Wentworth NSW to Meningie SA, April 2010
CHALLENGE: Change Media ran the fourth production workshop with the newly formed Ngarrindjeri Media Team to continue their training in film narratives, interview techniques, editing and train-the-trainer methodology. The workshop documented some of the Murrundi Ruwe Pangari Ringbalin ceremonies, from Wentworth, NSW, down the Murray River to Meningie and the Coorong in South Australia.
PARTNERS: Indigenous Cultural Support DEWHA; Indigenous Coordination Centre SA; Australia Council for the Arts Creative Community Partnership Initiative; Arts SA Partnerships for Healthy Communities; Ngarrindjeri Land & Progress Association; Ngarrindjeri Ruwe Contracting; Tallstoreez Productionz; Apple Australia
Film: Currently in Production.
Available end of July, 2010
OUTCOMES: The training covered shooting on location, conducting interviews and documenting night performances following the Murrundi dancers during the 3 ceremonies in Wentworth, where the Darling and the Murray meet in South West NSW, to Murray Bridge, SA and Meningie at the Mouth of the River Murray. The team also created additional content for the prototype Change Media Indigenous digital media training resource, to be delivered July 2010.
SCREENINGS & AWARDS: Please watch this space for updates.
IMPACT & FEEDBACK: The team’s challenge for this session was to conduct night shoots, documenting the Murrundi Ruwe Pangari Ringbalin river spirit ceremonies, and produce a follow up documentary on last years success Nukkan.Kungun.Yunnan. Their final film includes traditional cultural knowledge of the environment and caring for the river and lake system; the additional editing workshop will focus on documentation techniques, final narrative, editing and delivery.
The Ngarrindjeri Media Team continue to work on their peer-produced films between the workshops.
It was an amazing and challenging journey for the whole team, over 1000km in 4 days, non-stop production from 8am to 10pm, three night shoots to document the performances under very difficult conditions. The ceremonies were only lit by small camp fires [in Wentworth and Murray Bridge] and the Ngarrindjeri camera team had to compete for the best shots with 2 other, external film teams, hired by the Murray Darling Basin Authority to produce a community engagement documentary and photo archive. The other teams were nice enough and ok to deal with, but it was an interesting challenge for the Ngarrindjeri’s to stand their ground and not get pushed aside.
Our team also tried their best not to impact on the dancers and keep a respectful distance – but this meant constantly to balance the respect for the traditional practice and the need to make a good film, where a wider audience could enjoy the ceremonies on DVD.
In Meningie the team found a great solution, they arranged for 4 big fires to be prepared, and this finally provided the necessary lighting.
The best outcome for us was that Change Media empowerment needs to focus more on producer’s training, to address power relationships, legals, negotiation and communications skills. More about this in our next newsletter in early June 2010.
Tags: art, environment, history, indigenous, inter-generational, regional, remote, social justice, youth