contextual studdies evaluation

My contextual studies assignment was initially met with a degree of difficulty, my decision to study the Australian new wave in particular was actively discouraged by my teacher john as he made very clear that he did not have resources on the topic, this did prove challenging in the early stages of the assignment but whilst john was correct in the that resources sense were difficult to find, once I found them there proved to be an ample amount of information out there and indeed and deep and interesting cinema that I would have a lot to talk about. After my initial endeavour of research into the Australian new wave I reached the conclusion that the films of this period focused on the distanced relation between the rural and urban parts of Australia as most of the films featured characters being place into situations they weren’t comforted to, in addition a lot of focus was placed on the aboriginal Australians and highlighted how the way they lived their lives was different from the more urban white Australians. I began to formulate my presentation and choose my films, starting with the 1972 film wake in fright. I had selected this film due to its plot and premise supporting my argument that the Australian new wave highlighted differences. As time went on I began to struggle, particularly with choosing which other films to cover at which point I had a one to one catch up with john to receive feedback, here he told me to focus on the Australian aspects of the films and what about them is so significant that it could only have been made in Australia, if it weren’t for this feedback I do not believe the rest of the assignment would have went as well as I believe it did as without that feedback I would not have realised the true theme of the Australian new wave which linked back to its creation and thus I believe I would not have as strong of an argument to make. After my second round of research, I focused on the Australian aspect and concluded that the Australian new wave was about highlighting Australian stories and aspects of the country which included the previously mentioned social differences, whilst these differences were still an important part of the movement and were highlighted in many films it wasn’t the central part of the Australian new wave. The Australian new wave was born from Australian’s desire to have a film industry but until later I did not realise that the reason why was so important, after this realisation I was able to link that fact to how the films themselves linked to Australian culture and then further link it to sources that supported the idea that Australians wanted films that represented their culture. Overall, I believe I have a good argument to support the idea that Australian new wave films were made from a desire for Australians to tell their own stories, furthermore I believe it allowed me to chose films to discuss that support all aspects of my argument I was able to utilise my own connection to Australia in order to support my claims My actual presentation could have been improved and more focused, this was partially because of the extended period between making the presentation and presenting but I also believe it would have been better if I had more clips to analyse with more focused analysis. What my presentation lacked was made up for by question time though if I were to do this again, I would aim to have more of those questions answered in the presentation itself