Australian
Screen

Teacher’s notes

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This silent black-and-white clip shows home-movie footage shot by cinematographer Ernest Higgins of his family on a picnic at Mount Wellington in Tasmania in 1909. It includes shots of an extended family group enjoying a picnic, including a woman who may be the children’s nanny dressed in black with a white apron, four men making billy tea on a campfire, and young children playing with a ball. Arthur Higgins, who was then 18 years old and who later became a leading cinematographer, may be on the far left of the group standing around the campfire.

Educational value points

• Home-movie footage from this era is rare and this clip is one of the earliest surviving Australian home movies. Film was in its infancy and most early home movies were the work of professionals who, like Ernest Higgins, had access to film equipment and production facilities. Much early film has not survived as it was shot on nitrate film, a type of film stock that was chemically unstable and perished over time.

• Ernest Higgins (1871–1945) was a pioneer of Australian film and as this clip shows was quick to embrace this new medium by making his own films. He began his film career as a projectionist before purchasing a camera to make films of Hobart and its surrounds, which he then exhibited. In 1908 he joined Spencer’s Pictures in Sydney where he shot travelogues, newsreels and features such as Captain Starlight (1911). He worked in film until his death.

• The Higgins family became one of Australia’s best known cinematographic families, with Arthur (1891–1963) and Tasman (1888–1953) following their brother Ernest to Sydney to work as cinematographers. Arthur, the most successful, worked with leading directors such as Raymond Longford and later Pat Hanna, and remains the most prolific cinematographer in the history of Australian feature film. Ernest’s son Bryce (1920–) also became a cinematographer.

• In 1909 when this home-movie footage was shot, film was silent and in black-and-white, and the size and weight of the 35-mm cameras meant that filmmakers tended to use long, static takes, as in this clip where the camera remains largely fixed, and to not include close-ups. When professionals such as Higgins made home movies they tended to pay attention to shot composition, as is evident here where the picnic and campfire sequences appear to be posed.

• In the early 1900s the concept of casual clothing was unknown and men, women and children wore formal attire even on family picnics. During the day women wore ‘S-bend’ corsets and dresses with high collars, long sleeves and hemlines that reached the ground, while men favoured the lounge suit, consisting of a jacket, waistcoat and trousers. It was customary to wear a hat when outside or in public places as a bare head was considered immodest.