Tag Archives: Rose Bay High School

Video stories and the Derwent River

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Last week I bussed 20 odd kilometres down to Kingston and participated in a workshop, organised by ABC Open (go to https://open.abc.net.au for written and video stories from around Australia), about making video stories with tablets and IPads. Since then, using my Samsung tablet, I have taken a series of video shots beside one section of the Derwent River. To tell a story, different video shots are needed for linking together. At the end of this week I will return for a second workshop to help me edit different shots together into a coherent story.

I would like to share some of what I have learnt so far.

Firstly, we should always make videos using the ‘landscape’ rather than ‘portrait’ orientation. Once I was alerted to the fact that the landscape orientation typifies movie screens, televisions and computer monitors, I understood this was the preferred way for our brains to operate (our eyes ‘sweep horizontally across the landscape’ for survival more often than up and down).  This morning I looked at an online news story which included a short video presumably taken on a smart phone by a public bystander to the event. The film was oriented in the vertical portrait direction so that when screened on my computer monitor, two lumps of black either side of the tall narrow image made it difficult to ‘read’.  So I have learnt that lesson.

Other learnings included: the idea that I should not move the tablet to record the video, rather I should swivel my body from the waist. Doing so creates less shudder movement resulting in clearer videos. I should never use a zoom function when it is an option on a device, rather I should take a series of sequence shots then edit them together.  Not everything has to be in focus if a story is being narrated.  Aim to record a series of peak moments in order to compress time. Beware of recording with the device directly face down because devices can revert to the portrait orientation once in the position of being parallel to the ground – therefore, I must remember to keep an angle on my tablet in such a situation.

We were informed that the journalism standard is a 5 shot sequence where each video shot is taken from a different angle or distance.  Now I watch news broadcasts differently and can analyse the variety of shots. We were recommended to make each shot about 8-15 seconds in length to provide sufficient information for editing. In addition, we were counselled to be patient as we record, in case there is an unexpected (and interesting) change in what we are recording.

At the end of the workshop’s theory session, including watching a number of good and bad videos available on the internet, I started to plan my story.

I was urged to create a story associated with my project to walk along the Derwent River and, while this idea sounds like it should be easy for me to develop, it has not been.  In fact, I have found it quite difficult to determine a story line, create a story board of the shots which will be woven together and then get the best mini videos to demonstrate each part of the story.  When I recognised the hundreds of stories associated with my walks, I realised that it would not matter on which story I worked, all I needed to do was make any choice and then get on with it.

For the past couple of days, I have made a series of brief video shots involving the Tasman Bridge which spans the Derwent River. On my way home, I recorded the following 9 seconds of traffic streaming along and over the Bridge. This video doesn’t fit with my story so I have inserted it unedited.  The video shows traffic on the Tasman Bridge with Mount Wellington in the background, viewed from the Rose Bay High School overpass.    See the video at https://vimeo.com/121886583

I am now ready for the workshop on editing to create a visual story.

The five suburbs to be walked through in Stage 5 of my walk along the Derwent River

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From Rosny Point to Geilston Bay, I will walk as close to the edge of the Derwent River as possible.

In so doing I will pass through five suburbs: Rosny, Montagu Bay, Rose Bay, Lindisfarne and Geilston Bay. Most were settled early in the existence of Hobart Town. In 1793, Lieutenant Hayes sailed up the River naming it and many points of interest. It was only a decade later the first settlement was made and in 1804 the final site for Hobart was established on the western shore opposite Bellerive and Rosny. Possibly Geilston Bay was named in the 1810s, Rosny in the 1820s, Montagu Bay in the late 1820s. Lindisfarne was named a century after the first settlement in 1903.

Rosny

The starting point for the 5th Stage of my walk along the eastern shore of the Derwent River will be Rosny Point. The suburb of Rosny, within the City of Clarence, is located on a narrow peninsula which juts out from the eastern shore at Rosny Point and climbs the rising slopes of Rosny Hill to the public Rosny Point Lookout.

According to one of my favourite information sources Wikipedia, Rosny was named by Walter Angus Bethune, the holder of the original grant of land on Rosny Point, after his ancestor the Duc de Maximilien de Bethune Sully of Rosny-sur-Seine  (a town situated slightly north west of Paris in France).  Bethune, a Scottish merchant, first arrived in Van Diemen’s Land in 1820 and was a significant player in the early development of Hobart and sheep farming. His descendants have played important roles in Tasmanian history.

Jean-Baptiste-Camille_Corot_-_Château_de_Rosny

Chateau de Rosny was painted by French artist Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot in 1840

Montagu Bay

This suburb was named after ‘mad’ judge Algernon Montagu, who in the early 19th century lived in Hobart Town before purchasing a property ‘Rosny’ in the Montagu Bay area of the eastern shore of the Derwent River. This small suburb sits on the river edge next to Rosny Point/Rosny and contains the Clarence Aquatic Centre and Montagu Bay Primary School. The Tasman Highway travels over a northern corner section of this suburb, leading to the Tasman Bridge which links the eastern Shore to Hobart and beyond on the western shore.

Rose Bay

The suburb of Rose Bay sits on the river edge next to Montagu Bay.

Rose Bay High School has a permanent camera facing across the Tasman Bridge over the Derwent River towards the centre of Hobart and with the back drop of Mount Wellington. Normally the site operates 24 hours of the day and night. The site is located at http://ozforecast.com.au/cgi-bin/weatherstation.cgi?station=11233&animate=6. Currently the site is being rebuilt, however I recommend you follow the progress and when re-established, save the site as a Favourite. Then you can see what the weather is like over Hobart and how gorgeous it can be to look at regardless of the weather in daylight and with the city lights sparkling at night.

Lindisfarne

While the exact origins of naming our Lindisfarne suburb remain unclear, the main thought is that from 1892 the suburb was known as Beltana. Then it was renamed Lindisfarne in 1903 after Lindisfarne a tidal Island (Holy Island) in Northumberland, a region in the far north east of England. The easternmost part of the middle of the suburb, where the Beltana Bowls Club and the Beltana Hotel are located, is still locally known as Beltana.

It has been suggested this suburb took its name from Lindisferne House, a property built in the 1820s near the suburb of Rosny. From the Clarence City Council website at http://www.ccc.tas.gov.au/page.aspx?u=1601 “Lindisfarne is thought to have been named by Hezekiah Harrison, a free settler, who was granted land in the area in 1823. Harrison had lived just a few miles from Lindisfarne Island, on the Northumbrian coast. Known as the ‘Holy Island’, Lindisfarne was the base from which St Aidan worked to spread the Christian faith through the north of England in the eighth century AD. However, it is unclear whether the area was named by Harrison or the next owner, Thomas George Gregson, a prominent free settler who purchased much of the land between Risdon and Rosny. Gregson grew up in Lowlynn, very close to Lindisfarne Island in England.”

Geilston Bay

Apparently the inlet of Geilston Bay was named after Colonel Andrew Geils who was appointed Commander of the settlement of Hobart in 1812. Colonel Geils lived on a property in Geilston Bay which he called ‘Geilston Park’.