Australian
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On Stream (1954)

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clip Operation Overland pipeline education content clip 3

This clip chosen to be G

Clip description

As part of Operation Overland, a man dressed in diving gear is lowered into the water to work on the 36-mile oil pipeline. Workers drain parts of the Werribee River so the line can be placed under the riverbed. The multicultural workforce – numbering over 1000 from 14 nations – helps to ‘raise a cliff where there was none before’.

Images of the pipes and columns which will transport the oil to the cities are cut together with footage of some of the 3000 new vehicles on the road each week; the ‘expanding food machine’ and harvesters which bring food to the nation; and the ‘new Australians’ arriving from war-torn Europe who will all need heat and power.

Curator’s notes

by Poppy De Souza

Primary and secondary industry was a large employer of ‘new Australians’ and in the 1950s most came from postwar Europe (France, Italy, and Germany). The impact of large infrastructure and development projects such as the Shell Refinery on Australia’s cultural landscape cannot be underestimated. The Snowy Mountains Hydro-electric Scheme was another large employer of migrant labour.

The cliff analogy used here comes from the meaning of the word Geelong which, the voice-over mentions at the opening of the documentary, means the ‘place of the cliff’. The voice-over says that ironically originally there was no cliff in Geelong. This positions the refinery as a cliff of concrete and steel ‘rising amongst the gum trees’. In this way, the Shell project fulfils one of the city’s inherent meanings as well as projects the city into the future.

Teacher’s notes

provided by The Le@rning FederationEducation Services Australia

This black-and-white clip shows the laying in 1953 of the underground pipeline for transporting oil from the newly built refinery at Geelong to Melbourne. The large scale of the enterprise, as well as its importance for Australia’s development in the post-Second World War years, is emphasised in the narration, the images and the soundtrack. 'Assisted’ migrants are seen arriving from war-torn Europe, many of whom would work on national projects such as this pipeline. The clip’s final images and voice-over suggest that the enterprise will secure the future of the nation.

Educational value points

  • The epic nature of the building of the pipeline is emphasised in the clip. The narrator uses figures to describe the size of the enterprise, citing the length of the fibreglass-coated pipeline, the volume of petrol it will carry, the 1,000-strong ‘army’ of workmen and the 14 nations that these men hailed from. Sounds of heavy machinery, images of men at work and of the vast worksite support the narration.
  • The growing market and demand for refined petroleum products is indicated in the clip. As part of post-Second World War reconstruction, the Federal Government decided to support the growth of the automobile manufacturing industry in Australia with tariff concessions (aiming for the manufacture of 45,000 vehicles each year) and encouraged Australian manufacture of farm machinery. By the 1950s the mass motoring age was underway.
  • The purpose of the pipeline under construction in the clip is to provide an essential service in the oil-refining process, to transport crude oil and natural gas to the Geelong refinery, where the crude oil is converted into saleable products including petrol, diesel, lubricating oil and fuel oil. These products are then transported by pipeline to Melbourne.
  • The period of expansion and economic development referred to at the end of the clip provides an important context for the building of the refinery. Post-war economic growth required an influx of immigrants who were employed on big infrastructure projects such as the Geelong refinery and the Snowy Mountains Hydro-electric Scheme, which commenced in 1949 and employed 100,000 people from more than 30 countries.
  • This clip from the film On Stream (1954) provides an example of industry-sponsored filmmaking. The Shell Film Unit was established in Britain in 1934 and in 1948 the Australian Shell Film Unit was formed. While many of the films produced by the Unit covered broad interest topics unrelated to oil, On Stream links the development of the Shell refinery at Geelong with the future of the nation.
  • On Stream was produced by John Heyer (1916–2001), a pioneer of Australian documentary making. It was released in the same year as his most famous production for Shell, The Back of Beyond (1954), which won the Venice Film Festival’s Grand Prix Assoluto and was, for a time, the most viewed Australian film by international audiences. A key figure in the founding of the Australian National Film Board, he established the Australian Shell Film Unit in 1948.