home

= __Cathy.Ivy.Julianne.Natasha.__ =

= Tall Tales and Truths 2 =


 * Truth Tellers Challenge Team! **

Welcome to your site:


 * Some ideas to get you moving: **


 * creating a children's book of fables and tales from the "Hill"
 * using iAuthor to create a digital collection of stories
 * using the pictello app or another ipad app to create a picture/story book with your text and photos
 * Ghost Blog!
 * Horror film

Some people, places and spaces to contact that may assist your challenge:


 * Thankakali Aboriginal Art Gallery
 * Sculptures Symposium
 * Photographic Recollections
 * Kinchega National Park
 * Broken Hill Library
 * Film Broken Hill

= Tuesday 20th March 2012 =

Paul Armstrong paid a visit to the Mulberry Vale Gallery today with intentions to recount tall tales that he had written based on real incidences that occurred in Broken Hill. Throughout his talks, we were able to form few draft key questions that will help us during our task. In order to understand Paul Armdtrongs writing styles and stories we planned questions that we would inquire after his talk.

Questions:

1. Are the stories you write based on actual events? 2. What is the process you go through to write these stories? 3. Are your stories found in the Broken Hill library? 4. What inspires you to write these stories? 5. Can you please retell one of the most interesting cases you've been through?

Paul Armstrong's visit with Group 2 inspired us to form key questions that we would later use.

Key Questions

1. How have the stories evolved over the time? 2. What attracts people to Broken Hill? Is it the stories? Is it the environment? 3. How are actual events interpreted into tall tales? 4. Does the story have to be true to be engaging/interesting? 5. What makes the stories interesting?

After we were able to gain this information, we concluded with 2 proposals of what we were going to express and exhibit.

Proposal 1:

(A majority of his tales focuses on an unsolved mystery or are based on important incidents that have occurred in Broken Hill's history.) This would be exhibited through an reenacted play of our narrative
 * Re-write a narrative based on Paul Armstrong's stories

Proposal 2:


 * Read Paul Armstrong's stories/other tales and locate the real artefacts from sources (newspaper articles, interviews, documentaries and local residents). From this, we would choose a specific case and create a documentary or reenact, retelling the story.

= Wednesday 21st March 2012 =

Beforehand, our group had gathered together with the rest of Group 2 to organise whether or not to attend different location either for research or service. We concluded that Julianne and Natasha would be attending the library to find more archives on various tales that we could incorporate into our presentation while Ivy and Cathy travelled to the Mining and Minerals Museum in hope to obtain intriguing mining stories.

Although Ivy and Cathy were able to obtain 2 stories, we finalised that we wouldn't use those stories as we felt they were hard to re enact or rewrite or were irrelevant to our topic. However, at the library Natasha and Julianne researched further into the story of the "Black Feather Coat" by scanning through archives. It was unfortunate when Brian told us that there weren't any books in the library which didn't assist us in what we were looking for. Nevertheless, we still acquired enough information to begin our task.

= Thursday 22nd March 2012 =

Today, we went to Menindee for a riverboat cruise on Darling River. The arduous hour long trip on the bus had motivated us to find a way to entertain ourselves. This is how our vlogging idea came about. Our work group had been thinking of the format of our presentation when we realised that creating vlogs documenting our Broken Hill Experience would be the most creative way as it was the most realistic way, creating an authentic tone to our iMovie. By recording our daily lives and our adventures to the different adventures, we figured that it was the best way for the audience to get a real insight of what our Broken Hill experience was REALLY like. Through this adventure, we were also able to begin formulating our key question. We wanted to incorporate our Broken Hill experience into our project, therefore "Broken Hill Experience" should be located somewhere in our question.

We were also able to learn more about the consequences of flooding in the Menindee area. The driver explained a few interesting facts. 1. The floods in Menindee are able to provide more employment to residents in the area 2. It also brings in additional income for the area 3. Bring more money in economically, 4. The price of water is currently being fought over. Some people believe the price of the water should be raised as it is now being sold too cheap. 5. Menindee has recently received a higher suicidal rate due to the occurrence of the damaging floods as families are forced to be unable to provide for their families or it becomes more difficult to maintain a large farm hence farmers committing suicide. 6. The SES (State emergency Service) assists the community by blocking the flowing water from entering the town by stacking substantial sandbags. 7. In the Darling River, as the present flood in Menindee is the perfect, they have come out from the banks of the river and started swimming around which is helpful to those who want to go fishing for some yabbies.



= Friday 23rd March 2012 =

Friday was our research/service group option. Natasha and Julianne went to their RSPCA as part of their service choice while Ivy and Cathy decided to do some research at the library. Ivy and Cathy started formulating our final question that could involve all our brainstormed ideas together. They concluded that the question should be

"How can our Broken Hill Experience be incorporated into a tall tale?".

After our research and service group option being complete, the teachers decided that we were able to explore Borken Hill further by allowing us to freely walk up and down the main street in Broken Hill, "Argent Street". This was a great opportunity for us as we were able to experience how someone in Broken Hill would go shopping. We were required to eat lunch so we chose to have it at Charlotte's. For a fulfilling meal we ordered 2 meat pies, a plate of fish and chips, a dish of a scones accompanied with whipped cream and strawberry jam and multiple hot chocolates.



