first podcast. Practiti...

Public focus on screen business in Australia has been shaped by the information needs of the regulatory and content investment agencies that monitor and support screen content made under the creative control of Australians. This has meant that available data has concentrated on the types of content that have been deemed to require regulatory support – feature films, documentaries and television drama, with more recent interest in short-form content intended for streaming and online platforms and games. The expansion of the notion of screen business has led to a series of Screen Australia reports that focused the debate on value frameworks that included cultural, economic and audience values. These reports informed the 2017 Federal Government inquiry into the Australian Film and Television Industry – they do not, however, provide insights into how screen business is incorporated into localised regional economies and they tend to downplay the cultural contributions from the television and advertising sectors. By looking at screen business in four regional Australia cities we demonstrate how four modes of screen production, which include commercial and corporate content, is being made sustainably in the regions and that regional screen content production activities are an important part of the national screen production ecosystem.

Description The Creative Hotspots project, or as it was officially titled Australian Cultural and Creative Activity: A Population and Hotspot Analysis, was an expansive, four-year project funded by an Australian Research Council Linkage grant (LP160101724). This comprehensive national study investigated the contemporary dynamics of cultural and creative activity in largely regional and non-capital cities and towns across Australia before the outbreak of COVID-19 in March 2020. In total, the project conducted fieldwork in 17 creative and cultural hotspots across five states: Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, Western Australia, and South Australia, examining what makes each hotspot “hot”, identifying the dynamics that underpinned their high concentrations of creative and cultural employment and activity. This White Paper outlines the project's findings and outcomes.

First Nations content on commercial Australian television drama is rare and First Nations content makers rarely produce the content we see. Despite a lack of presence on commercial drama platforms there has been, and continues to be, a rich array of First Nations content on Australian public broadcast networks. Content analysis by Screen Australia, the Federal Government agency charged with supporting Australian screen development, production and promotion, aggregates information across the commercial and non-commercial (public broadcasting) platforms which dilutes the non-commercial output. The research presented in this article focused on the systemic processes of commercial Australian television drama production to provide a detailed analysis of the disparity of First Nations content between commercial and non-commercial television. The study engaged with First Nations and non-Indigenous Australian writers, directors, producers, casting agents, casting directors, heads of production, executive producers, broadcast journalists, former channel managers and independent production company executive directors—all exemplars in their fields—to interrogate production processes, script to screen, contributing to inclusion or exclusion of First Nations content in commercial television drama. Our engagement with industry revealed barriers to the inclusion of First Nations stories, and First Nations storytelling, occurring across multiple stages of commercial Australian television drama production.

Success and failure in the creative and media industries are not polar opposites. In a predominantly neoliberal world, with its consuming emphasis on winning at all costs, success is not only easy ...

Coffs Harbour on the north coast of NSW is a highway city sandwiched between the Great Dividing Range and the Pacific Ocean. For thousands of years it was the traditional land of the numerous Gumbaynggirr peoples. Tourism now appears to be the major industry, supplanting agriculture and timber getting, while a large service sector has grown up around a sizable retirement community. It is major holiday destination. Located further away from the coast in the midst of a dairy farming community, Bellingen has become a centre of alternative culture which relies heavily on a variety of festivals activated by energetic tree changers and numerous professionals who have relocated from Sydney. Both communities rely on the visitor economy and there have been considerable changes to how local government in this region approach strategic planning for arts and culture. The newly built Coffs Harbour Education Campus (CHEC) is an experiment in encouraging cross pollination between innovative businesses and education and incorporates TAFE NSW, Coffs Harbour Senior College and Southern Cross University as well as the Coffs Harbour Technology Park and Coffs Harbour Innovation Centre all on one site. The 250 seat Jetty Memorial Theatre is the main theatre in Coffs Harbour for local and touring productions while local halls and converted theatres are the mainstay of smaller communities in the region. As peak body Arts Mid North Coast reports, there is a good record of successful arts related events which range across all genres of music, art, sculpture, Aboriginal culture, street art, literature and even busking and opera. These are mainly managed by passionate local volunteers.

Marrickville is located in the western heart of inner-city Sydney and is the beneficiary of the centrifugal process that has forced many creatives out of the inner city itself and further out into more affordable suburbs. This locality is built on the lands of the Eora nation. It is one of the most culturally diverse communities in the country but is slowly being gentrified creating tensions between its light industrial heart, its creative industry community and inner city developers. SME’s, co-working spaces and live music venues, are all in jeopardy as they occupy light-industrial warehouses which either have been re-zoned or are under threat of re-zoning. Its location underneath the flight path of major air traffic may indeed be a saving factor in its preservation as the creative industries operate across all major sectors here and the air traffic noise keeps land prices down. Despite these pressures the creative industries in Marrickville have experienced substantial growth since 2011, with the current CI intensity sitting at 9.2%. This is the only region in this study where the cultural production sector holds more than half the employment for specialists and support workers, when compared to creative services.

