I was up at Molesworth (where my family farm is) today for a CFA medal ceremony. One of the medals awarded were for service in 2009’s Black Saturday fires. Molesworth was lucky that the fires never reached that far north, however our trucks didn’t return to the sheds for 22 days straight. We had rolling crews deployed every 6 hours when we could, but some firefighters stayed on the trucks for 18 hours at a time. Those that didn’t slept at the shed in their break. One of the members, John Sinclair, who is well in to his 60s, wrote an account on the events of those fires which was recited by our captain today. When I was sitting in the Molesworth hall listening to the recount, it brought back the confusion and desperation of that challenging time. I’ve been inspired to take that account and create a short film to depict the solemness of that experience and just how many lives it touched. While I may not be able to pull footage and images from the events, apart from simple phone footage I took, I feel I could still convey the emotion through capturing John and other firefighters’ faces as the tell their accounts. It would be a video I would be inspired to create but also learn techniques in editing together a story I have no explicit material from. Food for thought.
© 2017 James O'Malley
