e)+Resource+4


 * FitzSimons P. (2006). //The Big Picture: Celebrating 175 Years: People Rush.// Sydney: The Sydney Morning Herald.**



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This resource is a segment, entitled //People Rush,// of a DVD on the history of Sydney published by the Sydney Morning Herald. The segment is a documentary, narrated by Peter FitzSimons and focuses on post-war migration to Sydney. The majority of the segment consists of still pictures of migration scenes, with accompanying narration, music or interview with migrants and non-migrants. The clip also features short segments of video from the period in focus.
 * Explanation of the resource**

The resource’s focus on the identity of migrants, including their nationality/ethnicity, languages, values, food, as well as their contribution to the broader cultural fabric of Sydney means that the use of this resource as one of many in this unit of work would help students to work towards achieving the HSIE outcome CUS2.3 (NSW BOS, 2007, p.54). The focus on the Bankstown area, and more general focus on metropolitan Sydney ties this resource in well with the unit focus of a specific culturally diverse community of Bankstown.
 * Relevance to the outcome**

This resource could be used to support learning in lesson 10, the lesson that provides scaffolding for the rich task of student creation of their own documentary, particularly by teaching students about how participants in images or film can be represented. The significant number of clear, still photographs in the documentary, almost all of which focus on people gives the resource outstanding value in being used to teach students visual grammar, particularly experiential and interactive meanings. The techniques of shot distance, angles, offers/demands and facial expression are used in combination in the clip to represent the participants as harmless and hardworking people of integrity, who came to Sydney to escape unfortunate, or desperate situations in their countries of origin. The use of shot distance of the participants throughout the resource impacts on the way in which the audience constructs a relationship with the represented participants (Unsworth, 2001, p.97). That is, the extensive use of close-up and medium shots in the resource results in the construction of closer imaginary relationships between the audience and migrant participants than would the use of longer shots, which would construct the participants as unfamiliar strangers (Unsworth, 2001, pp.96-97). Variations in the use of angles also impact on the depiction of participants. For example, the clip uses a variety of low, eye level and high angles to depict participants as less powerful than the audience, equally powerful as the audience, and more powerful than the audience respectively (Unsworth, 2001, p.98). These angles are used for different purposes in depicting migrants as coming into Sydney with relatively little power, coming to Sydney on an equal basis as exiting Australians, or coming into Sydney empowered to succeed in their new adopted city respectively. The use of offers and demands in the resource also contribute to the way in which meaning is constructed in the resource. That is, most of the images contain demands, which result in the audience gazing into the eyes of the participants. This, along with other factors, such as angle, shot distance and facial expression contributes to the construction of the imaginary personal relationship between audience and participants (Unsworth, 2001, pp.94-95). Therefore, the combination of close-up shots, eye level angles, smiling happy faces and demands, present in many images within the resource has the particular effect of constructing the migrant participants in the image as familiar, friendly and harmless people who have made a positive contribution to society in Sydney. The prevalence of these techniques in the resource mean that stage two students could be taught about how these aspects of visual grammar contribute to the construction of meaning over one or more lessons. The development of an awareness of these aspects of visual grammar among students would also be highly valuable in preparing students for undertaking the rich task of constructing their own documentary at the end of this unit.
 * Aspect of Literacy suitable to be explored**

Reference List Unsworth, L. (2001//). Teaching Multiliteracies across the curriculum: changing contexts of text and image in classroom practice//. Buckingham, England: Open University.