Who is Denny Lawrence and why does he matter?

I asked the same question to myself when I pulled his name "out of a hat". I am a current film and creative writing student at Deakin University and this year in our Contemporary Australian Cinema class we were given the task to research a person, institution, cinema, or film and try and find something new and informative regarding the topic. As I blankly stared back at the small slip of paper reading "Denny Lawrence" I felt frazzled and unsure where to begin. Typing IMDB into my web browser was mildly successful... still leaving me with zero information regarding whom this man is as a filmmaker, writer or producer.

A man who has been a part of the industry for over three decades as an actor, writer, producer and director.

Denny Lawrence
http://www.abc.net.au /mda/behind/denny.htm

Lawrence is currently a professor at NYU (New York University) working in the Kanbar institute of film and television. He teaches a range of topics from ‘developing the screenplay’ to ‘advanced television production’. His new career as an educator led me to discover the large amount of education he has had himself in the many years of his career, studying at the National Institute of Dramatic Art and the Australian film, television and radio school.

Lawrence’s education displays his broad knowledge and interests in the film and television industry, also impacting significantly on the style of filmmaking and scripting writing that he collaborated with others to create.


This led me to think differently about how I could express Lawrence's career and history in the Australian film industry in a new and unique way. I came up with a research question that raised ideas about Australian identities in the film and television industry. I reflected on the my own experiences with the media and the types of texts that I openly consume and as an overall generalisations, I often felt a slight disconnect with the character on the screen. Australians have been displayed as larrikins and exaggerated characters in the film and television industry for decades; my response to this is, in modern multi-cultural Australia, can we ever truly represent what it means to be 'Australian' without falling into stereotypes and cliches?