Script for Colour Film of Dominion

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26532, 6 August 1947, Page 5

Script for Colour Film of Dominion

Special Correspondent Rec. 7.30 p.m. LONDON, Aug. 5. Gusts of laughter were reported frorr. the script writers’ room in Wardour street, the nerve centre of the British film-making industry, when the copy of the proposed script for Mr E. H. Scott’s documentary colour film of New Zealand was read and shown round. It was written by someone in the Government Film Studios in Wellington, and the Wardour street mirth was caused by its stilted journalese. For instance, geysers and mud pools were called “manifestations of thermal phenomena.” The coloured silica terraces at Rotorua were described as “depositions of minute algae which have the power of attracting the siliceous contents of the waters as the coral polyp attracts lime.” The introduction of Californian rainbow trout was referred to as “ acclimatisation of the ova of the salmo irideus,” and picnickers making tea are enjoying “ a refreshing pause to -partake of the fragrant brewparticipation in al fresco refreshments is the height of modernity.” Alpinists do not put on their boots; they “don the habiliments of the mountaineer.” People don’t go swimming; “ the products of twenty-first century culture and civilisation disport themselves in pleasant relaxation on beaches and as followers of aquatic sports.” Wardour street is amused, but not impressed.