What's new in the world of film

The simple answer... nothing... there is nothing new happening. Except for maybe the strange blurring of lines between New Media and what Television Stations are calling 'New Media' as a way of somehow branding their products as hip and funky for their ill educated Gen Y target audience. But lets not get into THAT discussion, it's boring and ruled by the fact that there doesn't seem to be adequate ways of eliciting revenue from true New Media products so we have to masquerade old media as something new. Happily there ARE new films in the world of film and I've just spent a goodly amount of time sitting in dark rooms watching what Australia and the World have to offer at the Sydney Film Festival.

One of the more interesting sessions was the Dendy Awards screenings. With the documentary Rare Chicken Rescue probably the stand out film. It had that uniquely Australian flavour that we love so much down here.

There was also a short film about a dead Maori boy whose white friend, although somehow responsible for his death, went to the lounge room based funeral to say his farewells. The film revolved around the stand-off between the Maori family and the white kid. As an allegory on the state of affairs between indigenous and western culture it was probably the film with the most compelling idea in the session as it tried to talk about how without forgiveness and the giving up of anger on the part of the indigenous culture their future would be one doomed to destruction. It's just a shame that this excellent idea suffered from some really poor Direction with everything from the on-set cues, to the shot choices, to the editing being a decided turn off to the intrinsic message. Film can be an unforgiving medium even when using the best ideas.

There was also a film whose cinematographer was a very close childhood friend of my families. I'd heard along the grape-vine that he was involved in the industry and it turns out that Adam is now one of Australia's most talented young cinematographers. Good on him. His visuals in the film at the awards saved what I felt was an otherwise ho-hum effort.

But that's enough from me on the world of film. Whenever I critique other peoples work I always end up feeling like a bit of a duck-head. Who am I, with my film offerings, to tell other filmmakers what they should and shouldn't create. It's not like any of my films have appeared at SFF.

Duck Head
Compiled from Duck featured in The Mill and random emo girl.

In other news:

• DSR is back, finally! YAY!
• I haven't touched anything to do with Dragons all week.
• Possum is molting... no, not molten, molting.
• I'm trying to hire a camera operator for football.
• I'm trying to get an appointment with my surgeon to convince him to operate before the shut down the elective surgery for Catholic Youth Week.
• And a thousand little things need to be done.
  

I hope everyone is having fun out there.