Podcast – Celebrating 50 years of screen education in Australia with the Australian Film Television and Radio School
AFTRS alumni award-winning filmmaker Warwick Thornton and production designer Bethany Ryan, alongside AFTRS Council Chair Debra Richards, reflect on 50 years of formal screen education in Australia.
Debra Richards, Warwick Thornton, Bethany Ryan
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“The School must act as a revolutionary force. There can be no half-measures. We must create one of the world’s great schools, or we must abandon the project at once. We cannot be a hothouse for mediocrity.” – Barry Jones, founding Council Chair of the Australian Film Television and Radio School
Such was the ambition and vision for Australia’s first government-funded film school – the Australian Film Television and Radio School (AFTRS) - and on the latest episode of the Screen Australia podcast, we explore the face of screen education in Australia through the 50-year anniversary of AFTRS.
Then called the Australian Film and Television School, AFTRS was opened in 1973, after nearly 15 years of industry and federal investigation and research, with an inaugural class of 12 students studying directing. The success of those students – among them Gillian Armstrong, Phillip Noyce and Chris Noonan - lay the foundation for a multi-disciplinary tertiary institution supporting over 3000 students on campus and online annually.
Current AFTRS Council Chair Debra Richards shares the history and ethos of the School over the years, and – working in the industry herself - believes the success of screen education lies not only in training students in their specialist area, but in diversifying their skills to build sustainable careers.
“Our aim is to make our students industry ready,” Richards says. “This business is a global business and you need to know what it means. You need to know what will happen to your story, how it's going to develop, who you need to be a part of it, where you need to take advice, when you need to take advice or impart advice. You need to understand how to manage people as well because that's so important. This business is about relationships. So, the more that you can deal with people and understand people and what they bring to your project and what you bring to their project, I think it's incredibly valuable”
As the industry continues to evolve, film schools also pay a crucial role in supporting growth and training in an ever-evolving sector, and for Debra Richards, the means working closely with industry to identify “what they need and how to fill those skill gaps.” Most recently by expanding to incorporate below-the-line roles and business management training, she says, “that's been really important and that's helped the development of the school to where we are today.”
Throughout the episode we also hear from AFTRS alumni cinematographer and director Warwick Thornton (The New Boy, Samson & Delilah) and Bethany Ryan (Talk to Me, Of An Age), about their journey to film school as they reflect on their time at AFTRS and how a screen education impacted their careers.
For Bethany Ryan, moving from the world of design and architecture to screen was a challenging – but exciting – prospect. After a guest lecture from AFTRS teaching staff, she was inspired to explore screen because she saw “a really nice correlation between the skills that you develop during design school.” Unfamiliar with the industry, Ryan chose film school to gain valuable networks and learn about the industry “because at that point I really didn't know what the boom operator was or what a grip was and what on earth a producer does,” she says.
Thornton also reflects on the value a screen education provided not only his technical and professional practice, but his creative outlook. Determined to enhance his camerawork to be more cinematic, film school provided access to the latest equipment and facilities, but he was surprised by the outcome.
“When I first came here, I had a very focussed outlook on what I need to walk out of here with. And when I walked out, I walked out a very different person and my objectives were different. I came out a much more rounded, philosophically, kind of human,” which he credits to AFTRS extensive library. Reading creative works, rather than technical ones, opened his eyes to character and nuance “which I've kept in everything that I write, shoot and direct. I kept that. And that's an incredibly important foundation for me,” he says.
Ultimately, for Thornton, the growth of the Australian screen industry, and continued training of Australian filmmakers and crew, only benefits Australian storytelling and strengthens our cultural voice.
“We get bombarded by so much American cinema and we hear their voices with the ideologies we have. We have different voices, we have a different dialect and accent and we have different ideologies. […] That's why our cinema is so important.”
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