Talking With Dinosaurs? Some reflections on the role of the documentary in screen production education.

Abstract

This paper reflects on the role of the documentary in screen production education and the implications for Australian screen educators of current debates about the form's place in the audiovisual schedule. Today, our national documentary sector is considering its future and negotiating a landscape marked by the reorganisation and consolidation of the federal funding agencies, shifts in investment and taxation regimes, and technological challenges to accepted patterns of production, distribution and exhibition. As documentary makers stand at the crossroads between the state and the private sectors, national and international imperatives, divergent technologies, and the potentially conflicting goals of entertaining, informing and instructing, the paper asks: Is it time to reconsider the place of the documentary in the screen curriculum? Topics broached include: What is it? Who makes it? Who pays for it? How does it reach its audience? And how is technology transforming it? But the key question remains: why teach it?