Talks and live happenings that pay homage to the small screen in a cult celebration of TV.

Talking TV

At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, VR and AR artist Marc-O-Matic began exploring the Crypto Art and NFT space, expanding his work into blockchain and metaverse platforms and eventually creating virtual worlds, animated artworks and digital wearables for an emerging decentralised economy. Two years on his work has earned over $1 million USD from NFTs – Non-Fungible Tokens – and is featured across some of the most notable NFT marketplaces including Super Rare, Makers Place, Decentraland, and festivals in the US like Art Basel Miami and NFT NYC.

In our first Inside ACMI X podcast, Marc-O-Matic talks about his practice and his own beginnings in this emerging space and offers practical advice for artists looking to make a living on the blockchain.

Inside ACMI X
https://www.acmi.net.au/whats-on/inside-acmi-x-pocast

ACMI X
Website: https://www.acmi.net.au/acmi-x/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/acmiXstudio

Marc-O-Matic
Website: https://www.marcomatic.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/marc0matic
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mr.marcomatic
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marcomatic/

Inside ACMI X podcast

Making and selling NFTs with artist Marc-O-Matic

In this episode, we discuss mentorship and storytelling in the screen industry with Denise Eriksen, co-founder of Media Mentors. Using her wealth of experience and knowledge of all things broadcasting, Denise helps creative practitioners find their way into the industry.

About Denise Eriksen
Denise has worked as a Journalist, Producer and Executive Producer around the world. She has been Head of Factual and Head of Current Affairs at the ABC; Head of Production and Development at SBS; and made programs for Seven, Nine, Ten and Foxtel over her lengthy career. She has trained TV professionals in many genres in Australia and around the world.

Mentoring and storytelling with Denise Eriksen

Mentorship and storytelling with Denise Eriksen

Writer, director and star of 'The Drover's Wife: The Legend of MollyJohnson', Leah Purcell, spoke to us about her thoroughly researched, Blak feminist retelling of Henry Lawson's classic text.

Read the full transcript of the talk and an introduction to the film by Bryan Andy
https://www.acmi.net.au/stories-and-ideas/leah-purcell-on-reclaiming-the-drovers-wife-with-the-legend-of-molly-johnson/

The Drover's Wife: The Legend of Molly Johnson – Leah Purcell in conversation with Bryan Andy

This episode is for fans of non-fiction.

Our guest, Natasha Gadd, is a writer/director and the Creative Director and CEO for the Australian International Documentary Conference (AIDC). In this episode, Natasha describes her creative process, industry trends and the documentaries she enjoys watching.

In 2005, Natasha co-founded Daybreak Films, a Melbourne based production company. She wrote and directed her debut feature documentary, Words From the City , nominated for five AFI Awards. Her follow up feature, Murundak: Songs of Freedom received the Grand Prix – FIFO, Best Documentary – Valladolid International Film Festival and the United Nations Association of Australia Media Peace Award. Natasha has made a series of half hour arts documentaries including Weather and Muscle for which she received an Australian Directors Guild Best Director award.

Non-fiction storytelling with Natasha Gadd

Dilan Gunawardana holds a master's degree in Communication and Media Studies from Monash University. He plans, creates and curates online content at ACMI in Melbourne.
[image caption]: "The Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI) Melbourne, Australia" by ^ Johnny is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0.
[music caption]: Piano March by Jason Shaw. Released under Creative Commons Attribution License 3.0. Music by audionautix.com.

Pages Beyond podcast, episode 2: an interview with ACMI's digital editor

Lannister, Baratheon, Stark, Tyrell, Targaryen. As another season of HBO’s smash hit comes to a close, Game of Thrones will be back in the House, as we take a trip back to Westeros to explore the evolution of TV’s most dysfunctional noble families.

After exploring the first two brutal seasons of Game of Thrones back in 2012, our panel will revisit the beheadings, red weddings and royal undoings of the ensuing three seasons, and examine the epic fandom that has engulfed the show.

