AustLit

'Innovation is at all times accompanied by tradition and creative action of all types takes place against a backdrop of continuity and change, as stated by Keith Negus and Michael Pickering in their 2004 book Creativity, Communication and Cultural Value. On page 91, they write: ‘It is only by thinking about their interrelationship that we can understand processes of creativity and cultural change.’ These assertions can be seen most readily in the creative screen industries that exist in the Hunter Valley of New South Wales. Whether we are talking about networked, broadcast, cinematic or virtual screen industries, it can be seen that the Hunter Valley, centered on the city of Newcastle, has participated, and continues to participate, in the multiplicity of production practices that typify this industry. From Yahoo Serious's Young Einstein to Jamie Lewis's Mikey's Extreme Romance, from NBN Television's Big Dog to the independent documentary The Face of Birth, from the Shoot Out competition to the Real Film Festival, from the contributions of Enigma to the Feel Inspired promotions of Out of the Square Media, the creative screen industries have been well represented in the Hunter Valley and are supported by the regional film agency Screen Hunter. These screen industries are like all creative industries in that many of the creatives who work in these sectors depend on patronage to do what they do (Dawson and Holmes 2012, 10). That may come in the form of direct payments for their skills or by being subsidized by other related work, for example in the advertising industry or being embedded within institutions that need those screen-based skills. There is an increasingly entrepreneurial bent among these creative screen workers. All of them are engaged in one way or another with the generation and exploitation of intellectual property, which comes with an increasing reliance on digital technologies. This paper intends to map the creative screen industries in the Hunter Valley, outline where they came from, and attempt to place them inside a fast-changing global context.' (Publication abstract)