Australian
Screen

Teacher’s notes

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This clip shows laid-back radio DJ Ken Sherry (George Shevtsov) alone in the studio in the rural town of Sunray. He introduces himself with a revealing monologue that is followed by a sexually suggestive Barry White song. Dimity (Miranda Otto) stares up at roadside speakers playing the song, seemingly transfixed by it as a carload of young men call out to her. Her sister Vicki-Anne (Rebecca Frith), a hairdresser, listens as she works, her attention drawn to the song only when the record gets stuck, repeating the phrase ‘we’re gonna do it’.

Educational value points

• Light and shade have been employed in the clip to reflect a sense of the main protagonists’ characters and intentions. Throughout the clip Ken Sherry is shown in his small broadcast booth, exposed to little natural light, suggesting that there may be a shadiness about him. In contrast Dimity, cast in bleached bright sunlight on a wide empty country road, is presented as innocent, exposed and vulnerable.

• The manner in which Ken introduces himself and plays the song reveals his jaded cynicism. The contrived suggestive way in which he introduces the overtly seductive song (implying a familiar routine), the self-satisfied rub of his chest, the smirk as he reclines and the way he allows the record to repeat the line ‘we’re gonna do it’ before sharply kicking the turntable seem to reflect his calculated knowingness, lack of empathy and fading limited ambitions.

• A long crane shot is used to symbolically link Dimity to Ken. The use of a slow elliptical and measured crane shot (with the camera placed on a cantilevered arm) to visually connect the mesmerised Dimity with the roadside speakers in one unbroken movement serves to link her to the source of the music, Ken, who is serenading the town through the speakers.

• In the street scene, the soundtrack overlay and Otto’s portrayal of Dimity reveal her sense of isolation and possible loneliness. Dimity’s lack of interest in the local boys and her cautious interest in Ken and the music are evident in the contrast between the way she eyes the speakers as if hypnotised and the deliberate manner in which she turns away from the local boys as they drive by.

• Ken Sherry is an example of the commonly used dramatic device of a stranger arriving in a community and disrupting the accepted order. In the boredom and monotony of this country town it is the two sisters who for very different reasons respond to his broadcast. Dimity seems mesmerised by his intimate confession and song choice while the sexually explicit repeated phrase ‘we’re gonna do it’ seems to both horrify and attract her more conservative sister.

• The cracked record symbolically foreshadows the difficulties Ken will encounter in his romancing of the sisters. The ease of Ken’s mellifluous introduction and initial broadcasting of the smooth soulful song, mirrored in long slow pans and zooms, is violently interrupted by the cracked record and Ken’s kick, which abruptly end the dreamy interlude. These events hint that Ken may not prove to be as smooth or seductive as he initially appears.