Masterclasses

Knowledge sharing

Storytime and Play sees Pacific media industry leaders come together with media professionals for knowledge sharing, two-way mentoring and professional development in children’s media.
One-on-one weekly mentoring was provided in addition to online masterclasses.

The  masterclass videos are shared here for future learning.

View the classes

Tech Specs

Mike Gissing

Picture and Sound Post-Production

Mike presents detailed information on delivery specs both generally and for Pasifika TV. He explains file wrappers (e.g. .mov and .mxf) and provides tips including free software and plugins to help make the broadcast masters title safe and technically acceptable. Mike is highly experienced in post-production processing for sound and vision, having delivered program masters to international broadcasters and distributors over many years. He is a member of the Australian Cinematographers Society and started making super8 films at age 13.

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Writing

Emma Palmer

Actor and Writer

Emma shares her expertise and insights into the Play School format and production processes from theme to script and segment content, plus tips on presenting to children. Emma is a writer and host for Australia’s second longest running television show, Play School.

Sound Recording

Andrew Belletty

Sound Designer

Andrew explores how to tell stories through sound and the creative opportunities available to all productions. He covers roles and responsibilities in the sound department, how to achieve the best recorded sound quality on location or in a studio, what to consider going into post sound, and working with what you have access to.

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Design

Jonathon Oxlade

Production Designer

Jonathon discusses Production Design for Child Audiences and shares examples from Beep and Mort Kids TV Series. This session discuss visual storytelling techniques and tips, tricks, frameworks for design for set, props, costume, puppetry.

Directing for Kids’ TV

Beck Cole

Director

Screenwriter and Director Beck Cole shares her experience and insights in Directing for Kids TV, the role of a director and rehearsing and getting the most out of the scripts and the actors. Beck shares tips and tricks for pre production, production, and post.

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Camera & Lighting

Murray Lui ACS

Cinematographer

Murray explores the roles and responsibilities in the camera and lighting departments. He shares tips and tricks to achieve the ‘look’ you are after, working with what you have access to, and camera angles & lighting suggestions for childhood audiences. He discusses working on location and on sets, and considerations when using mixed media.

Producing

Rita Cattoni

Producer

This masterclass is a case study of producing stories for children in language with a focus on the ‘Our Bedtime Stories’ series that Rita produced during her time working at Indigenous Community Television. The masterclass looks at practical considerations in producing the 2 X 20 episode series, including structural and stylistic considerations.

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Inclusion

Robyn Hunt ONZM

Disability Representation

Robyn discusses the power of authentic disability representation in kids media, inclusive messages, making audio and video accessible, what makes a good disability story and real disabled characters. Robyn is a writer with a background in arts, accessibility, media, the disability community, human rights and policy.
NEODEVELOPMENT

Dr Dimitri Christakis

Pediatrician & Researcher 

Dr D is a pediatrician, parent, and researcher from Seattle USA, whose influential findings are helping identify optimal media exposure for young children. He speaks about neuroscience, how kids brains respond to content, the pacing of kids media and rapid sequence.

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Writing

Clare Madsen

Writer

Clare shares examples that assist a consideration of character and location, as well as tone and pitch for young audiences. Clare presents a case study of Chinese children’s media highlighting protagonists, antagonists, narrative arcs and gender.

Neuroscience

Jen Knoll

Expressive Arts Therapist 

Jen from the Australian Children’s Foundation discusses how the brain develops in children. She advocates building awareness and understanding of children’s sensory engagement with media; what works, what doesn’t, what is age-appropriate and importantly why – a delve into children’s play and creativity and how this will help you create effective children’s media.

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Writing

Dot West, OAM

Writer

Dot shares ideas on how episodes can be presented in a personal and engaging way. Dot’s session contains poetry, conversation, insights into Indigenous Cultural & Intellectual Property rights and the experience of being a first nations person creating content in Australia.

Stories

Jay Laga’aia

Actor

Jay shares personal stories reflecting on the Pacific culture of fatherhood and draws on his experience producing his own children’s series. He relates his method of recording storytime with his children that enabled him to build stories and write books based on them later. Jay gives ways and reasons why he engages fathers, stating that children need permission to play from adults.

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Audiences

April Phillips and Paul Gartside

Australian Children’s Television Foundation

A fun, dynamic, upbeat session exploring both ends of the screen content industry: development of stories and education. With audiences’ experience at the core of the discussion, Paul and April reveal tips, learnings and tools used to make engaging content that hooks in childhood audiences and builds the basis for learning at home and at school.

Radio

Clémence Petit-Perrot

Children’s Radio Foundation, Africa 

The Children’s Radio Foundation trains youth across Africa as radio reporters, giving them the tools and skills to make their voices heard. Clemence shares inspirational case studies that created social change. One project saw young reporters become researchers for UNICEF to advocate for mental health services for adolescents around the world. Another project embed the adoption of intergenerational learning when parents recognised the importance of early childhood development.

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Creative Process

Jackie Kauli, Verena Thomas, Brad Haseman

Community Art Practitioners and Academics

This presentation explores co-creative processes used in social justice projects in Papua New Guinea. Presenters share techniques in process drama and co-creative media to discuss the curation of local contexts and indigenous knowledge for education and intergenerational dialogues. Presenters illustrated how stories are co-developed, how they connect with communities, especially through dialogue, and how they are then shared for maximum impact.

Art for Kids

Sue Giles

Theatre maker

Sue discusses children as contributors, as powerful agents in their own stories and as cultural citizens with the right to art and cultural expression at all ages. This masterclass shares stories and examples of works created for and with children and the processes behind them. Sue also shares practical exercises to free up the approaches to child-centred practice.

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