Black Saturday Essay

Essay Question: How have documentary conventions and film codes been used to convey the film’s ideas?

The documentary film, Inside The Firestorm, is a movie about a very horrendous bushfire on the 7th of February 2009. This event is called Black Saturday. To date, it has been Australia's worst peace time disaster. On the day before the fire started, the temperature was over forty degrees Celsius and this was going on for a few days. The gale force wind was combined with the extreme heat, creating a very bad combination for a bushfire. Over 7000 people were left homeless after the fires, and 173 people died from the fire. The main facts of the movie are given from the narrator. He describes the conditions of the day. Also due to the film having a documentary genre, all sorts of people, civilians and officials were interviewed. The civilians were interview in their houses, and the officials were interviewed in the fire brigade offices or the Country Fire Authority headquarters. Actuality videos are the reason for our understanding of this event. The re-enactment videos increased our depth of understanding of the documentary. The combination between the documentary conventions and the film codes what makes this documentary film easy to understand, to deliver its ideas successfully to the viewer and have the credibility a documentary film has to have.

Poor planning and analysing was the main reason the fire became so difficult to handle. The CFA system was under stress due to working at full throttle for few days. For example, the fallen power line that started the fire was reported and found too late. It had already gained strength to become big. The fire quickly became too big it started to spread very quickly due to the gale force winds pushing the fire. The fire quickly started moving from one town to another. This is shown when news and weather helicopters caught bird's eye view shots of the fire quickly burning through towns. Satellite imagery showed us exactly where the fire was in places where the helicopters could not go. The CFA command did not do their jobs well on the day. This caused more deaths and injuries than expected. The CFA command centre did not release quick warnings on where the fire was travelling to. Their site was not updated, nor was the messages to the ABC radio command centre. This is shown as the narrator quotes “Information somehow went missing". The CFA command had a huge role in this event and it did not commit to making this horrible day better instead of worst. A better preparation, planning and analysing is needed if this day was ever going to repeat itself. Quotes by the narrator and video shots increase credibility for the viewer watching the film. It also allows the viewer to actually see what actually happened.

The CFA volunteers should not be blamed for the devastation that happened on Black Saturday. They did everything possible to stop the fire from destroying the towns. The fire was extremely hard to handle. It did not stop destroying towns one after another. We know this as there were only twenty eight buildings left in Marysville. One CFA volunteer being interviewed quotes "it was like a wall of flames". The most fire proof houses were destroyed on Black Saturday. Many thought their fire proof house would hold off the fire and everything would return back to normal. However, the plan did not work as the houses were just overwhelmed by the fire. This is shown in a before and after shot of the most fire proof house during their event. The house collapsed approximately 30 minutes after the fire stopped. To a CFA volunteer's saying, "Everything was on fire" really was the reality of the day. The CFA volunteers placed themselves at risk to save the lives of others. They evacuated people from towns where the fire could not be dealt with. In some cases, the fire was so big that they could not enter into the town. This is shown, when an actuality shot was played from one of the fire truck crew’s phone. They were surrounded by fires that formed circles around them. A CFA crew quotes, “going into survival mode". Weather conditions made fire fighting very hard and incredibly dangerous. Over ninety fires were burning by the evening of the day. The fire came to a point which it was so powerful that it was considered unstoppable. The fire had to burn itself out before it could be stopped. The narrator describes the volunteers as soldiers fighting the fire which is the enemy. Once a soldier gives in 110% effort and loses to the enemy, they should not be blamed for being over powered by the enemy. Video shots and quotes by the CFA volunteers allow us to see what they saw. It gives us a better opportunity to see them as brave soldiers.

The civilians were damaged the most. The ones, who were selected, were interview after the fire disaster where everything was back to so called ‘normal’. They were shown in a domestic setting which was their house. Those who did not survive the fire such as the Clark family's grandchildren are shown in still photos on a burnt forest background. These pictures were all in black and white to create a calm mood to commemorate those who did not survive. Each person being interviewed had lost at least one friend or relative in the devastating fire of Black Saturday. In this terrifying event, the smallest decision meant life or death. Many that chose to stay and defend lost their life. Many also lost their life fleeing for safety. The fire itself was not the problem. The fire did not scare or kill people by itself. As fire uses oxygen to combust, and releases carbon dioxide as a waste, means the amount of oxygen in the air dramatically decreases. It decreased even faster as the fire became bigger. Many people did not die from the fire burning their body. They died from lack of oxygen available. By the end of the day, the fire was burning at a temperature of 1000 degrees Celsius. A CFA volunteer says while being interviewed, “The fire had a magnitude never seen before”. Satellite imagery and CGI effects allowed us to see what parts of the town were on fire and being destroyed. As the narrator says “The fire had the power to liberate the whole town”. Many of the town’s citizens worked together as a community to bring the fire burning to a minimal stage. Being helpless during an event this devastating is a very hard time to come by. The civilians that lost loved ones due to being unable to help them were damages significantly. The interviews with the civilians gave us their story on what happened on the day. This increases our depth of knowledge on Black Saturday and how unhelpful the CFA was.

To date, this traumatic event has been the worst peace time disaster that Australia has ever encountered. It shows how the system was too weak to stop the fire from destroying so many towns. Many radio and website warnings were released too late. Some warnings were not even released. The system was too slow to act against the fire, as the fire over ruled the ones in charge and was not stopped by the fire fighters until it burnt itself out. The bird’s eye view shots really created a real scene of the fire burning the towns. The helicopters took actuality video shots where the fire was not too big. However, it could not enter where the fire was burning at a higher rate. Satellite Imagery on the other hand combined with CGI allowed us to see much within the city where the helicopters could not go. The only downside of this feature was that it was not real like the videos shot by the helicopters. Black Saturday devastated Victoria, and all of Australia.