Australian
Screen

Teacher’s notes

provided by

This clip shows newsreel footage of a scene from the feature film For the Term of His Natural Life (1927) in production. The camera crew is shown as they film a scene set in a sitting room. The scene shows two characters talking, a young woman and a man in uniform. A pet kangaroo is also in the scene. A street scene with a crowd is being filmed on the same set. Three intertitles divide the footage and provide commentary on the scenes. The film is silent and black and white, and was shot in 1926 at the Australasian Films Bondi Studio, Sydney, New South Wales.

Educational value points

• The clip shows behind-the-scenes footage of a landmark Australian movie of the silent era being filmed. For the Term of His Natural Life was made for £70,000 at a time when most films could be made for £1,000. It was, in relative terms, the highest-budget Australian film made until Crocodile Dundee in 1986. As well as the set pieces, such as those shown here, location shooting at Port Arthur contributed to its historically accurate depiction of convict life. Special effects such as 'glass shot’ photography were used to 're-create’ roofs on the ruins at Port Arthur, and a real sailing ship was burned for the film’s climax. Five hundred unemployed men were used for the many crowd scenes. The film was restored in 1981 from the fragments still remaining.

• For the Term of His Natural Life was based on the 1874 classic Australian novel of the same name by Marcus Clarke, and was the first film to be made of this love story about an English aristocrat transported for life to an Australian penal settlement. Clarke (1846–81) left England to start a life in Australia when he was 17 years old. While working as a journalist, he researched the condition of convicts for his novel and visited the convict settlement Port Arthur in Tasmania, where the novel is set. The story originally appeared in serial form in The Australian Journal, produced in Melbourne, and a television miniseries appeared more than 100 years later in 1982.

• The clip is an example of a newsreel, an integral part of cinema programming in Australia before the advent of television in 1956. Newsreels, issued weekly by Australian newsreel production companies, brought people in touch with local and national news. Subjects for newsreel production were wide ranging, covering topics of interest from sporting events, such as the Melbourne Cup or a cricket test match, to celebrity visits, particularly those of royalty. The making of a big-budget home-grown movie based on a convict theme would have been of interest to movie audiences in 1926 and therefore an appropriate subject for a newsreel.

• Silent newsreels such as this one incorporated dramatic footage, intertitles and linked segments, as well as a musical accompaniment. The multistory newsreel was popular, and by the 1920s the newsreel industry was thriving in Australia. The introduction of sound increased production costs, however, and many independent Australian companies folded, to be replaced by large US film companies such as Paramount and Fox.

• This newsreel was produced by Australasian Films, which developed from a significant merger in 1912 of key Australian film distribution and production companies, and dominated the Australian film trade until after the First World War. Australasian Films continued to be a major force in the industry after that time, despite US production company competition. It imported films as well as producing newsreels and feature films. Criticised as a monopoly, it was the subject of a royal commission into the film industry in 1927.

• Although For the Term of His Natural Life was based on an Australian novel, Australasian Films required Australian director Raymond Longford to stand aside in favour of American Norman Dawn, to try to ensure US release, thus illustrating the early influence of the US film industry on Australian filmmaking. Four of the principals in the cast were American and the principal cameraman was Canadian. Concern about the Americanisation of the Australian film industry was evident in testimony received by the 1927 Royal Commission, which heard arguments about the need to make Australian films more Australian in order to give them international appeal.

• For the Term of His Natural Life is an example of the work of the US director Norman Dawn, who was director, editor, producer, screenwriter and art director on the film. He brought with him great knowledge of the technical aspects of filmmaking. He had developed in 1905 a 'glass shot’ process, which involved background scenery painted on glass and positioned in front of the camera so as to appear part of the scene. This technique was used in the film, and is still occasionally used today, for example in Dances with Wolves (1990). Tundra (1936), a docudrama set in Alaska, is regarded as Dawn’s greatest achievement as a director.