Graduates from Griffith Film School have dominated a competition to find the state’s most promising young horror auteurs.
Three teams of GFS grads have won entry into Los Angeles’ famed Screamfest movie festival – beating out nearly 100 entries from around the state.
Supporting local filmmakers
As part of the Screen Queensland SCREAM! Queensland competition, the filmmakers will develop and produce 8-10 minute horror films, each with a budget of up to $40,000.
The completed films will premiere in October at Screamfest, the largest and longest running horror film festival in the United States.
The filmmakers will workshop their concepts next month with local horror gurus Shane Krause and Shayne Armstrong (Bait, Acolytes).
Griffith grads sweep competition
Acting Head of Griffith Film School Professor Trish FitzSimons said it was gratifying to see GFS graduates sweep the pool of entries.
“It is a huge honour for our graduates to win entry into Screamfest, one of the most prestigious genre film
Category: Griffith University Feed
Energy policy can’t be blacked out
By Dr Liam Wagner, Griffith Business School
The 2017 Federal Budget includes incentives for development of more gas supplies via pipeline construction. However, a focus on LNG exports only diverts the energy policy debate away from the transmission infrastructure crisis highlighted by the summer blackouts.
Overview
Australia has a gas crisis like no other point in its history, one of inaction. Natural gas has become the fool’s gold of 21st century Australia. The prospect of becoming one of the largest exporters in the world of Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) was all too great a temptation for the state and federal governments.
The national interest tests placed on the foreign export of any resource are simply not effective at lowering the price of natural gas once international linkage has been achieved.
The only strategy available to the federal government is to increase supply, hoping this will ease domestic constraints. However, natural gas contract prices won’t be
Defence holding steady
By Professor Andrew O’Neil, Griffith Business School
While the 2017 Defence budget confirms a commitment to large-scale projects currently in play, an emphasis on job creation in the Defence arena also moves to reaffirm the government’s ‘Australia first’ agenda.
Difficult to plan ahead
By far the most complicated dimension of defence budgets is aligning the timing of key acquisitions with the strategic guidance laid out in successive Defence White Papers. Historically, very few governments have been able to do this largely because major acquisitions are, by their very nature, devilishly difficult to control. Aircraft and naval acquisitions in particular are difficult affairs, often characterised by cost overruns, equipment delays, and changing geopolitical circumstances that sometimes throw the logic of the initial purchasing decision into question. Australia’s single most celebrated acquisition – the F-111 fighter-bomber – was ordered in 1963 because it was the only aircraft on the market that could fly non-stop to
Griffith academic appointed to new financial ethics authority
Griffith Business School (GBS) continues to be at the forefront of responsible leadership with a Griffith academic appointed to the Federal Government’s new Financial Adviser Standards and Ethics Authority (FASEA).
Professor Mark Brimble, the Discipline Head of Finance and Financial Planning at GBS, is the only academic appointed to the Authority which was established in March by Federal Minister for Financial Services Kelly O’Dwyer.
FASEA will oversee the conduct of professionals in the financial advice sector, by setting mandatory educational and training requirements, developing and setting an industry exam, and creating a Code of Ethics that all advisers must adhere to.
Proud appointment
Professor Brimble said he was proud and privileged to be considered for a directorship and wasted little time in accepting.
“There is no better way to teach the financial planners of tomorrow about responsibility and ethics than by having a say over the standards-making procedures.
“Being on the FASEA Board allows me the scope to
Griffith students receive prestigious Commonwealth Games scholarships
Professor Ned Pankhurst – Griffith University Gold Coast Head, Kristina Clonan, Rowan Crothers (who was awarded a scholarship in 2016), Ali McCowen, Narasimhan Ravi and GOLDOC CEO Mark Peters.
When Sharath Achanta became the first Indian to win a table tennis gold at the 2006 Commonwealth Games in Melbourne, an eight-year-old countryman was inspired while watching on television in southern India.
From that historic day, table tennis would be a centrepiece in the young life of Narasimhan Ravi who would go on to compete at national level himself under the tutelage of leading Russian and Chinese coaches.
A haul of 78 trophies and 45 medals from his pursuits in table tennis, badminton and cross-country running takes pride of place in the Chennai home of the 19-year old also known as Naz.
