On Disk Video Library: English/Media Studies Menu
The ON DISK titles detailed below are source material compilations from New Zealand film and television that support topic coverage in the New Zealand Secondary School Curriculum. New production for the 2007/2008 year has been highlighted first.
Background materials for each disk title are attached below the title description including:
- teacher’s disk booklet for a perusal of content
- new online units aligned to many disk titles
- online order form for On Disk loans
Representations of Pasifika
The Market (Isola Productions, 2005)
New Title 2008/09
Divided into two sections, ’Pacific People as the Exotic Other’ and ‘Pacific People as New Zealanders’, ‘Representations of Pasifika’ looks at the way Pacific People are represented within film and television media.
Part One: Early Government footage portrays Pacific Islanders as dependant, savage, unsophisticated, erotic and exotic. These stereotypes were continued into the next century as migration from the islands to New Zealand increased. Highlights include the 1976 BBC documentary on the Cook Islands ‘Beauty is in the Eye’; the infamous National Party Ad from 1973 attacking Pacific Islanders for making the ‘cities unsafe’; and news coverage of the furor surrounding Folole Muliaga’s death when her power supply was cut off over an unpaid bill.
Part Two: The second part of a two part programme ‘Representations of Pasifika’ looks at the way Pacific People are represented in contemporary film and television media: while Pacific Island culture has become popularized in New Zealand some controversy remains around continuing stereotypes. Highlights from the programme include a 199- Levene’s Ad portraying Pacific Islanders as ‘colourful’; an extract from Pacific Beat Street showing behind the scenes footage of the making of Bro Town; Beatrice Faumuina in Dancing with the Stars;and the Media 7 studio debate on Greg Clydesdale’s controversial academic paper on Pacific Island immigration and New Zealand society.
New Zealand Television: Television News
Dougal Stevenson in his cameo role Sleeping Dogs (Aardvark, 1977)
New Title 2008/09
Television news is a primary source of information for many people and therefore provides an essential service in a democracy, where, in order to participate you have to be informed. Just what, and also importantly, how, that information is conveyed does help set the agenda for what is deemed important in a society. Television News has changed massively since the early 1960s and this DVD gives students the opportunity to chart this change and question whether society is being well served by today’s news values. This DVD is a collection of extracts from television news, and programmes about television news and current affairs since the early 1960s.
The DVD can be viewed in isolation or as part of a wider study encompassing the other two On Disk, New Zealand Television titles - Media Issues and Public Service and Commercial Television.
New Zealand Television: Media Issues
Front Seat (Gibson Group, 2005)
New Title 2008/09
Mass media are our society’s storytellers whose fictional and non-fictional narratives help us make sense of the world. The media issues on this DVD look at some of the debates over this narrative power and point towards the necessity of media literacy as a fundamental skill for citizens to negotiate mediascapes in the 21st century and include content on: advertising; bias; dumbing down of news; media ownership; ratings; censorship; and news values.
The DVD can be viewed in isolation or as part of a wider study encompassing the other two On Disk, New Zealand Television titles – Television News and Public Service and Commercial Television.
New Zealand Television: Public Service & Commercial Television
Compass: First Five Years of Television (NZBC, 1967)
New Title 2008/09
Public Service broadcasting has its origins with Lord Reith, the first Director General of the BBC in the 1920s and 30s. ‘Reithianism’ is the notion that broadcasting is for the public good and therefore has an emphasis on ‘quality,’ informing and educating as well as entertaining. Commercial television, on the other hand, has an emphasis on entertainment first in a market-centred approach that gives audiences what they want as measured by ratings. Today, Public Service broadcasting is deemed to be a rather quaint concept in our commercial age but is a concept worthy of study in order to understand key concepts in media education. Fragmenting markets and new delivery options challenge the very notion of broadcasting, and an informed discussion of the issues and history of Public Service and commercial television will help debate the future and purpose of the medium. What has not changed is the importance of the television to convey a version of the world to its audience - to inform, educate and entertain New Zealanders.
