Dr. Mark Ryan, publishing as Mark David Ryan, is a Professor in film and screen and a Chief Investigator for the Digital Media Research Centre (DMRC). He is an expert in screen industries research, Australian genre cinema, genre film studies, and digital media. He was the President of the Screen Studies Association of Australia and Aotearoa/New Zealand (SSAAAZ) between 2015 and 2018 and an Executive Member of Australian Screen Producers Education and Research Association (ASPERA) in 2015/2016.
He is a Chief Investigator of various funded research projects:
Valuing Web Series: Economic, Industrial, Cultural and Social Value (LP180100626)(2019-2023)
Australian Cultural & Creative Activity: A Population & Hotspot Analysis (LP160101724)(2017-2020)
2018 Innovation Connections Grant
2018 QUT, Institute of Future Environments (IFE) Catapult Project
Mark was also received the 2018 AFI Research Fellowship, at the AFI Research Collection, Australian Film Institute and RMIT University.
Mark has edited several collections on Australian screen that are widely adopted as required readings in undergraduate screen studies courses in Australia. He and Kelly McWilliam edited Australian Genre Film (2021, Routledge), he is the lead editor of Australian Screen in the 2000s (2017, Palgrave Macmillan), and is a co-editor of Directory of World Cinema: Australia and New Zealand 2 (2015, Intellect).
Mark is a chief investigator – with Sue Turnbull, Stuart Cunningham, Steinar Ellingsen, Nicola Evans Other, and Dr Emilia Zboralska – of the 4-year ARC Linkage project titled, Valuing Web Series: Economic, Industrial, Cultural and Social Value (2019 -2022). This project investigates the value of web series as a form of online screen entertainment characterised by original and diverse content produced by emerging creatives. It will deploy the theoretical frame of ‘total value’ to assess the role and viability of web series: value accrued as career development opportunities for digital content makers; value accrued by the audiences who consume web series; and the value accrued by the Australian screen industry as web series contribute to innovation in a rapidly evolving global screen ecology. We have partnered with four leading web series festivals who will benefit directly from a hosting a number of forums for the discussion and dissemination of our comparative findings. Further details are available on the project website.
Ryan was the lead researcher of the research project Independent Screen Production on the Gold Coast (2020) commissioned by the Gold Coast City Council to examine the size, capacity and structure of the screen production workforce and screen ecology on the Gold Coast.
His research has been published in leading film and media studies journals, including New Review of Film & Television Studies, Continuum: Journal of Media & Cultural Studies, Media International Australia: Incorporating Culture and Policy, Journal of Australian Studies, and Studies in Australasian Cinema. His book chapters appear in collections published by leading international academic publishers including Routledge, Sage, University of Toronto Press, University of Ottawa Press, and Bloomsbury Press. Mark has edited special issues in key film and media journals.
In 2012, he was a chief investigator of the second Australian Screen Producer (ASP) survey, a nation-wide study of the motivations and practices of screen producers in four key industry sectors: film, television, corporate production and digital media. In 2015, Mark co-convened the XVIIth Film and History Association of Australia and New Zealand (FHAANZ) which brought together researchers from Australia and New Zealand as well as China, Italy, and the US. Mark has supervised five PHD theses and two Master’s theses – both traditional research theses and practice-led research projects – investigating a diverse range of subjects including horror studies, film and television studies, animation studies, and public diplomacy and cultural industries.
Address: Queensland University of Technology
Film, Screen, Animation
Z6, level 5 - 529
Musk Ave, Kelvin Grove
QLD 4059
He is a Chief Investigator of various funded research projects:
Valuing Web Series: Economic, Industrial, Cultural and Social Value (LP180100626)(2019-2023)
Australian Cultural & Creative Activity: A Population & Hotspot Analysis (LP160101724)(2017-2020)
2018 Innovation Connections Grant
2018 QUT, Institute of Future Environments (IFE) Catapult Project
Mark was also received the 2018 AFI Research Fellowship, at the AFI Research Collection, Australian Film Institute and RMIT University.
Mark has edited several collections on Australian screen that are widely adopted as required readings in undergraduate screen studies courses in Australia. He and Kelly McWilliam edited Australian Genre Film (2021, Routledge), he is the lead editor of Australian Screen in the 2000s (2017, Palgrave Macmillan), and is a co-editor of Directory of World Cinema: Australia and New Zealand 2 (2015, Intellect).