When working time was allocated, Ms Fajou, our work group mentor stated that our question should be modified as it didn't sound right. We spent a while trying to agree on a question that fits our theme as well as explains what we are trying to aim for when Ms Fajou asked Miss Holdstock if it could be a statement instead of a question. This then lead to ou FINAL statement

"Our tall tale inspired by our Broken Hill Experience".

= Saturday 24th March 2012 =

Today would be a very jam packed day as we are going to go camel riding, to have a lesson old school style and the goal museum, going to the Daydream Mine, and visiting the rock sculptures sight of seeing the camel in front of you poo right there! Having able to take part in a school lesson of how it would have been done back in the days was interesting. Instead of writing in pencils we wrote with which were somewhat difficult to control. The style of writing was also different which also made it quite hard to follow. Following this, we went to the Gaol Museum.



This was a place that our group could draw some inspiration from as there could be some ghost stories lurking around. As we were looking around, the artefacts were giving off an eerie feeling as they looked very antique as the spider webs dangled above it, when we stepped into the jail room, you could tell that the atmosphere had changed, the whole museum inspired us to start creating ideas of how our ghost story should come together. There were also some article about ghost stories posted on the walls which we read in order to stimulate our story.

Experiencing what it was like to mine back in the day was fascinating. Natasha suffers a bit from claustrophobia which made it more interesting to see how hard it was to work down there at very young and old ages. The cold rock walls continued to get lower and lower and closer and closer. The air temperature had dropped and was beginning to cold. Darkness completely surrounded us but thanks to our headlights, we knew where we were heading. It was fun yet scary as the paths were very uneven and there was always the possibility of falling anytime up for grabs. Luckily no one as hurt and everyone had a great time. The mood that was filling the air when we were down there was the sort of mood that our group want to get across to the audience when watching our horror movie. The tension and the anxiety of what will happen is definitely what we wat to get across.

= FINAL DECISION " Our tall tale inspired by our Broken Hill Experience " =

After much discussion and research we have finally concluded what our final project will consist of. Firstly, with all the research and inspiration that we have gathered, we will formulate a fictional ghost myth that becomes a tale that is eventually passed on to others.

Along with the iMovie, there will be a storybook which outlines the storyline of the movie. We don't know how we are going to be presenting this yet as we don't have enough time to create a tangible book. Either we have to print multiple copies of the story out on paper for people to take away or if we have enough time make a rough book.

There will also be limited copies of our replication of a Barrier Daily Truth newspaper article that thoroughly explains the discovery of Joan's body and the cause of her death. These will be free for the public to take to read or the teachers to assess.

Finally, there will several missing persons profiles around of designated area that describe Joan's features and when she was last seen. We thought this would allow a change in atmosphere and have a realistic feel when others come to view our exhibition.

= Our Working Process. =

Our group was organised and have listed what there is to film in chronological order and what sort of weather/time the filming would need to take place. As we film each scene, we will cross it out so that it is easier for us to recognise what we have and have not filmed.

= Day #1. =

One scene required a gloomy sky which could be seen at approximately 6 o'clock. At this this time, our group decided to set off for filming with torches and a can of Mortein in our hands. It was definitely frightening as the location of where we were filming had an indescribable feeling. What made it worse was what we were filming. Eventually we had to return to the gallery in search for help from our mentor Ms Fajou so that we were abel to continue filming. Once Ms Fajou was there, filing took 10 minutes and we had obtained what we needed to do for the day.



= Day #2. =

Instead of having free time, the group decided we needed to film more but this time the location was different. This scene required the cabin bedroom and it needed to be night time. Since it was the afternoon and the sun was shining so brightly, we decided to shut all the blinds, turn of the lights and when the clip is uploaded onto the laptop, we can play around with the brightness, contrast and effects to create a more realistic feel. Ivy had already started on the missing persons profile and is now trying to make it more real by referring to other missing persons profiles found on the internet. Cathy had started uploading photos from our trip and started picking out which ones to develop to create something for our presentation. Natasha began to work on the footage that was already uploaded onto the laptop as well as the newspaper article while Julianne began writing the story for the book.

= Day #3. =

The last Thursday was dedicated to a whole day of work. Our group used this time to finish the rest of our filming as well as doing some blogging and working on our other projects. We used the surroundings of Mulberry Vale such as the railway tracks where trains occasionally pass by. There some scenes where some characters weren't needed so we allowed the others to go and work on the wiki or work on other projects. During this time, Natasha was able to begin working on the presentation and the wiki. After we had finished all our filming, everybody went back to concentrating on their own projects.



= The plan of our table =

Depending on the space we are designated to work with, this is a rough plan of what is going to look like

Our movie will be shown on a projector which we dont know where will be placed.

= Last Minute Changes: =

Ivy showed us the final product and we realised the movie wasn't as suspenseful as we thought. So we created a trailer instead. We felt that a trailer would be more effective as it would leave the audience wondering what would happen next or what the actual story contains. The dramatic music we also found also sets our wanted atmosphere.

Also, instead of just having the newspapers around on the display table, we are going to hand 1 or 2 articles to each group that enters our page.

As a team, we proud of what we have achieved and look forward to working together again some time in the future!

Ivy, Cathy, Julianne and Natasha.