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Clip description
These are the opening titles and theme music that went into Australian homes every night for ten years, just before the ABC’s seven o’clock news. In the scene that follows, Lori Chandler (Elspeth Ballantyne) has returned to Bellbird on holiday and is helping out at the Emersons as the crisis over their newborn child threatens to disrupt normal life. Auguste Grossark (Kurt Ludescher), Jim Emerson’s (Carl Bleazby) father-in-law, is also waiting anxiously for news of his grandson, but it is younger brother David Emerson (Gary Gray) who eventually takes a call from the hospital which suggests that all is not well.
Curator’s notes
Note the fairly sophisticated camerawork in this scene, probably from a crane, that enables us to watch the reaction of all the characters in an over-the-shoulder shot as David speaks on the phone. Considering the speed at which these episodes were made, it says a lot about the discipline and skills of both cast and crew.
Jim’s remark about leaving ‘a lot to the Lord’ neatly foreshadows his stronger questioning of God to come and adds to the tension in the scene (compare the lighter feel of clip one). The tension only increases with the telephone call. Although we are denied hearing the other side of the conversation, the performances convey that the news will not be good, through David’s subdued tone and the alert posture and concerned expressions of the listeners at the table.
The opening titles for Bellbird were shot in Daylesford, about 115 kms north-east of Melbourne. That was a little far to go every week, however, to shoot the six minutes or so of filmed exterior sequences that were inserted into each week’s block. Most of them were shot at Eltham, only 20 kms away and in the then pastoral and market garden area of suburban Springvale.
