Australian
Screen

Teacher’s notes

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This clip shows teacher Mr Long (Matthew Green) in class screening a tape created by the twins (Dylan Gray, Joel Gray). The tape shows them attaching a camera to a skateboard and filming from it as it moves. Long then explains the 'dolly shot’ technique to the class. Anna (Lucia Smyrk) is disappointed that film-making seems to be more about the technical side of film-making than the content. Oscar shoots his dolly shot from a shopping trolley, tripping over in the process, and Fiona becomes a 'Fionacam’ with the camera attached to her shoulder.

Educational value points

• This clip, set in a media studies class at fictional Sunridge High, touches on classroom issues surrounding filming techniques and producing meaning in film. The newly acquired digital video camera becomes a means for students to discover more about each other and about themselves. The media studies theme provides a rich source of material for writer Marieke Hardy to explore melodrama, drama and comedy through her script.

• Marieke Hardy (1976–), who wrote Short Cuts, has been a popular media presence since her early appearances in Neighbours in the mid-1980s. An actor, writer, producer and commentator, Hardy has worked in radio on 3RRR and on the ABC television’s First Tuesday Book Club. She writes columns for publications including The Age Green Guide, her blog, ‘Reasons You Will Hate Me’ and the Polichicks left-wing fashion website. She is the granddaughter of author Frank Hardy and the great niece of comedian Mary Hardy. Marieke Hardy won an Australian Writers’ Guild Award for Short Cuts in 2003.

• The clip refers to the way that the students are being educated to deconstruct visual texts. The viewing of visual texts and developing the ability to interpret these texts has become increasingly significant across curriculum areas in recent times. The media teacher in the clip, Mr Long, talks about the importance of understanding film techniques and developing a language through which to express ideas. Identifying types of shots and the effects they create is fundamental to the study of film.

• The dolly or tracking shot is the way in which the camera can approach, move away from or follow a subject. The dolly is a wheeled platform that supports the camera and travels on rails during the shot. This dolly shot is no longer so widely used since the invention of the Steadicam harness has enabled the cinematographer to walk or run with the camera, as Fiona does. All forms of tracking shot imbue the footage with a sense of movement and are an important option for the director in composing the look and feel of a shot.

• Short Cuts was applauded for its fresh approach to teen drama. Colourful, humorous and ready to experiment with fast editing, camera angles and transition effects, the series had the spontaneity and immediacy desired by young viewers. The fluid, energetic and confident approach to filming is particularly evident in the students’ own films as well as in the narrative that frames them. Short Cuts won a number of awards, including an Australian Film Institute Award for Best Children’s Drama Series in 2002.

• Short Cuts demonstrates the talents of a number of young Australian actors who appear here as students in a media class. Alex Cappelli (1984–), who plays Kurt Winters, followed his Short Cuts role with appearances in Neighbours, Blue Heelers and the film Hating Alison Ashley (2005).