The Australian Film Television and Radio School is a well-established training institution with an impressive track record in producing successful alumni. In 2016, an industry survey of the Austral...

Filmmaking research is developing within the academy and the Filmmaking Research Network (FRN) was set up to provide insight into the conditions and dimensions of filmmaking as research. The assess...

Practitioner-based enquiry (PBE) has been successfully applied as a research methodology to media production projects for undergraduates, honours and doctoral researchers at the University of Newca...

Wollongong’s geographic proximity to the southern sprawl of Sydney, accessible transport and cultural diversity have been an attractor for many inward bound creative migrants, helping it diversify away from its industrial past. Wollongong City Council, understanding the importance of the creative industries, has been very proactive in ensuring that the heart of the city has been well and truly activated by sectors of these industries, while the University of Wollongong and its Innovation Campus have also proved a boon to both specialist and embedded creatives. Wollongong maintains a balance between traditional creatives and newer tech-oriented operatives, most with local, national and international suppliers and clients.

Description Ballarat sits on Wathaurong land and is located at the crossroads of four main Victorian highways. A number of State agencies are located here to support and build entrepreneurial activity in the region. The Ballarat Technology Park, located some way out of the heart of the city at the Mount Helen campus of Federation University, is an attempt to expand and diversify the technology and innovation sector in the region. This university also has a high profile presence in the city occupying part of a historically endowed precinct in the city centre. Because of the wise preservation and maintenance of its heritage listed buildings by the local council, Ballarat has been used as the location for a significant set of feature films, documentaries and television series bringing work to local crews and suppliers. With numerous festivals playing to the cities strengths many creative embeddeds and performing artists take advantage of employment in facilities such as the Museum of Australian Democracy at Eureka. The city has its share of start-ups, as well as advertising, design and architectural firms. The city is noted for its museums, its many theatres and art galleries. All major national networks service the TV and radio sector here while community radio is strong and growing.

Albury-Wodonga, situated in Wiradjuri country, sits astride the Murray River and has benefitted in many ways from its almost equidistance from Sydney and Melbourne. It has found strength in the earlier push for decentralisation begun in early 1970s. A number of State and Federal agencies have ensured middle class professionals now call this region home. Light industry is a feature of Wodonga while Albury maintains the traditions and culture of its former life as part of the agricultural squattocracy. Both Local Councils are keen to work cooperatively to ensure the region is an attractive place to live signing an historical partnership agreement. The region’s road, rail, increasing air links and now digital infrastructure, keep it closely connected to events elsewhere. At the same time its distance from the metropolitan centres has meant it has had to ensure that its creative and cultural life has been taken into its own hands. The establishment of the sophisticated Murray Art Museum Albury (MAMA) as well as the presence of the LibraryMuseum, Hothouse Theatre, Fruit Fly Circus, The Cube, Arts Space and the development of Gateway Island on the Murray River as a cultural hub, as well as the high profile activities of its energetic, entrepreneurial and internationally savvy locals running many small businesses, events and festivals, ensures Albury Wodonga has a creative heart to add to its rural and regional activities.

Geelong and the Surf Coast are treated here as one entity although there are marked differences between the two communities. Sitting on the home of the Wathaurong Aboriginal group, this G21 region is geographically diverse. Geelong serviced a wool industry on its western plains, while manufacturing and its seaport past has left it as a post-industrial city. The Surf Coast has benefitted from the sea change phenomenon. Both communities have fast growing populations and have benefitted from their proximity to Melbourne. They are deeply integrated with this major urban centre. The early establishment of digital infrastructure proved an advantage to certain sectors. All creative industries are represented well in Geelong while many creatives in Torquay are embedded in the high profile and economically dominant surfing industry. The Geelong community is serviced well by its own creative industries with well-established advertising firms, architects, bookshops, gaming arcades, movie houses, music venues, newspaper headquarters, brand new and iconic performing and visual arts centres, libraries and museums, television and radio all accessible in its refurbished downtown area. Co-working spaces, collective practices and entrepreneurial activity are evident throughout the region.

This issue interrogates understandings of creative practice in screen production research within the framework of a broad range of activities that includes production and distribution of feature fi...

The filmmaking creative process is staged and task specific, and the success of a film is dependent on filmmaker’s working collaboratively and creatively, in small and large teams, to complete discrete tasks that are frequently iterative and recursive. These tasks are enabled and constrained by situational variables including financial, logistical, technological, aesthetic, and editorial, and the successful completion of the filmmaking tasks is dependent on a filmmaker’s creativity. This practice-led research presents an innovative methodological case study that captures the creative and collaborative activities of a documentary filmmaker and illustrates how filmmakers collaborate with other filmmakers and the community to create a film. Four collaborative principles are identified that describe how filmmakers achieve their goals; the principles reflect group approaches to creative filmmaking practices and, more broadly, the collective nature of arts practice.

