Education paths for documentary distribution: DAF, ATOM and the study guides that bind them

Abstract

An expanding education market targeted through ‘bridging material’ enabling cineliteracies has the potential to offer Australian producers with increased distribution opportunities, educators with targeted teaching aids and students with enhanced learning outcomes. For Australian documentary producers, the key to unlocking the potential of the education sector is engaging with its curriculum-based requirements at the earliest stages of pre-production. Two key mechanisms can lead to effective educational engagement; the established area of study guides produced in association with the Australian Teachers of Media (ATOM) and the emerging area of philanthropic funding coordinated by the Documentary Australia Foundation (DAF). DAF has acted as a key financial and cultural philanthropic bridge between individuals, foundations, corporations and the Australian documentary sector for over 14 years. DAF does not make or commission films but through management and receipt of grants and donations provides ‘expertise, information, guidance and resources to help each sector work together to achieve their goals’. The DAF application process also requires film-makers to detail their ‘Education and Outreach Strategy’ for each film with 582 films registered and 39 completed as of June 2014. These education strategies that can range from detailed to cursory efforts offer valuable insights into the Australian documentary sector's historical and current expectations of education as a receptive and dynamic audience for quality factual content. A recurring film-maker education strategy found in the DAF data is an engagement with ATOM to create a study guide for their film. This study guide then acts as a ‘bridging material’ between content and education audience. The frequency of this effort suggests these study guides enable greater educator engagement with content and increased interest and distribution of the film to educators. The paper Education paths for documentary distribution: DAF, ATOM and the study guides that bind them will address issues arising out of the changing needs of the education sector and the impact targeting ‘cineliteracy’ outcomes may have for Australian documentary distribution.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Ruari Elkington completed his undergraduate degree in Film and TV with First Class Honours at QUT. As a researcher and PhD candidate at the ARC Centre of Excellence in Creative Industries and Innovation he is strongly grounded in the industry context of film distribution with a focus on documentary content. Other research areas include screen content and cineliteracy. He is supervised by Dr Sean Maher and Distinguished Professor Stuart Cunningham and his PhD thesis is titled: The Education Market for Documentary Film: Digital Shifts in an Age of Content Abundance.

Dr Sean Maher is a Lecturer in Film, Television and New Media in the Creative Industries Faculty at QUT. He has received an Australian Postgraduate Award Scholarship for his PhD research into cinematic historiographies of the city. Prior to being appointed at QUT he has held lecturing positions at the Australian Film, Television and Radio School and University of New South Wales. He has been a media policy researcher at the Communications Law Centre and author of the 2004 Australian Film Commission report, Internationalisation of Australian Film and Television. He has been an award-winning independent film-maker, producing, writing and directing short films, documentaries and corporates. In 2010 his film, The Brisbane Line, was officially selected and screened at the Brisbane International Film Festival. In 2012 he completed a documentary on the Queensland Parliament House which has been distributed across Fairfax Digital's Sydney Morning Herald, The Age and Brisbane Times websites. He has contributed feature articles for the Sydney Film Festival and worked as a film festival organiser for New York Anthology Film Archives.