Re-imagining multiculturalism and diversity through screenwriting and filmmaking

This paper explores pedagogic methods used in the research project “Zooming In: Multiculturalism Through the Lens of the Next Generation”. The project is a reimagining of multiculturalism and diversity through filmmaking and sociology. An important component of this research are the films produced in association with the Victorian Multicultural Commission (VMC), which contribute to a narrative of inclusion and diversity. The process of screenwriting and development, then filmmaking, is conditional around individual agency and the mediation of practice in the generation of the screen idea (Millard, Screenwriting). Researchers such as Craig Batty, Susan Kerrigan, Ian W. McDonald and Kathryn Millard direct research attention to the practices of screenwriting as matrixes that offer a structure or logic to the screen idea. The outcome of screenwriting practice requires a pedagogic and andragogic design that recognises and engages with complex functions and meanings. The paper approaches writing for the screen as a set of interconnected regularised activities, examining the dynamic interplay between the subjective experience of the practitioner and the rules and expectations of the institutions involved.