[John Anderson Home Movies: Reel 13]

John Robert (Jack) Anderson (1924–1993) was a film distributor, cinema owner and photographer as well as an enthusiastic filmmaker in and around Ballarat in Victoria. Jack developed an interest in film very early at cinema shows and gained his first film experience while serving in WWII, photographing wartime conditions and aircraft involved in the defence of Australia’s north, including the aftermath of the Darwin bombing raid.

It was whilst working in photographic studios that Jack met his future wife, business partner and fellow film enthusiast Marie Bourke. Starting out by hiring films and showing them around regional Victoria, Jack and Marie established cinemas such as the Astor Cinema in Ararat, Bell Post Hill Drive-In in Geelong and the Southern and Northern Drive-Ins and Vegas 70 Cinema in Ballarat. In the 1970s, the Anderson family acquired and restored the Regent Theatre in Ballarat which would then become the first multiplex in regional Victoria.

Along the way, Jack filmed his family and friends activities and outings, horse racing, Ballarat street scenes, motorcycle scrambling and travel scenes on the road – an unusual and wonderful look at life in regional Victoria during the 1940s to the 1960s.

This film features a school for children with special needs. We see the children undertaking classroom activities and hear interviews with the teachers.

This film was originally made using 16mm film.

Selected highlights list:
00:00:09:00 children sit on the floor ready to play musical instruments followed by views of the children enjoying playing with the instruments
00:00:32:00 interview with a teacher discussing the lessons children are involved in that day
00:01:50:00 one of the teachers addresses the camera directly to discuss future plans for the school
00:02:24:00 the children take part in a shopping expedition
00:02:36:00 painting at easels
00:03:49:00 activities with the grocery items bought earlier
00:04:14:00 individual lesson in shopping for a teenager