AIDC Screen Hub Coverage

AIDC was extensively covered by Screen Hub reporters and the full selection of articles are available below. We wish to thank Screenhub for making this content available to our subscribers. Please click on each link to read the articles online.   

Wednesday

Snakes, Angels and Sustainable Visions
AIDC 2010 formally opened at the Hawke Centre in the University of South Australia, an elegant gallery space with an elegant lecture theatre full of elegant documentary tragics with a sound system that might have worked for a ventriloquist suspended from a crane.

Stanley Hawes Address
Tom Zubrycki delivered the awards address on the first evening of the conference. Here is the full text. Starting anecdotally, in reflective mode about his past, he moves on to critical issues which are central to the evolution of documentary as a culture and an enterprise.

AIDC 2010: Beers, Ferns 'Ice Road Truckers'
W. Paterson Ferns, gifted wrangler of fractious documentarians at conferences, amiably confronts the world's most successful wrangler of the Essential Brute in Western Man - Thom Beers.

Jonathan Stack - Nigeria, Liberia & Angola (the prison, not the country)
Jonathan Stack is a New Yorker and a documentary filmmaker whose first film led to a fifteen year engagagement with Angola Prison, Louisiana (the only way to get out of there was to be executed or die of old age). He has filmed in some of the most dangerous places in the world, and changed that world with his prison docs.

Convergent Media "If you build it, they won't come"
Kirsty Hunter, Head of Interactive at Lion Television in the UK, Australian Jennifer Wilson, Director of The Project Factory, and Canadians Michael McMahon, Executive Producer, Primitive Entertainment and Silva Basmajian, Executive Producer at the National Film Board of Canada, dazzled all with their powerpoint presentations.

Natural History, History and Science Docos at the ABC
Alan Erson ABC commissioning editor ABC in history, natural history and science, Stuart Menzies, Head of Documentaries, want to see Australian native producers petting (or being eaten by) Australian native animals: “(Ant) Lions and (Tasmanian) Tigers and (Drop) Bears, oh my!” - to paraphrase Marilyn Monroe.

An Adventure with Trailer Trash
Every time you see a trailer you make a decision: do I want to see this program, or not. It’s yeah vs. meh. A good pitch trailer can be the difference between your project getting picked up, or not. A good release trailer is often the difference between box office and ratings glory, or not.

Matt Campbell - SBS, and the millions lost with 'Top Gear'
Veteran journalist and interview wrangler Sandy George faced Matt Campbell, who has steered SBS on a long, strange path between advertising, squeezed budgets, and a wonderful documentary heritage.

SBS - Shiny New Doc Teams Finds its Tarnish
By SBS’s own admission and in their own words “for the past year, things haven’t been as clear as they could have been because of the new team at SBS, a bit like Screen Australia perhaps. There has been a fair bit of uncertainty…” but this afternoon proved that they believe that they are alive and kicking.

In conversation with the ABC
Stuart Menzies and Dasha Ross provided an overview of the ABC’s documentary programming wish-list – for both contemporary and indigenous documentary program making.

In conversation with Alan Rosenthal
Alan Rosenthal, a long term independent, now the Professor of Communications at Hebrew University, Jerusalem, has lived, worked and taught in the UK, America, Israel, Australia, and Mexico. He reflected upon his fifty documentary and docu-drama films, and his obsession with the genre... which he fell into by accident.

The Science Behind Science
The Science behind Science programs of course is an art, as wrangled by Alison Leigh, the editorial director of the World Congress of Science and Factual Producers, with producer Sonya Pemberton, Amanda Tyndall from the newly formed Royal Institution of Australia, and Dr Judy Ford.

Thursday

Editor's Hour with Storyville, BBC Scotland and BBC World News 
Along with the hallowed name, sorry .. brand.. of BBC Storyville, BBC Scotland and BBC World News laid out their spaces defined by a changing monolith.

ABC Arts Wants Your Eyeballs
Amanda Duthie is head honcho of Arts and Entertainment at ABC TV, and is in her third year in this role. She is responsible for both arts documentaries and nurturing emerging filmmakers - both hot button topics for producers with challenging projects.

A Glimpse Behind the Curtain: Doco Sellers and Buyers
A moment of pure, sparkling reality dropped into the AIDC when experienced international sales agent Esther van Messel pitched a real project to the Holy of Holies - Storyville. And both parties told the truth about the process.

It’s All Media
The full title of this session was It’s All Media With New Money Using Heritage Principals. It was about how Marcus’ company approaches development, financing and production of their award-winning all-media projects such as 'Storm Surfers', which is about to go into a second incarnation.

The F4 Experience
William Head, recent VCA graduate, was selected for the F4 program, which provides a strand by which eight emerging filmmakers can explore the AIDC. At the same time, the mainstream delegates can connect with the issue of renewal. This is William's experience of the program - a small tribute to the power of POV.