Deadly Stories Project

kuril dhagun Deadly Stories was a project dedicated to training young Indigenous people in video and sound recording and editing. I had the opportunity to team up with Amanda Hayman and Mitch Daley to run some short documentary style workshops in Townsville, Cairns, Wujal Wujal and Cooktown. The theme was ‘deadly heroes’. We saw some beautiful country while driving between Cairns and Cooktown and were both blown away with the stories heard and recorded in each town. Many people made a film about a grandparent or close relative and we had some screenings up in Cairns as well as Townsville.

Written by Amanda Hayman- Project Manager – kuril dhagun

The first couple of days were introductions, project overview, watching demos and then straight into interview techniques, testing equipment (cameras and audio recorders), creating storyboards and filming cut aways. Wednesday was my favourite day because it was shooting day. Traditional Owner Cynthia Deeral took us out on Gamay country which was on the back tracks towards Hope Vale. We stopped at Jepson Creek for some billy tea and filmed some interviews there. It was really special. We continued on to Hope Vale where we did some oral history recording with and old man by the name of Uncle Herbert McLean. He told amazing stories and had us all teary eyed by the end.

The stories were edited together and uploaded to youtube. They’re also part of the State Library Queensland collection and can be found here: kuril dhagun Deadly Stories series 2013-2014