Australian
Screen

Clip description

This clip begins with a family of four – Mrs and Mr Albion with their two children Douglas and Wally – posing for a family portrait and is followed by a close-up of the youngest child, Douglas. The next scene films the father blowing bubbles through a pipe with Douglas, who is seated opposite him. The child gives it a go. A child dressed in a clown outfit – probably big brother Wally – stands nearby. The clip ends with the child clown blowing bubbles and the younger child looking on.

Curator’s notes

At the beginning of this clip, the Albion family arrange themselves typically for a formal family portrait: the mother and youngest child Douglas are seated, nine-year-old Wally stands to his mother’s side, and the father stands with his hand on the chair to the right side of the frame. As the head of the family, he stands at a slight distance from the other three family members. In the early decades of the 20th century when people were still getting used to the moving image camera, it was common to pose as if though for a still photograph.

The ruffled outfit that Douglas wears at the end of this clip and the bubble pipe are similar to a scene from another of the family’s home movies. In Albion, Douglas: Children’s Party C1921 it is his brother Wally who is dressed in the identical outfit and blows bubbles through a pipe. This clip is thought to be from 1925 (the stock date on the film is used to estimate the age of the home movie). Clothing and stock date are two ways that archivists attempt to identify audiovisual material.