The Web Wide World of Jon Hoevenaars

Introduction

The National Trust has won a grant through the Local History Grants Program to complete an oral history project for the Melbourne Maritime Museum.

I have volunteered my services as a media producer to help develop the project for the Trust and to provide me with an honours project that allows for a practical media outcome and research into broadcast media production and oral history documentary.

Objectives

The practical aims of the project are to capture a history of Melbourne’s waterfront for archival purposes and for display to the public at the forthcoming Maritime Museum or Polly Woodside.

The theoretical aims of the project is to conduct research into the practice of oral history video documentary making for public exhibition and other spaces.

Duties

1. Research documentary practice and oral history.
2. Research interview subjects and their histories.
3. Investigate potential shooting locations.
4. Liaise with the National Trust and interview subjects to organise a shoot schedule.
5. Coordinate control and location shoots.
6. Record vision and audio of inteview shoots.
7. Investigate overlay vision and assisting footage.
8. Oversee post-production of video footage.

Research Methods

Voices from the Waterfront requires a variety of research methods for different purposes:

1. Primary research will be conducted to gain an understanding of Melbourne’s maritime history. The process will begin during the informal telephone interview stage where we begin to assess possible interviewees and their stories. It will then evolve into the formal interview process where we uncover the stories from our participants’ past lives and record them on video.
2. Secondary research will be conducted to complement the outcomes of the primary research. This would include locating archival documents and artefacts such as letters, postcards, telegraphs, photographs and personal objects currently in the possession of our interviewees.
3. Action research will occur naturally as an outcome of the project itself. It will involve me examining the concept of documentary through reflections on my personal experience of the project. Critique of my own project will enable me to closely examine problems of documentary and attempt to find specific resolutions to them.
4. Professional research will be conducted in order to assess the specifications of the project outcome. I will need to conduct some research into the screening location of my work, by looking at existing projects and assessing an appropriate running time and in what style it should be produced.

Style

Voices from the Waterfront is strictly an oral history documentary project using the subject of Melboune’s maritime history as a vehicle for research. Its practical outcome is a series of mini video documentaries that record and retell the memories of former maritime workers.

The style of the project is emotionally evocative while still maintaining a serious and professional exterior. It picks apart the past lives of maritime workers and prods their memories at a broader human interest level rather than at a level more exclusive to the maritime sub-culture.

The interview style will be relaxed but informative. Instead of asking complex questions about the inner workings of a ship and getting stuck down in maritime jargon, the conversation will be captivating for the average person.

Content

Voices from the Waterfront intends to show ordinary Melburnians what the life on the docks used to be like. Each mini-documentary will conentrate on the life of one person and their separate experiences in the maritime industry. Talent could include but is not limited to:

• harbour master
• harbour control
• pilot
• agent
• stevedore
• surveyor/classification society
• naval archivist
• tug master
• lines boatman
• customs
• immigration
• chandler
• ship captain
• ship engineer
• ship deck crew
• ship caterer
• engine crew
• drydock manager
• wharfie

Topics will cover the human interest elements of the interviewees former working lives, including:

• incident of greatest personal pride
• scariest memory
• skills acquired
• funniest memory
• funniest colleague
• working hours conditions
• description of working environment
• machinery/equipment used on the wharves
• biggest insurance cliams
• transport of passengers/cargo in the port
• strikes/workforce reductions
• union representatives
• payday
• worst cargoes/ships/shifts
• wharfie gangs
• health and safety

Aesthetic

Aesthetically, the videos will be along the same lines as Australian Story - structured around an interview in which the interviewee recalls events from their past, but complemented with other overlay vision and archival material. Limited graphics and special effects will be implemented into the production, keeping in line with our intention to let the story tell the story.

Existing works

• Australian Story

Format/Length

Each mini documentary will be an independent multimedia file (video and audio) of between five and ten minutes in length. All will be shot in widescreen (16:9) to allow for a more appropriate adaption to modern screen conventions.

The series of mini documentaries will be produced with the intention of public exhibition at National Trust venues and locations across Melbourne. Hence, they will need to be of professional broadcast quality and be of a standard of work appropriate for public viewing.

Outcomes

Voices from the Waterfront will be the title of the exhibition in which these mini documentaries will appear. Depending on the situation with the Maritime Museum, the documentaries will be available for public viewing at specific National Trust locations across Melbourne. Most importantly, the documentaries will be part of a public exhibition on board the Polly Woodside boat currently docked near the Exhibition Centre.

One aspect worth considering in my project will be the concept of “exhibition space” and how it can contribute to someone’s experience of a video project. I will think about what sort of features I can incorporate to highten the emotional experience of the viewer by what they see and hear and by what is happening around them in the exhibition space. It may also be worth investigating the possibility of interactivity in the exhibition to enhance the experience.

Expectations

I expect to produce material for public exhibition and as a permanent archival record. Issues to be considered are:

• quality and relevance of story telling
• technical standard of video/audio
• amount of material recorded

Application to Project

This project is a practical research study of documentary and oral history. Each stage of the project will require some form of research into the methodology of documentary making or the subject I am dealing with - Melbourne’s maritime history.

Ideally, the progression from start to finish will portray a development of understanding about documentary through research I undertake. Each stage of the documentary-making process will be discussed as I become more and more familiar with the end result.