Mark is a chief investigator – with Sue Turnbull, Stuart Cunningham, Steinar Ellingsen, Nicola Evans Other, and Dr Emilia Zboralska – of the 4-year ARC Linkage project titled, Valuing Web Series: Economic, Industrial, Cultural and Social Value (2019 -2022). This project investigates the value of web series as a form of online screen entertainment characterised by original and diverse content produced by emerging creatives. It will deploy the theoretical frame of ‘total value’ to assess the role and viability of web series: value accrued as career development opportunities for digital content makers; value accrued by the audiences who consume web series; and the value accrued by the Australian screen industry as web series contribute to innovation in a rapidly evolving global screen ecology. We have partnered with four leading web series festivals who will benefit directly from a hosting a number of forums for the discussion and dissemination of our comparative findings. Further details are available on the project website.
Ryan was the lead researcher of the research project Independent Screen Production on the Gold Coast (2020) commissioned by the Gold Coast City Council to examine the size, capacity and structure of the screen production workforce and screen ecology on the Gold Coast.
His research has been published in leading film and media studies journals, including New Review of Film & Television Studies, Continuum: Journal of Media & Cultural Studies, Media International Australia: Incorporating Culture and Policy, Journal of Australian Studies, and Studies in Australasian Cinema. His book chapters appear in collections published by leading international academic publishers including Routledge, Sage, University of Toronto Press, University of Ottawa Press, and Bloomsbury Press. Mark has edited special issues in key film and media journals.
In 2012, he was a chief investigator of the second Australian Screen Producer (ASP) survey, a nation-wide study of the motivations and practices of screen producers in four key industry sectors: film, television, corporate production and digital media. In 2015, Mark co-convened the XVIIth Film and History Association of Australia and New Zealand (FHAANZ) which brought together researchers from Australia and New Zealand as well as China, Italy, and the US. Mark has supervised five PHD theses and two Master’s theses – both traditional research theses and practice-led research projects – investigating a diverse range of subjects including horror studies, film and television studies, animation studies, and public diplomacy and cultural industries.
Address: Queensland University of Technology
Film, Screen, Animation
Z6, level 5 - 529
Musk Ave, Kelvin Grove
QLD 4059
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Books by Mark Ryan
Accompanying the critical essays in this volume are more than one hundred new film reviews, complemented by full-colour film stills and significantly expanded references for further study. From The Piano to Red Dog, from Pictures to The Orator, Directory of World Cinema: Australia and New Zealand 2 completes this comprehensive treatment of two similar – but also different – consistently fascinating national cinemas.
Journal Articles by Mark Ryan
Horror films revolve around monsters, the fear of death and the transgression of boundaries, and they aim to scare audiences through ‘gross-out’ or ‘creep-out’ factors (some combine both). The former refers to shocking and graphic portrayals of gore and violence – as seen in the sadistic torture of backpackers in Hostel (Eli Roth, 2005), which depicts limbs being hacked off and eyes being cut from nerve endings. The latter refers to the crafting of fear through mood and suspense without explicit bloodshed, achieved brilliantly in The Sixth Sense’s (M Night Shyamalan, 1999) chilling encounters with ‘dead people’. In creep-out films, it is often what viewers don’t see that is most disturbing.
Using an analysis of the top fifty films each year at the Australian box office from 1992 to 2012, this article identifies the most successful horror movies over this period to ascertain what types of horror movies – with reference to creep-out and gross-out factors – have been most popular with domestic audiences.
Accompanying the critical essays in this volume are more than one hundred new film reviews, complemented by full-colour film stills and significantly expanded references for further study. From The Piano to Red Dog, from Pictures to The Orator, Directory of World Cinema: Australia and New Zealand 2 completes this comprehensive treatment of two similar – but also different – consistently fascinating national cinemas.
Horror films revolve around monsters, the fear of death and the transgression of boundaries, and they aim to scare audiences through ‘gross-out’ or ‘creep-out’ factors (some combine both). The former refers to shocking and graphic portrayals of gore and violence – as seen in the sadistic torture of backpackers in Hostel (Eli Roth, 2005), which depicts limbs being hacked off and eyes being cut from nerve endings. The latter refers to the crafting of fear through mood and suspense without explicit bloodshed, achieved brilliantly in The Sixth Sense’s (M Night Shyamalan, 1999) chilling encounters with ‘dead people’. In creep-out films, it is often what viewers don’t see that is most disturbing.
