The AFI Research Collection (AFIRC) is one of Australia’s premier collections of writing and ephemera in regards to film and television. The collection has been carefully curated for many years and has a number of areas in which it holds significant resources. Australian cinema and television are topics that the AFIRC holds much material on, however there are plenty of other topics that the AFIRC has great depth. The AFIRC is an ideal place to visit or utilise if you have an interest in film or television. For all potential users we think we have materials and knowledge that will assist you.
Students and the AFI Research Collection
Students have used the AFI Research Collection to assist with research for various subjects and topics. These include: documentary films and filmmaking, Australian films, New Wave films, Asian cinema, screenwriting, Australian film production, Italian neo-realism, press kit material production, Australian cinemas, film festivals.
The AFIRC is often used by students searching on materials by certain filmmakers. Some examples of these filmmakers are: Ernst Lubitsch, Blake Edwards, Jean-Luc Godard, Wong Kar-Wai, Errol Morris.
Academic and industry-related research at the AFI RC
The AFI RC has assisted numerous scholars and researchers over the years. Below is a list of some who have used the collection, and their research.
- Gavin Keeney
Mr Keeney spent many hours at the AFI RC researching the notable french filmmaker and artist Chris Marker. On his time at the AFI RC he said was “exceptional for the study of film and new media” along with the British Film Institute in London, and the Centre Pompidou New Media Division in Paris, and that he “commended the AFI RC for a remarkable service in making the research collection available to scholars.” - Pam Cook
Research on Baz Luhrmann - Mark Hartley
Research for feature documentary Not Quite Hollywood and research for other documentaries / film commentaries and interviews. - Grant Page
Background research for his autobiography - Lisa French and Mark Poole
Research for their history on the Australian Film Institute Shining A Light - Deb Verhoeven
Research for book Jane Campion.
Academic and industry projects
- Screen Producers Project
The AFI Research Collection provided extensive support to this project including: data gathering , fact checking and collection of over 6,000 records in regards to people and companies listed as Screen producers.
This project was developed by the AFTRS Centre for Screen Business in collaboration with researchers from RMIT University and Bergent Research. It was funded by the ARC Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries and Innovation.
The interactive report for the Screen Producers survey is here
Report on second iteration of Screen Producers survey is here - bonza
Liasing with database developers and with the academic supervisor Professor Deb Verhoeven, in crafting and maintaining student based entries of student created index of Australian film and television resources.
See the website http://www.bonzadb.com.au - Screen Media Research Archive: Media and Virtual Research Collections
The Screen Media Research Archive (MaVReC was the release title) was developed as a service for those with an interest in Screen Studies to allow them to search various collections of materials and create ‘virtual’ collections of these items. The AFI Research Collection was utilised heavily in the project as the basis for much of the items to be researched (via its catalogue), as well as providing a set of 100 pre-selected collections (based upon the AFIRC catalogue and bonza database) to be used as part of MaVReC. This project was sponsored by the Australian National Data Service, and was done in conjunction with RMIT eResearch Unit.
Visit the Australian National Data Service page on this project for more information. - Humanities and Networked Infrastructure
HuNI is a digital service for humanities researchers. Developed in Australia, with funding from the National eResearch Collaborative Tools and Resources program, it aggregates data from 28 different cultural datasets from a variety of disciplines, makes them available for external re-use through an API and as Linked Open Data, and provides a set of tools for researchers to work with the data. The AFI Research Collection provided one of the datasets used with this project. The HuNI project page is worth checking out.
Edited by AFIRC librarian, April 14, 2014
