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Clip description
In this teaser, leading in to Homicide’s opening title sequence, convict Edgar Thompson (Roy Alexander) is on the run after escaping from the prison farm at Beechworth. He heads for a shack in the countryside, not realising that a man called Matthew Hawke (actor uncredited) is inside. A confrontation follows. Later, a man driving past the shack finds it in flames – with Thompson’s body inside.
Curator’s notes
This episode of Homicide opens typically for the series, with a teaser showing a crime and setting up questions for the audience and the detectives to consider. There’s a small twist at the end of the teaser designed to provoke more curiosity leading into the investigation. The audience might expect the body to be Matthew Hawke’s but instead it belongs to his attacker.
The exterior, location-based scenes, shot on film, do not have dialogue, an indication of the technology the Homicide crew were working with at the time, which did not allow good quality sound recording on location. Instead, a narrator (John McMahon) recounts the events illustrated on film. Directors Bruce Ross-Smith and Ian Jones offset this with dynamic visual action.
Homicide went through a number of opening title sequences in its lifetime that evolved to reflect a changing core cast, changing police vehicles, the transition to colour and so on. This one, from the series’s earliest days and featuring its first team of detectives, is dynamic and to-the-point. It makes stylish use of framing, motion and the graphic qualities of the shot. Visual momentum is carried through an aerial zoom towards the car and a cut on action to the car pulling into shot at ground level.
The momentum continues as the detectives exit the car and walk towards the camera. They are shot from a low angle, making them appear monumental, in sharp contrast to the initial tiny aerial view of them in their car. Both the bird’s-eye view of the city intersection and the building behind the detectives as they get out of the car give the shot striking graphic qualities, particularly as captured on high contrast black-and-white film.
