Australian
Screen

Teacher’s notes

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This silent black-and-white clip shows the second of a three-part serial cinema advertisement for Bushells tea in which a honeymooning couple is returning to Sydney Harbour aboard a cruise ship. Intertitles assist in telling the story. The smartly dressed couple stand on the deck, both in overcoats and wearing hats as if ready to go ashore. Footage includes shots of an ocean liner coming into the Harbour, Sydney’s shoreline, Circular Quay, city buildings and a clear view of the northern tower and spans of the Sydney Harbour Bridge under construction.

Educational value points

• The clip is an early example of an Australian cinema advertisement that has a storyline told in serial form. In 1896 in Melbourne, film was shown to a paying Australian audience for the first time, and by 1921 it was the country’s most popular form of entertainment. Advertisers took advantage of regular cinema-going audiences to create this new form of serial advertising, assuming exposure to audiences who would return week after week.

• In the clip images that suggest glamour and progressive enterprise are used to make the product more desirable. The well-dressed and attractive couple look like movie stars of the time, and they are travelling on a cruise ship – an experience available only to the wealthy. The couple appear to remark with amazement at the construction of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, which was regarded as an engineering marvel at the time.

• In the footage, shot in about 1929, the north pylon and arch of the Sydney Harbour Bridge are under construction, providing a close view of how the Bridge was built. Half-arches were built out from each shore to meet in the middle, and the clip shows the northern half with an electrically operated creeper crane on top of it. The crane erected sections of the arch and then travelled forward.

• The clip shows how Bushells attempted to position its tea as a sophisticated product for a discerning client, in contrast to how other Australian tea companies positioned their products. Prior to the founding of Bushells tea in 1883, advertising for other tea products such as Billy Tea and Coo-ee Brand Tea used images reflecting ‘bush’ themes. In this clip the only reference to Bushells is the sign seen briefly on a city building as the camera pans across the city skyline.

• Some of the techniques used in silent films, including the actors’ heavy make-up, exaggerated gestures and the set-up of shots, may seem unnatural to a modern audience but were imposed by the limitations of the medium and the technology of the time. Camera equipment was bulky and filming often took place from a fixed position. In the clip the man’s expansive gestures and exaggerated make-up indicate emotion in compensation for the lack of spoken dialogue.

• The clip shows a small amount of ferry traffic on the Harbour and at Circular Quay, but does not convey the congestion that was a contributing factor in the construction of the Sydney Harbour Bridge. By the early 1900s congestion on the Harbour was causing concern as the northern municipalities grew. Up to 75 ferries per hour moved in and out of Circular Quay and boats were sometimes lined up five-deep at the wharves.