St Kilda Esplanade c1912 (c1912)
Length: 1 minute 40 seconds
Synopsis
This short piece of actuality footage shows people at St Kilda in approximately 1912, including at the entrance to Luna Park, Daylight Pictures Cinema and a jetty at the beach.
Curator’s notes
Although this film is identified as a piece of actuality footage, the people being photographed may have been aware of the camera. In fact, they look like they have dressed for the occasion and some scenes look staged.
As mentioned, this clip includes footage of Daylight Pictures, an outdoor cinema that used ‘Daylight screen lantern slides or moving pictures…projected through darkness by covering the projector with a dark cloth’ (Ina Bertrand in Cinema in Australia, A Documentary History, p16). This provided the outdoor exhibitor with longer opening hours, it also answered the moralist belief that ‘unseemly advances were being made under cover of the darkened cinema’ (Cinema in Australia, A Documentary History, p16).
Original aspect ratio: 1.33:1 (Academy full frame)
