Diversity & Inclusion in the Screen Production Classroom

The experience was certainly one that students appreciate and usually stand-out as one of the most significant. It is always great to bring in industry professionals to guest lecture / conduct workshops with our students, even better when the students can be mentored directly by the industry professional in a real-world on set experience.

​For us these internships seem best suited to students in the higher stages / final trimesters of their study. The challenges, as usual, equate to time / study balance and the capacity for the student to take on the opportunity. ‘Sunflower’ worked for most of our students because the shoot ended up taking place in January 2022 during the trimester summer break.

​Another factor is buy-in. Great if you have some meaningful mentors from the above-the-line crew embracing the opportunity, but for the student to get the most out of the experience all the mentors must adhere to the spirit of the exercise. On a low-budget independent production there are many challenges, let alone ensuring that the student is genuinely mentored as opposed to being used as free labour. For the most part though these productions are small enough for each key crew member to support each other and observe the camaraderie and community amongst all crew members.

​Next time – we are still engaged with this. I would say lobbying Vicscreen to legitimately value these opportunities. While the paid internship scheme is one of great value and opportunity, many productions also benefit from this lower tier of unpaid interns – who genuinely appreciate the opportunity to work on these sets. We have our own insurance, and other mechanisms to ensure student experience is maximised, but it would be great to get the buy-in of our state agency rather than feeling like we are operating in the shadows of the margins.

​Maybe one way to approach this is to lobby for specific diversity quotients coming from the HE sectors.