Australian
Screen

Clip description

Noeline Baker and Laurie Donaher disagree about what lower-calorie drink he can substitute for beer. Yvette Donaher comments on a change in husband Mick’s dietary habits.

Curator’s notes

This clip shows how documentary filmmakers can make non-verbal editorial comments on what we are seeing. The clip begins with a fly-on-the-wall sequence in which cameraman Paul Costello expertly captures the natural flow of the altercation between Noeline and Laurie. On the whole, the camera is unobtrusive but there is a rare moment here when the invisibility of the crew is accidentally breached. A crew member pushes Noeline’s glasses within reach, quite possibly to avoid the need for her to move out of frame. We don’t see the action, only Noeline’s sudden and quite distracting response to it, posing the question of how much the presence of a camera crew changes the dynamic. Cutaways are often used to cover the sort of break that threatened on that occasion but the final shot here, of a well-filled liquor cabinet, is more of an editorial exclamation point to end this glimpse into Laurie’s attempts to give up drinking without really giving up drinking.

This is followed by a sequence shot in Mick and Yvette’s house, where the action is split between a commentary delivered straight to camera by Yvette, and static cutaways to her husband Mick playing a video game. Yvette is placed in order to look as though she is seated watching over her husband, who resembles a child at play. Close attention to the soundtrack however, reveals that this is edited footage of two scenes that must have been shot at different times, if not in different rooms. Yvette’s voice can be heard over the shots of Mick but there is no corresponding sound of the video game over the close-ups of Yvette. The idea is to make a point through editing. Yvette’s description of Mick’s progress toward a more varied and nutritionally sound diet is delivered with an equal mixture of pride and exasperation; she sounds like a mother commenting on the fussy eating habits of a much-loved child.