The relationship between film-makers who create and spectators who judge film is the focal point of this paper. It examines theoretically how these two positions co-exist inside a film-maker that can be supported through critical and conceptual creative practice frameworks. By drawing on filmology, an early film studies area of scholarship, original film theory elements will be re-framed. For example, the filmic terms ‘diegesis’ and ‘spectator’ are central to film theory and pedagogy but ‘creator’, ‘afilmic’, ‘profilmic’, ‘screenic’ and ‘filmographic’ are not frequently used. A re-framing of the filmology suggests another way for the film-maker and spectator to co-exist as a filmic agent who produces creative practices through film-making structures and production contexts. Spectatorship provides one component of the knowledge, skill and practice required for a film-maker to work creatively in a system. Other systemic components that co-exist with spectatorship are the practical, logistical and ne...

The ‘Steel City’ of Newcastle, Australia, is transforming into a ‘Creative City’. Renew Newcastle provides a unique and innovative success story of the reactivation of 150 empty retail shops that were populated by ‘makers’ who could use those spaces as both studios and retail outlets to sell their authentic handmade products. Renew's story sits comfortably alongside four in-depth interviews with other Creative Industry (CI) business owners from fashion, graphic and web design, accounting and film. This research reveals strategies used by regional businesses to survive, and connects a city's cultural identity with business confidence. This research builds the argument that opposites should be seen as being complementary so that binaries like competitors versus collaborators could be seen as competitors working together and sharing knowledge and skills. This research is supported by a systemic approach to creativity that places the individual as part of creative system where success and failure can ...

Noirscapes is a transmedia experience, and the cameras are rolling. Writing its own version of Los Angeles’ history, Noirscapes is a filmed scholarly discourse that literally drives through the urban environment of the city of Los Angeles constructing a noir historiography. The authors of this article are film-makerresearchers who, as a mode of creative practice research, are using screens and the medium of film to write with, on and for the screen. The premise of Noirscapes is that film noir can function partly as a surrogate history of Los Angeles, so that film noir screens provide written cinematic evidence of the city’s actual as well as imagined history. Noirscapes presents a series of short films that constitute a creative practice research output. Filming and driving across the freeways and boulevards of present day Los Angeles allowed the film-makers to traverse production locations and to discuss their role in urban historiography, as featured through iconic film noirs like Double Indemnity (1944), Sunset Boulevard (1950) and Chinatown (1974). Noirscapes demonstrates how film-making and spectatorship can be used as complementary research methods that enquire with, on and for the screen.

Digital disruption manifesting through innovations in distribution is providing opportunities for the screen practices of academic, research based and independent filmmakers. Critical attention on distribution examines how digital intermediaries are changing the way filmmakers can connect their content to markets and educational audiences. In addition to enhanced prospects surrounding self-distribution, opportunities for research-based filmmaking emerging from online platforms and players continues to expand the global reach of what has traditionally been niche programming. Drawing on a range of best-practice examples from the Filmmaking Research Network (FRN) survey conducted in 2017 a collection of films are discussed in addition to three in-depth case studies tracking how the lead author’s filmmaking has responded to the digital distribution landscape.

Filmmaking is a creative practice. However, what do we mean when we use the term ‘creative practice’? This chapter explores the terms ‘creative’ and ‘practice’ by examining what has been called the creative system in action (McIntyre et al., The Creative System in Action – Understanding Cultural Production and Practice. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016). Drawing on the research literature from psychology and sociology, a link to ‘filmmaking’ will be made through media and cultural production scholarship (McIntyre, Creativity and Cultural Production: Issues for Media Practice. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012.). Using examples from independent documentary filmmaking (Kerrigan, Using Fort Scratchley (DVD), Fort Scratchley. Australia: PhD Productions, 2008; Journal of Media Practice, 14(2), 111–127, 2013) and fictional television serial production, this discussion will illustrate how creative filmmaking practices are aligned with confluence models of creativity (Csikszentmihalyi, Implications of a Systems Perspective for the Study of Creativity. In R. Stenberg (Ed.), Handbook of Creativity, Cambridge (pp. 313–335). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), group creativity models and staged creative process theories (Bastick, Intuition, How We Think and Act. Chichester/New York: Wiley, 1982; Csikszentmihalyi, Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention. New York: HarperCollins, 1996). Examining the complexity of the daily choices made by the conditioned agent, in this case a filmmaker, the discussion will focus on the decision-making process of factual and fiction filmmaking and how it connects to creative practice (Kerrigan in McIntyre et al., The Creative System in Action – Understanding Cultural Production and Practice. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016). This will necessarily involve the methods and processes used by the filmmaker, as they develop an intuitive approach to their practice which becomes embodied knowledge that enables them to work within a collaborative, social and cultural system. This scholarly approach to the term ‘creative practice’ will provide an understanding of how a filmmaker can apply work from other disciplines to bring new insights to ways of regarding filmmaking as a creative practice.