Clip description
Pans and high-angle shots capture the streets, buildings, shopfronts and signs of the inner-west Melbourne suburb of Footscray in 1971. A Ferris wheel is operating in the Nicholson Street Mall and crowds gather for a baby competition run by Bradley’s Chemist.
Curator’s notes
This unedited footage includes self-contained grabs of daily life that could be easily edited together later. A good example is the street scene that moves from the Ferris wheel in the background to fix on the 'Closed to Traffic’ detour sign for a few seconds. This style of raw footage is similar to the unedited news coverage of the Cyclone Tracy aftermath in Darwin (Bushnell, K: Cyclone Tracy Aftermath: Home Movie, 1974). The quality of the camerawork and the choice of images in both films indicate the filmmaker had a good understanding of the editing process and how this material could be compiled to great effect later, for instance as part of a news segment.