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Clip description
This clip begins with scenes of migrants arriving by ship to Australia, and their luggage being inspected by quarantine officers for signs of borer. Workers prepare a house for fumigation, covering it with a heavy cloth before gassing the inside. The narrator urges the audience to report any signs of the house borer. An amplified scraping sound accompanies a close-up of the borer larva working through a piece of softwood.
Curator’s notes
The language used in the voice-over directly addresses the audience and positions the narrator as ‘one of us’. By saying ‘we’ instead of ‘you’ at the end of the clip, the voice of the film becomes collaborative rather than directional, making the audience more easily able to identify with the scenario on screen. This is a useful technique for alerting viewers to the dangers and encouraging them to take ownership of the problem.