Genre Studies: Documentary in New Zealand
Who Ate all the Pies (Gibson Group, 2002)
New Title 2007/08
Part One: 1900-1959: A study of non-fiction texts in New Zealand film history from actualities through to documentaries. To understand documentary genre and the society it re-presents, it is helpful to look at its origins. Actualities, travelogues and newsreels depicted events and places in New Zealand and became increasingly sophisticated and mediated as technology and narrative conventions evolved. Most filmmaking in New Zealand was state controlled and presented a particular point of view, and Part One has many examples of this. It also includes a director study of Cecil Holmes, who in the 1940’s, used his formidable filmmaking skills to promote, and also subvert the Government line. Examples of independent filmmaking include amateur; early professionals such as Ted Coubray; and after WWII the most important independent production company, Pacific Films. View the teacher’s booklet for film title details and background information.
Part Two: The Television Age: From 1960, and the start of Television in New Zealand, began a time of great change in documentary form and content. Initially television defaulted to the tried and true expository mode, but by the late 1960’s, spearheaded by independent commissions, the NZBC was screening observational, interactive mode documentary. New Zealanders saw another, more ‘truthful’, representation of themselves. Social and political movements confronted the status-quo, and Part Two includes examples of this challenge, as well as a challenge to documentary itself by mockumentary. The blurring of fact and fiction through drama-documentary further clouds what is truth. Finally, the student examples of documentary on this DVD manage to put forward a confident picture of their topics, and point towards an exciting future of desktop production. View the teacher’s booklet below for film title details and background information.
New Zealand Writers (2 disks)
Paula Boock, Queer Nation (Big Sky Films, 2002)
New Title 2007/08
Part One: In this programme a selection of New Zealand writers are examined: We take a look at the life of
Katherine Mansfield; Michael King and other friends discuss the work of Frank Sargeson; Janet Frame is ranked
New Zealand’s 15th most important history maker; Keri Hulme is interviewed about the Maori Writer’s Festival
and her daily routine; Patricia Grace talks about learning to write about the world around her; Witi Ihimaera
discusses the sentimentality in his writing; Maurice Gee is interviewed in the studio about his early days as a
writer; Owen Marshall tells us about the vicissitudes of life and fashion in literature; Michael King discusses his
book God’s Farthest Outpost; A History of the Catholic Church; Vincent O’Sullivan is interviewed on winning $100,000
in the Michael King Writer’s Fellowship; and Karl Stead takes a camera to Crete to record the landscape where his latest novel is set.
Part Two: A further selection of New Zealand writers: Catherine Chidgey discusses her novel In a Fishbone Church;
Elizabeth Knox tells us about her creative inspiration, and her novel Black Oxen; Emily Perkins is interviewed in
London about her novel Leave Before You Go; James George discusses the lack of Maori literature in his childhood;
Kate de Goldi is interviewed about writing young adult fiction and her novel Love, Charlie Mike; Lloyd Jones is
interviewed about his childhood in Lower Hutt and novel Mister Pip; Marilyn Duckworth discusses her experience
living at U-Cross, a writers retreat in Wyoming; Kelly Ana Morey is interviewed about her life as a writer;
Nigel Cox discusses the problems he encountered publishing Tarzan Presley; Paula Boock talks about writing for
teenagers and her lesbian novel Truth, Dare or Promise; and Barbara Else discusses her novel Gingerbread Husbands.
Duration: 170 minutes
New Zealand Poets
Denis Glover, Artsville (TVNZ, 2005)
New Title 2007/08
New Zealand poets discuss their lives and work: James K Baxter talks about living in Wellington, and his life
is illustrated through readings of his poems and interviews with his wife and friends; Alistair Campbell
discusses two of his poems Home from Hospital and The Trap; Hone Tuwhare reads to us: Cilla McQueen discusses
her volume of poetry Fire Penny; Bill Manhire talks about his creative writing course; Kevin Ireland is interviewed
about his volume of poetry Anzac Day; we look at archival recordings on Denis Glover; see Sam Hunt performing live
on his 1995 pub tour; and Brian Turner talks about his relationship to the land.
