[Wallace Clarke Home Movies: Reel 22]

Wallace Clarke was an amateur cinematographer and filmmaker during the 1960s to the 1990s. Wallace was particularly keen on capturing both the Australian landscape and the people who enjoyed it. As well as Australian urban settings and some world travels, Wallace’s films focus on the many hiking and camping destinations that he visited.

Often carrying the credit, ‘A Walkabout Film’, Wallace’s movies indicate that he was part of a nature study and walking group called ‘The Walkabouters Club of Victoria Inc’. The ‘Walkabouters’ formed in 1968 as a result of a Council of Adult Education (CAE), Outback Study Tour to Central Australia’. Some of the attendees decided to start the Club in order to continue educative walks particularly around Victoria. The Club encouraged their resident artists and photographers to capture their activities.

The collection of Wallace’s films was donated to ACMI by his widow Gwenda Clarke and is shot on various formats, predominantly Standard 8mm and Super 8mm film.

In this film, Wallace films the city of Shanghai in China, and its people. Crowded streets, heavy traffic (with many bicycles), houses, shops and other buildings, gardens, the city’s canals and port are features. There are scenes of people at work, and children in organised cultural activities, and a sequence of high-vantage-point views of the city dissolve into one another. The Jade Buddha Temple with its many statues is also featured.

Originally made on Super 8mm film.

Selected highlights list:
00:00:02:00 Wallace Clarke titles ‘A Walkabout Film’, ‘Shanghai’, ‘Filmed by W.H.C’
00:01:26:99 carpet weaving
00:02:34:00 jade ‘Buddha Temple’ and its Buddha statues
00:04:57:00 various views of the city from high vantage points, in a sequence of dissolves.
00:05:56:00 young children at school or kindergarten
00:11:50:00 port and ships
00:13:41:00 shadow puppet play
00:14:04:00 young children in various music, calligraphy, arts and electronics activities in a sequence of dissolves. Some children wear the red scarf of the ‘Young Pioneers of China’ youth organisation.
00:15:45:00 title ‘The End’