We acknowledge and respect the Traditional Owners of lands across Australia, their Elders, Ancestors, cultures and heritage, and recognise the continuing sovereignties of all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Nations.

We respectfully acknowledge the Wurundjeri People of the Kulin Nation, who are the Traditional Owners of the land on which the ACTF is based and pay our respect to their Elders past and present.

We are honoured to have the opportunity to learn from the oldest cultural storytellers in the world and seek to support Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander practitioners to share their rich culture and perspectives with children in Australia and around the world via stories on screen.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people should be aware that this website may contain images, voices or names of deceased persons in photographs, film, audio recordings or text.

Laughing and Learning in Comedy Scriptwriting Workshops

Our ACMI / ACTF virtual comedy scriptwriting workshops wrapped up last week with students presenting their hilarious original sketches to other schools across the country.

In the final workshop of this short course, Year 5/6 students last week demonstrated how much they had learnt about comedy in such a short time. Groups of students read through the comedy sketches they had finessed since we last met, demonstrating their new understandings about the features of character comedy, surreal comedy, fish out of water comedy, and parody.

Performing in a live video conference for other attendees provided students with an authentic audience. Their original sketches centred on a broad range of creative characters and scenarios, including:

Lulu, a lemon tree that can speak but has a decidedly sour attitude (Rose Park PS, South Australia)
Meghan Markle experiencing a haircut fit for a royal (Rose Park PS, South Australia)
Job-hunting Hulk, whose superhero strength makes him an unsuitable candidate for most paid employment (Parkside PS, South Australia)

Students from each school had the opportunity to provide others with thoughtful feedback, and to ask our ACMI Education hosts about scriptwriting, comedy and performance.

Were you interested in our comedy scriptwriting workshops but unable to join on this occasion? Free support materials and video tutorials are available online. The teaching resource includes seven lesson plans that explore comedy genres, scriptwriting, performance, audience and purpose, and online learning environments, and video tutorials provide further tips.

Thank you to all the teachers and students who participated in this virtual learning event!