Duration: 94 minutes
New Zealand Director Studies: Niki Caro
Sure To Rise (Frame Up Films, 1993)
New Title 2007/08
Focusing on the film career of director Niki Caro, this programme
includes short films, advertisements, an extract from a television programme, feature trailers and extracts
from Riding the Wave, a documentary on Caro’s most famous film Whale Rider. The programme features difficult
to locate early work: Sinistre - the dark tale of a solo mother bitter over the sacrifices she has had to make;
Sure to Rise about a young woman who finds a wounded stranger on the beach; The Summer the Queen Came - a
television short film about a suburban teenager falling in love with his cousin as his mother takes on the
monarchy; and Old Bastards - a series of dark portraits of old men.
Duration: 85 minutes
New Zealand Director Studies: Peter Jackson
Heavenly Creatures (Wingnut Films, 1994)
New Title 2007/08
This programme focuses on the film career of director Peter Jackson. It includes trailers, extracts from
feature films, a Weta Digital show reel and documentary footage. Features include; Bad Taste - the tale of
Giles a charity collector who is attacked by humanoid aliens in a deserted rural town; Meet the Feebles - a
macabre version of the Muppet Show; Braindead - a zombie horror; The Frighteners about physic Frank who is
able to predict the victims of a serial killer; and Heavenly Creatures - the true story of Pauline Parker
and Juliet Hulme who murder Pauline’s mother in 1950’s Christchurch. The programme also includes extracts
from Good taste makes Bad Taste, a documentary on Bad Taste, and Behind the Bull, a documentary on the
mockumentary Forgotten Silver.
Duration: 117 minutes
Oratory – Words in the Frame
Prime Minister David Lange, Oxford Union Debate (1985)
The syntax with the body language: Michael Joseph Savage on an Australian Newsreel in 1935; Peter Fraser addressing the nation after the Battle for Crete; Lyndon B Johnson in true presidential mode in Wellington 1966; Robert Muldoon in full flight 1974; Eruera Stirling; Whina Cooper during the Land March 1975; Tama Poata on an '81 Tour protest; David Lange at the Oxford Union Debate; Winston Peters; Elizabeth II in her millennium Christmas Message 1999; Sylvia Cartwright at the Tomb of the Unknown Warrior; and Helen Clark at David Lange’s memorial service in 2005.
The support materials provide full transcripts of the speeches with syntax analysis for Year 13 classes.
Duration: 48 minutes
Propaganda
Election year television advertising: National Party - Superannuation (1975)
The language of political persuasion and propaganda. This programmes uses whole titles where applicable in order to analyse the overall intent and practice of the propagandist with a film production. Russian cold war misinformation, Lyndon B Johnson’s New Zealand visit 1966, wartime footage from the Ministry of Information, New Zealand political advertising, the spin-doctoring process, Simon Walker and Robert Muldoon, propaganda and the funky theme song. Two political advertisements from opposing sides of the 1987 Election campaign finish off the programme as a comparative study.
The support materials provide full transcripts of the extracts with syntax analysis for Year 13 classes.
Total Duration: 51 minutes
New Zealand Feature Film – an Overview
(2 disks)
Smash Palace (1982)
Part One: An overview of New Zealand feature film making from 1924 until 1990, the programme includes extracts from: ‘Venus of the South Seas’ by James Sullivan; ‘Rewi’s Last Stand’ and ‘Bush Cinderella’ by Rudall Hayward; ‘Broken Barrier’, ‘Runaway’ and ‘Don’t Let it Get You’ by John O’Shea; ‘Sleeping Dogs’ and ‘Smash Palace’ by Roger Donaldson; ‘Vigil’ by Vincent Ward; ‘Goodbye Pork Pie’, ‘Utu’ and ‘The Quiet Earth’ by Geoff Murphy; ‘Trial Run’ by Melanie Read; ‘Footrot Flats’ by Murray Ball; ‘Ngati’ by Barry Barclay; and ‘Bad Taste’ by Peter Jackson.
