Richard Jones

Professorial Fellow
Subject Conveynor, Community Cultural Development

Professor Richard Jones is an accomplished filmmaker and a national leader in research driven new media production, particularly in the fields of social justice, health and education. He is currently directing a series of broadband interactive programs with a large grant from the Australian Research Council and The Learning Federation. Richard is also funded by the Victorian Schools Innovation Commission to teach in its Creativity in Schools program.

Richard has acquitted over $3 million in public funding including grants from the Australian Research Council, the Australian Film Commission, Cinemedia, the Australian Legal Aid Commission, NSW Health, Kids Help Line and Film Victoria. He has made 34 films including a feature, short dramas, documentaries, music videos and public service campaigns with screenings in the St Kilda, Melbourne, Adelaide, Berlin, Madrid, Cork, Lisbon, Cannes MILIA and Chicago film festivals, and at the London Institute of Contemporary Arts. His work was selected for Film Victoria's Urban Edge international touring collection with screenings at the British and American Film Institutes in the Australia Festival and at the New York Guggenheim Museum of Modern Art in Antipodean Currents.

As well as traditional films, Richard makes interactive programs. These have been nominated for 6 ATOM and AIMIA International Multimedia Awards including Most Innovative and Creative, Best Design, Best Educational Interactive and the Gold ATOM. In 1997 Richard was nominated for AIMIA's Interactive Writer of the Year and in 1998 he won the Gold Camera for Best Interactive Program in international competition at the 31st US Film Festival.

From 2001-04 Richard developed online visual counselling tools and the Talk Out Loud television, web and print campaign for Kids Help Line, Australia's largest youth counselling service. The project was reviewed in Symposium as "demonstrating dazzling and informative innovations". It was screened by Kids Help Line at the inaugural UN sponsored Child Help International Symposium in Amsterdam in 2004 and the 35th International Conference for Psychotherapy Research in Rome, 2004.

Richard has presented his work at the inaugural Australian Creative Commons Conference, 2005; Partnerships in the Humanities, 2004; the Australian Innovations Festival, 2003; OZeCulture, 2003; the National English Teachers Association Conference, 2001 (keynote); the ATOM International Media Conference, 1999 (keynote); the Australian Screen Directors' National Conference, 1999 and Writing with the Masters, 1998 (keynote).

Between productions Richard has taught scriptwriting, photography and filmmaking. He was Writer-in-Residence at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology in 1997, Artist-in-Residence at Griffith University in 1998 and a Visiting Guest Artist at the Victorian College of the Arts from 1995-2003. Alongside his own work, Richard has helped develop some of Australia's most successful short films and mentored many accomplished new filmmakers, primarily as the script editor of films that have won 11 international Best Short Film or Best Short Script awards and received four AFI Award nominations .