Megan Heyward

The Handmaids Tale, Cleverman, Taboo, Harrow, Squinters, Redfern Now, Sando, Grace Beside Me to name just a few. All featuring the work of MAP alumni in key creative roles, as directors, writers, series creators, producers, exec producers etc etc... Kate Dennis, Tony Krawitz, Donna Chang, Ryan Griffen, Chloe Rickard and many more started their media careers as Media Arts and Production students here at UTS. Attending classes and workshops, borrowing gear from the Equipment Store, asking for extensions, and cobbling creative projects together with little more than gumption, gaffer tape and grit.

Since the early 1990s till 2015, MAP ran the UTS Golden Eye Awards to showcase and commend the creative work of MAP students. Judged by industry professionals across categories such as drama, doco, editing, cinematography, digital and experimental media, these early student works featured in the Golden Eyes hint at the talent that is now bearing fruit in the world. But where are these experimental shorts, dark noirs, meaty docos and other early projects? Can we see them? What themes did they explore? And whose names can we recognise?

The Golden Eyes are currently a cluster of DVD and VHS compiles, living quietly on a MAP staff member's bookshelf in Building 10. They are a collection of hidden gems, waiting to be sorted through, organised, archived and preserved, so that academics, students, media historians and the interested public can gain access to them. 

The Golden Eyes Digitisation Project begins the formidable task of archiving the MAP Golden Eye Award compiles into formats that are findable, accessible, interoperable and retrievable (FAIR), and compatible with important databases like the National Film and Sound Archive. The project aim is to develop a prototype database of two of the Golden Eye Award compiles, most likely an early compile (eg. 2001 Awards on VHS) and a later one (eg. 2011 Awards on DVD), as a foundational testbed for ongoing archiving of this cultural resource. We are being guided by digital assets expert Maureen Henninger to ensure that everything is done to the appropriate standards, formats, copyright permissions etc. and we want to hire a research assistant to undertake this task.

Help us bring this cultural resource of early media works out into the world!!

To support us, please use the following UTS credit card details. THANKS VERY MUCH!

Card Number: 4111 1111 1111 1111

Expiry:  12/20

CCV number:  123

We are looking for $1100  to employ an appropriate research assistant (with data asset management knowledge) for 20 hours at $55ph to:

• identify assets to be digitised across 2 x Golden Eye Awards compiles

• develop contact letter template for contacting MAP alumni for copyright permissions

• commence process of contacting MAP alumni to secure copyright permissions

• commence digitising files into best practice codecs & formats

• enter appropriate data, metadata & digital assets into OMEKA database

These funds will allow 2 x Awards compiles to be digitised and entered into the OMEKA database by Oct/ Nov 2018. Any additional funds raised will go toward digitisation and database entry of further GE compiles ( so that more than 2 years of projects are entered). We estimate that every $500 beyond our initial target of $1100 will lead to an extra GE Award compile being digitised and in the database.