His commitment to sport and education is embodied in a school routine which had him rising for school at 3.30am each morning for
Smart windows for a more energy efficient future
A Griffith University researcher will lead a $1 million research project into a new kind of low-cost, energy-saving ‘smart window’.
Professor Huijun Zhao, director of Griffith’s Centre for Clean Environment and Energy, has been awarded $513,210 from the Australian Government through the Australian Research Council’s Linkage Projects scheme to develop the window that contains a glass that is able to change its colour and the amount of light or heat it transmits.
With substantial cash and in-kind support leveraged from partner organisation Confirmation Australia Pty Ltd, Professor Zhao and his team will develop low-cost and scalable synthesis of functional nanomaterials that make smart windows work.
Professor Zhao in the lab. Credit: Fotomedia.
Professor Zhao said windows played an important role in the energy efficiency of offices, schools and homes, and the new smart windows promised significant energy savings by reducing reliance on air conditioning, heating and artificial lighting.
“Besides residential buildings, this is particularly important for office buildings, hotels, and schools where the energy consumption
World-first research highlights whistleblowing processes
A world-first ranking of the strength of whistleblowing processes across Australia’s business and government sectors has been released.
The results from 634 organisations across 18 industry groups and public sectors provide the first benchmarks for enabling organisations to assess strengths and weaknesses in their whistleblowing processes, as part of the Integrity@WERQ phase of the groundbreaking Whistling While They Work 2 research project.
Project leader Professor A J Brown, from Griffith University’s Centre for Governance and Public Policy, said the results vividly show the extent of challenges faced by business in trying to improve their whistleblowing and integrity regimes, and the imperatives for better standards and guidance.
“It’s apparent many private and not-for-profit companies are making concerted efforts to establish workable whistleblowing practices, and now we can see clearly, who’s making progress as well as the major tasks ahead for all – including many governments.”
Focusing on five key areas in the whistleblowing process: incident
Indigenous midwife aims to inspire others and close the gap
A lack of choice and control that Aboriginal women currently have over their birthing experience is the driving force for Griffith graduate Cassandra Nest from the Gold Coast.
With International Day of the Midwife this week (5 May), Cassandra is currently the only Aboriginal midwife working in the Midwifery Group Practice at the Gold Coast University Hospital and one of only three indigenous midwives working in the Gold Coast area.
Close the gap as mentor
Her aim is to close the gap by actively mentoring indigenous Griffith Midwifery students.
“Current indigenous maternity services in rural and remote Australia involkve the removal and transferral of pregnant women from their communitry to a hospital between 36 and 37 weeks gestation to give birth.
“Aboriginal women are routinely removed from their land, family, culture and community to await the arrival of their new baby with little or no emotional, psychological and financial support,” Cassandra said.
“In indigenous culture a person’s relationship
Griffith research on show at the Smithsonian
An interactive sound installation developed by a Griffith researcher to help tackle climate change is on show at the Smithsonian Museum this month, as part of the Earth Optimism summit.
Queensland Conservatorium research fellow Dr Leah Barclay was the only Australian invited to present at the summit in Washington DC, which attracted 3,000 leading scientists, environmentalists and artists from around the world.
She presented on the art and science of sound as part of the Science, Conservation, Inspiration session, alongside speakers such as National Geographic President and CEO Gary E. Knell and renowned artist Maya Lin.
New projects to wow visitors
Dr Barclay’s Hydrology and River Listening projects – originally launched at the World Science Festival in Brisbane – will remain on show this month across the Smithsonian, Ronald Reagan Building, International Trade Center and the National Mall.
Hydrology is a new augmented reality installation featuring a live mix of 100 aquatic soundscapes collected over a decade.
The River Listening app is at the
Re-examining the way we look at Foreign Workers in Australia
As Australians and future hopeful visa holders are watching carefully as the Federal government prepares to announce details on what will replace the abolished 457 visa program, Professor Kate Hutchings of the Centre for Work, Organisation and Wellbeing says it comes at a time where we need to re-think about what international work looks like in the country.
“Traditionally when we thought of people working internationally they were often relocated for a long period of time, it might have been 3-5 years as a long term assignment,” Hutchings said.
“It was often people who were quite senior in their position and later in their career.”
According to Hutchings, that demographic and long term placement just does not apply as much anymore as a newer short-term breed of worker is looking towards Australia for work opportunities.
“The nature of international work has shifted and the profile of people that are working internationally has changed as