Australian
Screen

Teacher’s notes

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This black-and-white clip shows forest management in Victoria in 1947. It opens with a scene of a train hauling logs in a Victorian state forest. The Creswick Forestry School is introduced and students are seen engaging in various classes, indoor tutorials, outdoor practicals and laboratory work. The next sequence presents the dangers of bushfires and the need for constant vigilance and is accompanied by dramatic music. Forestry management for the benefit of future generations is the focus of the final scene.

Educational value points

• This clip provides an insight into the attitudes that were widely held towards Australian old-growth forests in the period before the environmental movement made its mark. Although the commentary uses terms like 'protection’ and 'heritage’, their meaning in the late 1940s was quite different from today’s usage. Forests then were regarded as solely serving human needs. The forest’s 'heritage’ was its timber that had to be 'preserved’ so it could be logged as needed.

• Timber is an example of a type of promotional documentary filmed to inform cinema audiences about aspects of Australian life and, if shown overseas, to attract immigrants to Australia to particular locations and industries. Documentaries such as this one were produced from the 1910s until the late 1970s. They were often sponsored by companies, in this case Shell, by governments (federal, state and local) or by community organisations.

• The subject of this promotional documentary is the work of the Victorian Forests Commission and, as always in this type of documentary, the selected subject is presented as being up-to-date and progressive. In the clip high-elevation shots show forests stretching into the distance as the narrator describes the logging work as being performed by a 'vast organisation’ operating on the basis of 'scientific, theoretical and practical knowledge and experience’.

• The focus of this part of the documentary was to persuade audiences that the management and logging of Victoria’s state forests were being carried out in the best possible way. To this end, the filmmakers emphasise Australia’s need for timber, the importance of the organisation provided by the forestry service, the quality training provided at the Creswick Forestry School, the dangers of fire and the debt human civilisation owes to forest products.

• As is clearly evident in the clip, forestry is a profession with a strong male culture. While at least one woman is known to have been working as a forester in 1948, none are to be seen in this footage. The situation has changed little since the late 1940s. Research in 2001 revealed that although large numbers of women have graduated from Australia’s two forestry schools since the 1970s, they have tended to leave the profession after about five years.

• This clip is an example of the work of Herschells Films, an Australian company that made hundreds of documentaries from 1912 until the 1950s, often re-using footage from its extensive archive. This version of Timber was largely the same as an earlier version made in 1937, although the commentary was updated. The bushfire footage seen in the clip probably originally came from Black Sunday, made in 1926 about the bushfires of 14 February that year.

• This film was sponsored by the Shell Oil Company, as were so many of Australia’s pre- and post-Second World War documentaries. Just after this film was made the company set up the Australian Shell Film Unit in 1948 to make documentaries that would establish a connection between the multinational company and Australia. Although Shell had no financial involvement in forestry, its film interest was in all matters industrial and scientific.