Share
clip 2Clip description
This sequence shows the early morning ritual of the chief drover and his crew. They face yet another day of droving to keep the flock alive and moving from one waterhole to another along the long paddock. Apart from a 'good morning’ to his trusty sheepdog, the whole sequence is without narration, voice-over or conversation.
Curator’s notes
Jack Tawney still remembers his very first droving trip at the age of 13. It’s a life that has changed very little since that time and he’s now in his late fifties and thinking of retirement. Jack loves his job and his life on the road, and the filmmakers have captured both the hardship and the freedom of a life on the ‘long paddock’.
There’s no narration needed as we see Jack get up at dawn, add talcum to his boots to freshen them up for a new day, and head off to find his horse. It’s an image that stays in one’s mind and explains better than a thousand words the hardships of the open road. The filming of the intimacies of life and the broad vistas of the countryside is superb.
Very few filmmakers would have had the courage to let this beautifully made sequence speak for itself. Yet that’s exactly how the team of Stewart McLellan, one of the great rural reporter-producers of A Big Country, and director David Goldie, one of the ABC’s finest documentary and drama directors, have chosen to structure this excellent documentary.