With HBO’s groundbreaking announcement of the simultaneous global broadcasting of its fifth season, Game of Thrones cemented its place in TV history as a worldwide phenomenon.

Back in 2012 when we first examined the show in an evening of discussion, debate and some rather saucy erotic fan fiction, the popularity of the program was steadily climbing. Families had done battle, houses had fallen, and a handful of eggs had spectacularly hatched.

But a lot can happen in three seasons, particularly in Westeros. With new characters emerging and old characters losing battles – and potentially their heads – season five promises to offer viewers more dragons, more fights, more sex, more epic battles, and a lot more snow (both atmospheric and of the Jon variety).

Our panel of guests including film critic and writer for Guardian Australia Luke Buckmaster, journalist, author and cultural critic Mel Campbell, writer Luke Ryan and writer and broadcaster Clementine Ford, strapped their armour on, sharpened their swords and returned to the Seven Kingdoms to discuss who is still in the running to win TV’s most cut-throat game of thrones.

Recorded: 30 June 2015

Game of Thrones

Presented as part of Hey Girl, this panel discussion, hosted by comedian Judith Lucy, will look at girls on screen in a special evening dedicated to dissecting some of the funniest and fetchest pop-culture favourites.

Featuring Mel Campbell, Jessica Knight, Billie Tumarkin and Candy Bowers this conversation is suited to girls, anyone who was once a girl and anybody who knows a girl.

It’s hard to know whether to cheer or groan at the success of Lena Dunham’s hit TV show Girls. On one hand, it’s encouraging to see real, imperfect female bodies on screen. On the other hand, it’s depressing that such images are still revolutionary. ‘There's people who don't want to see bodies like mine, or bodies like their own bodies,’ Dunham has said.

Girls is just one show that has inspired some fiery debates about female representation and diversity in popular culture. Our panel – comprising some of the smartest young women we know – will also respond to clips from Broad City, Freaks & Geeks, The Katering Show, Puberty Blues and, of course, Mean Girls. Can we see ourselves in these characters? Who is left out in representations of girls on screen? What power do these representations hold over our imaginations? And could there ever be a show about girls as gross as The Inbetweeners?

YAS KWEEN: Girls on Screen Podcast

Much to the joy of Twin Peaks fans, master of surrealist nightmares David Lynch has re-visited Twin Peaks after 25 years. Season three sees the return of many of the characters that touched our hearts and haunted our dreams. 

Join Andy Hazel, host of 'Twin Peaks: The Return, A Podcast' and a panel of writers and critics for some damn fine coffee and doughnuts as we venture back to the realm of the Black Lodge.

Twin Peaks: No One Is Innocent

Having conquered the cutthroat world of satirical online cooking shows with The Katering Show (Australian TV's all-time most viewed digital series), the two Kates are ready to take their trademark sassy swipe at morning lifestyle television in Get Krack!n, a new series for Seeso and ABC.

Each morning the Kates will shuffle through a roster of unsafe demonstrations, surly guests, unprepared experts and the over-lit decomposition of the duo’s already rocky relationship. Viewers will quickly discover that McLennan and McCartney will leave no cultural touchstone unturned, even though they are in no capacity qualified to speak on them, or on anything for that matter.

As always, neither of the women has any sense of on-camera technique. While McCartney’s Daria-esque enthusiasm is a total miss-match to the bright and breezy format, McLennan’s hosting is imbued with a fetid air of desperation. The show should be McCartney and McLennan’s Big US Break. But, like any televisual format that the Kates put their rough, manly hands to, things on Get Krack!n will go downhill fast.

This Q&A with Kate McLennan and Kate McCartney followed the screening of the first two episodes.

