Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book focuses on the attraction of screen locations, and our movements within them, both physically and virtually. It provides an account of Ian Brodie's extensive experience within the screen tourism industry. The book explores the relationship between the North American fascination with automobiles and road trips, national parks, and screen culture. It focuses on tropes of paradise and freedom in the Australian production Morning of the Earth, and the power of cinematic texts to virtualize affective experiences. The book analyses how the film’s loose narrative, disjunctive editing, folk-rock music soundtrack, and sublime seascapes convey affective spaces of freedom and possibility that were opened up by this film for travel. It examines landscapes that are suffused with criminality, darkness, fear, and unknowability.