Transcript
Embers of the Past is a 5-minute poetic documentary.
Given the importance of the soundscape, spaces that might traditionally be considered as ‘gaps for AD’ may actually carry richer meaning. Therefore we have decided to AD this film through the method of an audio introduction that prepares the audience for the almost sound-sufficient narrative experience that follows.
Filmed on country in Lutruwita (Tasmania), with additional footage of the Mornington Peninsula on a Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 4k. Soundscape captured on a Shure SM-57 microphone. Voiceover recorded on a Blue Yeti microphone. Colour grading utilised to both unify the whole and highlight features.
Camera, voice over, sound and lighting by Jake Symes. Actor – his little brother Kiran.
The film begins with a boy, seen from behind, gazing out at the ocean ahead of him as he stands barefoot on a seaweed-strewn sandy beach. In his left hand he holds out a piece of paper. Flames lick the paper’s fire-blackened edges. Now another fire burns, fuelled by gum leaves. The boy stokes the fire. In the pre-dawn light, embers float upwards from the flames. In the cold light of day, the now ash-frosted remains smoulder.
The boy holds a burning book which then fuels the fire that recurs throughout the film. The boy’s shadow stretches beyond his footprints as he pads across saturated sand at the water’s edge, then contemplates the fire.
Water whitens as it tumbles down Horseshoe Falls onto moss-greened rocks. Ferns crowd the distance.
The boy wends his way through a towering forest of paper bark trees, then watches as a woman closes the fingers of her left hand around the sage-green leaves of a she-oak. As the woman talks, she rubs then claps her hands together.
The woman weaves slender blades of grass
In synch with the narration, the boy touches his hand to the rough bark of a gumtree as he cranes his neck to peer up at its lofty branches, then pulls a plant from the ground and shakes off the soil that clings to its roots.
Nighttime. Lying beside the fire, the boy stokes its flames with his breath.
Swathed in a cloak of possum fur, the woman stands before a red, yellow and black sign and post that proclaims putalina Aboriginal land.
In synch with the story, lightning flashes. A glimpse of the falling rain is illuminated by the shaft of downwards light cast by a lone lamp in the darkness. Embers dance upwards from the fire as the boy contemplates its flames.
Now, an old pen-and-ink drawn storyboard tracks the changing relationship between black and white: first, arm in arm, hand in hand, and cradling the others’ baby. The elder of a mob shakes hands with a British military captain. Then the same captain directs the hanging of a black man and the mob retaliate with spears. Another hanging - not of a white man, and the felling of a black man by a white man’s blunderbuss.
A sign sways outside a low wooden dwelling. Words on the sign read ‘Sherwood Hall – circa 1850. Home of Thomas and Dolly Johnson.’
Now the *boy* wears the possum-fur cloak as he stands in front of putalina’s boundary sign. The woman lays shell necklaces on a wooden table. Now we follow her through country, watch as she applies coloured ochre to pattern her face. Swathed once more in the cloak of possum fur, she speaks, as a man beside her, draped in wallaby hide, tends to a fire in a raised metal pit. Mob circle as they perform a rhythmic dance, their skin and hair muted with applied ochre. They rest their wrists on the slender spears they carry on their shoulders. Brown-furred kangaroo hides dangle from around their waists. Others bang together clap sticks, then stamp their feet on the ground in a shared rhythm.
Alone, the boy tends to the fire then gazes out once more at the sea as the title appears in bronzed lettering: Embers of the Past.
Credits: Written, directed, Filmed and Edited by Jakes Symes.
Starring Kiran Symes.
Jake Symes was also responsible for the original concept and creative direction, Production management, sound design and audio editing, lighting and camera operation, costume and set coordination, post-production and colour grading, and the music selection and integration.
Acknowledgement and special thanks to the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery (TMAG) for granting permission to use the following artwork in this project: George Frankland – Governor Arthur’s Proclamation Board to the Tasmanian Aborigines, 1828 TMAG Collection, presented by Mr Alfred Curtis Bolter, 1867, catalogue number: S1997.216. Auntie Trish – thank you for your generous support and guidance during filming in Tasmania. Your help meant everything, and I’ll be forever grateful. Padua College – for your ongoing encouragement and creative opportunities through this journey. Family and friends – for your patience, feedback and belief in this project from start to finish. Filmed on Location Victoria and Tasmania, Australia.
Produced in association with Padua College Media Studies – year 12 2025.
Audio description prepared with the guidance and support of Jake Symes and Auntie Brenda.