Series Mania 2017 Get Krack!n Q and A

This Q&A with Ian Collie, Wally Elnour, Ez Eldin Deng, Anna McLeish, Sarah Shaw, Matt Cameron and Elise McCredie follwed the screening of the first episode of Sunshine which was selected as Series Mania Melbourne's opening night screening, 

Sunshine is a vibrant, kinetic and compelling high stakes fictional crime drama that explores a world of contrasts - truth and reconstruction, past and present, hope and heartbreak – felt by those forging a new life in a foreign land. 

The 4 x 1 hour series is set in the summer of 2017 in the Melbourne suburb of Sunshine. The story follows Jacob Garang (Wally Elnour), a young, aspiring South Sudanese-Australian basketball player who is on the cusp of being picked up by scouts for the US College league. However, Jacob’s team is not up to his standard and so he angles to bring in a new coach to help with the team’s performance. His pick is Eddie Grattan (Anthony LaPaglia), a local who once played for a US college team, but has long since retired and operates a small sports store in Sunshine. Almost against his best instincts, Eddie accepts an approach by Jacob to coach his underperforming team, The Sunshine Kings. 

In the midst of his aspirations, Jacob finds himself answering to Sunshine-raised lawyer Zara Skelton (Melanie Lynskey) when he is caught up in a police investigation involving a young teenage girl who has been violently assaulted and is now in a coma fighting for her life.

Series Mania 2017 Sunshine Q and A

Is the recent trend in 80s retro films and TV symbolic of a nostalgia for a simpler era?

The 80s was a decade renowned for its excess - think money, drugs, eyeshadow and lycra. From Stranger Things and Glow to Spielberg’s upcoming Ready Player One, we look at contemporary TV and films that transport us back to the decade defined by  ET, The Goonies, big hair, pastels and 12-sided dice.

But what does this recent trend in 80s retro nostalgia tell us about ourselves? Are we nostalgic for a simpler pre-Trump age?

Join filmmaker Glendyn Ivin, academic Dr Lauren Rosewarne and critic Mel Campbell in a neon-coloured, synth-scored exploration of our yearning for 80s small town America.

Copyright Acknowledgments 

Title: Stranger Things, Series One, Episode One
Copyright: Netflix

Title: Stranger Things, Series One, Episode Two
Copyright: Netflix

Title: Glow, Series One, Episode Seven
Copyright: Netflix

Title: Wet Hot American Summer
Copyright: USA Films

Title: E.T.
Copyright: Universal Pictures

Title: The Goonies
Copyright: Warner Bros.

Title: Stand By Me
Copyright: Columbia Pictures

Title: Puberty Blues, Season One, Episode One
Copyright: Endemol Australia

Title: Puberty Blues, Season One, Episode Three
Copyright: Endemol Australia


Title: Cracker Bag
Copyright: Glendyn Ivin

ACMI Conversations: Retro Nostalgia

In an ever-changing media landscape, and with audiences savvy and cynical about advertising, brands are looking for more subtle ways to draw their customers in. Enter the documentary filmmaker. Does this offer an exciting new source of finance for documentary or is it a sell out? Is it still possible to make authentic stories within this form? Who has creative control in this environment? Why do brands give money to filmmakers and what do they want in return?

This session brings together a world-class panel of award-winning filmmakers, producers and broadcasters to share their first-hand experiences making documentary content for brands and the mechanics of building successful partnerships to do so. They will explore how brand funded content works, why they do it, how it is different to working within traditional funding pathways, and what the deals look like. Between them, our panel has made everything from online content to television to feature films, financed by brands. They will share the realities, the pitfalls and the opportunities of this new financial option in our documentary producing toolbox.

AIDC 2018: Brand + Filmmaker = Story

VCR (Four Tet Remix)

The xx - VCR (Four Tet remix)

Australia's only national museum of film, video games, digital culture and art - situated at the heart of Melbourne in Fed Square. Listen to our latest podcasts of live events, playlists associated with exhibitions, and more.

Located at Fed Square. Open daily. #acmimelbourne www.acmi.net.au

Game of Thrones

ACMIOnline

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