Multiple Delivery Platforms
3d Animated with live action narrator - filmed using VP techiquies in from of CG wall with camera tracking.
Narrated with Minimal dialogue
Burnin is a "third person" in the VR scenes. He is present from the initial confrontation to the death of Gaywal.
XR / Motion Capture / Digital Doubles
Colonial Frontier Massacres in Australia, 1788-1930
https://c21ch.newcastle.edu.au/colonialmassacres/detail.php?r=889
The events leading to the massacre(s) began early February, 1841. Some Noongars were employed in threshing wheat on the farm of Molloy’s neighbour John Layman, and some Noongar women were employed in the house. A dispute arose over payment (in damper) and Noongar man Gayware approached Layman. Layman grabbed Gayware by the beard and shook him, Gayware speared him and Layman struggled inside and died. On 6 February 1841 Magistrate John Molloy and John Bussell raised a party of settlers and workers and ‘soldiers’, which pursued and surrounded the Noongars, killing seven, and then subsequently pursued a larger body of Noongar north towards Bunbury where many more were killed around ‘Lake Mininup’ ( Perth Gazette, March 13 , 1841, p 3). (Wonnerup, Layman’s property, is a few kilometres north of present-day Busselton and Minninup another 15 km or so up the coast.) In 1897 the historian Warren Bert Kimberly wrote up this event as a massacre which took place at Lake Minninup near Wonnerup as 'one of the most bloodthirsty deeds ever committed by Englishmen'...'Although several natives were killed the settlers and soldiers were not satisfied. They redoubled their energy, determined to wreak vengeance on the main body. They rode from district to district, from hill to hill, and searched the bush and thickets. At last they traced the terrified fugitives to Lake Mininup. Here and there a native was killed, and the others seeing that their hiding place was discovered fled before the determined force. They rushed to a sand patch beyond Lake Mininup. Colonel Molloy observed a boy forsaken by his parents. He rode up to him, and to save him took him on his saddle. The lad, whose name was Burnin, survived, and lived in the district until a short time ago. The soldiers and settlers pushed on, and surrounded the black men on the sand patch. There was now no escape for the fugitives, and their vacuous cries of terror mingled with the reports of the white men's guns. Native after native was shot, and the survivors, knowing that orders had been given not to shoot the women, crouched on their knees, covered their bodies with their bokas, and cried, "Me yokah" (woman). The white men had no mercy. The black men were killed by dozens, and their corpses lined the route of march of the avengers. Then the latter went back satisfied' (Kimberly 1897, p 116).
Perth Gazette, March 13, 1841, p 3 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/642768; Kimberly 1897, p 116; White, 2017, pp 2-13. See Also: Carmody, 2020 (Sources PDF)
The ghosts are not silent
History of West Australia/Chapter 13
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/History_of_West_Australia/Chapter_13
In 1841 one of the most bloodthirsty deeds ever committed by Englishmen is reported to have taken place. No records exist of this affair, and the narrative depends on the evanescent memory of pioneers, and the statements of several surviving natives of that period, particularly Weelah, of the Vasse tribe. The numerous bones on a sand patch testify to the perpetration of a massacre, and the recorded murder of a respected settler supplies the cause. It is known that a punitive expedition went out.
On 22nd February, 1841, George Layman, a settler at Wonnerup, whose supply of flour was limited, was greatly annoyed when a black named Quibean or Gawall obtained some damper from a servant by strategy. Mr. Layman seized Quibean by the beard and shoulders, and shook him severely. Quibean bided his time, approached Mr. Layman from the rear, and speared him through the back and heart.
The white men throughout Wonnerup, Capel, Vasse, and Blackwood banded together to take a dire revenge. They would no longer quietly bear these terrible murders after the liberal treatment extended towards the black men. Colonel (captain) Molloy ordered his soldiers to prepare to march, and he took command of them and the chief settlers in the south-western districts. He gave special instructions that no woman or child should be killed, but that no mercy should be offered the men. A strong and final lesson must be taught the blacks. All were well armed.
Into the remote places this party went, bent on killing without mercy. Through the woods, among rocky hills and shaded valleys, they searched for the black men. When they saw them they shouldered their muskets, and shot them down. Isolated natives were killed during the first few days, and, so it is said, some women among them, but the main body had hidden from the terrible white men. A few parties fled from the threatened districts to the southern coast, and escaped. The majority hid in the thick bush around Lake Mininup.
Although several natives were killed the settlers and soldiers were not satisfied. They redoubled their energy, determined to wreak vengeance on the main body. They rode from district to district, from hill to hill, and searched the bush and thickets. At last they traced the terrified fugitives to Lake Mininup. Here and there a native was killed, and the others seeing that their hiding place was discovered fled before the determined force. They rushed to a sand patch beyond Lake Mininup. Colonel Molloy observed a boy forsaken by his parents. He rode up to him, and to save him took him on his saddle. The lad, whose name was Burnin, survived, and lived in the district until a short time ago. The soldiers and settlers pushed on, and surrounded the black men on the sand patch. There was now no escape for the fugitives, and their vacuous cries of terror mingled with the reports of the white men's guns. Native after native was shot, and the survivors, knowing that orders had been given not to shoot the women, crouched on their knees, covered their bodies with their bokas, and cried, "Me yokah" (woman). The white men had no mercy. The black men were killed by dozens, and their corpses lined the route of march of the avengers. Then the latter went back satisfied.
On the sand patch near Mininup, skeletons and skulls of natives reported to have been killed in 1841 are still to be found. Mixed with them are the bones of dogs shot on the same day. Occasionally a sand drift covers them, and then again it discloses them to the sun. Surviving natives held the place in such terror that they would not go near to give the corpses burial. Even now natives refuse to disturb the bones.
Though so many natives were killed, Quibean had gone unscathed. For months he outwitted the white men, and defied their efforts to catch him. Then another native met him in a grove of banksia trees. Quibean was seeking his wife, and this native, pretending friendship, said he would guide the woman to the banksia trees. Quibean hid among the trees, and the native hurried off and told his story to a soldier and a settler. With guns ready, they crept among the trees, and confronted Quibean. Two charges of shot were projected into his body, and the cause of the massacre died.
‘Paper talk,’ Testimony and Forgetting in South-West Western Australia
https://openjournals.library.sydney.edu.au/JASAL/article/view/12148/11483
Wonnerup massacre ( wikipedia )
Editor: Lawrie Silverstrin
Director:
Writer:
Stunt coordinator: John Fairhead
Stills: David Dare Parker
DOP: Darren
Composer: Simon / David - score
Impact producer : Richard Todd
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Motion Control: Jeremy Todder
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Frank - Database managemnrt : Swithboard - Version Control
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3d : Danny Jennings