Using an analysis of the top fifty films each year at the Australian box office from 1992 to 2012, this article identifies the most successful horror movies over this period to ascertain what types of horror movies – with reference to creep-out and gross-out factors – have been most popular with domestic audiences.
This paper examines the function of the beachscape in Australian horror films that feature beach settings. The discussion explores movies where the beach is an essential setting or character in the narrative (The Long Weekend [1978; 2008], Lost Things [2003], The Last Wave [1977]), as well as films set offshore or on an island (The Reef [2010], Uninhabited [2010], Caught Inside [2010]). It also considers outback films (Wolf Creek [2005] and Wake in Fright [1971]) where the beachscape plays a less central but symbolically important narrative role. The paper suggests that the generic conventions of the horror film tend to reduce the complexities of a beachscape to a simple binary: a place of safety, civilisation and leisure and a dangerous monstrous landscape drawing upon mythology from outback-set horror. There is also an inverse relationship between remote settings and the idea of renewal and leisure. For films set offshore, representations of this liminal space become more complex; operating according to their own textual logic removed from outback mythology.
Three regions of the globe offer important and different lessons. These are the People’s Republic of China, Latin America, and Indigenous Australia. Examples from these specific ‘regions’ include the commercial mass media (exemplifying economies of scale and quality) as well as smaller innovative niche markets (illustrating unique and distinctive inputs). In defining the scope of our discussion we acknowledge sectors identified by the UNCTAD XI High Level Panel on Creative Industries and Development as the core creative industries, namely: motion picture industry, the recording industry, music, publishing, books, journal and newspaper publishing, computer software industry, music and theatre production, photography, commercial art and display, radio, television, and cable broadcasting industries (UNCTAD 2004). It should be made clear at the outset, however, that this discussion does not claim to represent a comprehensive survey of creative industries financing in what are highly differentiated global regions.
This paper is organised as follows: First, we introduce some key issues in relation to financing creative industries in developing countries, including a basic value chain framework. The first section also provides a typology of the cultural sectors in relation to developing country contexts. This is followed by a snapshot of the kinds of markets that currently exist. The second section is a discussion of barriers to development and modes of finance currently being utilised or contemplated.
In the third section we examine specific case studies (from China, Latin America, and Indigenous Australia) that illustrate the following:
￬ Shifts from a state-centred to a mixed financing model (China); ￬ Reliance on foreign finance leading to weaknesses in value chain and how private partnerships can overcome systemic distribution barriers (Latin America); and ￬ Hurdles facing micro-financing models and lessons for developing international niche markets (Indigenous Australia).
This is followed by a synthesis of the findings of this study.
We then outline the indicative shape of the education market, followed by a discussion of the demand side comprising schools, teachers, teacher-librarians, and students. This section of the report is based on full-day visits to approximately 30 schools ranging from Prep/Kindergarten to Year 12, and including government, Catholic and independent schools in Queensland, Victoria, New South Wales, Western Australia and the Australian Capital Territory. Schools engagement typically consisted of interviews with teachers across a range of subject areas and year levels, teacher librarians, focus group interviews with students, and classroom observation. We undertook approximately 150 teacher interviews, along with 25 classroom observations. A total of 175 students participated in focus groups. This section of the report on demand includes two case studies: one detailing how ‘set’ and ‘prescribed’ texts are structured into curriculum in the various states and territories; and the other on how Australian content is taught in university screen studies programs.
In the next section of the report, we turn to the ‘supply’ side, including producers, distributors and services. This section is based on desk research and interviews with approximately 25 suppliers of screen content to the Australian education sector, including producers, distributors and service enterprises across the commercial, not-for-profit, and public service media sectors. Suppliers were selected to represent the diversity of supply in terms of business model, technology base, innovative strategy, size and scale, and whether they were relatively new or well established. In this section, in-depth case studies of public service media (ABC, SBS), leading commercial enterprises (YouTube, ClickView), an independent producer (Cathy Henkel/Virgo Productions) and a not-for-profit (ACTF) are interspersed with brief profiles of representative companies. Many of the in-depth case studies, particularly SBS, Virgo Production’s Rise of the Eco-Warriors, and university teaching of Australian screen, integrate the dynamics of supply and demand.
A section specifically designed to address practical issues for suppliers of Australian content—Recurrent challenges, successful strategies—rounds out the report.