Part Two: An overview of New Zealand feature film making from 1990 until 2004, the programme includes extracts from: ‘An Angel at My Table’ by Jane Campion; ‘The End of the Golden Weather’ by Ian Mune; ‘Once Were Warriors’ by Lee Tamahori; ‘Heavenly Creatures’ by Peter Jackson; ‘Via Satelitte’ by Anthony McCarten; ‘Uncomfortable Comfortable’ by Campbell Walker; ‘Rain’ by Christine Jeffs; ‘Whale Rider’ by Niki Caro; and ‘In My Father’s Den’ by Brad McCann.
Total Duration: 107 minutes
Selling New Zealand - The Language of Advertising
Lion Breweries: Lion 10, TVC, (Colenso, 1982)
Reedited and expanded, the language and characteristics of New Zealand television advertising using a historical progression from the early 60s to the present crop. Changing gender, race, social and identity norms. From Ches n' Dale to the new Millennium; an incidental social history. New additions include the legendary full length Crunchie ad, the animated KFC original, those racy Lynx ads that always go to the complaints authority, and the long running L&P, “It ain’t famous for its….but it is famous” crowd-pleaser. Unavoidably entertaining!! Two excellent units available: one on line unit for Years 9-10 in the Visual Language strand, and a unit for Year 13 for the analysis of the Language of Advertising.
Total Duration: 45 minutes
Representation of Women
Toyota Starlet. She's a Lady, TVC, (Colenso, 1983 or 1985)
Reedited and expanded, representations of New Zealand women on film, television and the advertising industry. A historical progression from 1900 to the present. Multi-menu format reorganized into advertising, actualities 1910-1929, newsreels 1935-48, fictional narrative, documentary. Changing gender representation and recurring themes: role, work and self-image (big hats and beauty contests, wartime roles, callisthenics, typing, nursing, mothercare, home economics, modern media images...)
Total Duration: 99 minutes
Representation of Youth
Break dancers in Chaffers Park, Wellington. From music video of Ronald Karaitiana, He Wai: Episode 1 (Whitegloves Television, 2001)
Updated and expanded, the representation of New Zealand youth and children on film, television and the advertising industry. A historical progression from 1900 to the present: the controlled early century image; the gender specifics and social control mechanisms of 30s to 60s film including reactions to the Mazengarb Report of the mid-fities; the themes of the television age, from 1961 on in documentary and current affairs; the treatments afforded youth from the advertising industry and their representation in fictional narrative on television and in feature film. The most abitrarily manipulated image of a societal grouping.
Total Duration: 64 minutes
NOTE: Teachers can find a Beacon Schools Project Resource which uses items from this On Disk title. ( Go to http://www.tki.org.nz/e/community/ - enter the Media Studies kete and click Private Community, login (you will need to register) and click Beacon Schools Project Resources then Representations of NZ Youth.
Representation of New Zealand Identity
The French knock NZ out of the World Cup. From One News 01/11/1999, TVNZ
Reconstituted and enlarged, 20th Century images on film and television that project perceptions of New Zealand identity: recreation norms, war, rugby, fashion, Hamilton jets, the heartland, social order and gender specifics, fictional narrative, television soaps, the identity-based success of mainstream advertising, the beach, the mountains and bush, notions of work, bi-culturalism/multi-culturalism, specific historical events, rugby, Anzacs, children's health, business, Peter Jackson, identity changing over time, media response to, and propagation of, notions of identity.
Total Duration: 69 minutes
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