FAMILY THREE – THE SARGOODS

(Outside the farm)

GFX 3

Charleville, QLD

Halton Station

In drought since April 2013

Maybe the shot from drought-5 on time 37.05 of a windmill

Drought looking clay drought-2

Time 45.00-45.25

And more form drought-3 from time 1.10

Then we see Adma

ADMA SARGOOD

SB_730_Drought-15

1.14 ‘At the peak of the drought, you sort of actually go into a bit of a zombie mode. It’s pretty well the same thing every day. You get up knowing that your job today is going to be keeping cattle alive, making sure they’re fed, caring for them. That’s your number one concern; to keep your animals alive, basically.

We see Adma here or maybe use her in veg garden here

ADMA SARGOOD

SB_730_Drought-15

46.40 ‘My name is Adma Sargood and I live at Halton Station which is situated half way between Morven and Charleville, in Outback Queensland.

The majority of this country it’s called the mulga lands.

ADMA SARGOOD

SB_730_Drought-16

35.32 ‘Yes, I believe I am resilient. Probably a bit like my husband- perhaps I got it off him. Just keeps going.

Shot of Scott with sunglasses on drought-5 time 44.49

Another shot from drought-6 at 49.53

ADMA SARGOOD

SB_730_Drought-16

4.22 ‘We’ve been married for 30 years. He is probably one of the toughest men I know um, probably is a bit arrogant at times but ah, probably one of the hardest workers I’ve known and yet very caring, very, very soft person, especially with animals um hates lazy people.

We have two children Mitch and Bonnie.

(footage of Scott feeding birds Tape SB_730_Drought-5_1807.mp4)

SCOTT SARGOOD

SB_730_Drought-15

Adma, I met Adma in a drought, yes, my whole life has revolved around droughts and going in and out of a drought.

We met and she’s very kind and loving towards animals.

17.33: ‘I love the fact that I don’t need an alarm clock to get up in the morning. I get up because I want to get up. And I go and get a bit of therapy off me magpies and birds in the morning while I have a coffee and start the day. One thing about those birds is they’re always happy’.

Dry dry shot of cattle on drought-3 from drone from 23.00

Family eating cake from drought-6 from 39.08

Watching tv from drought-15 from 28.17

ADMA SARGOOD

SB_730_Drought-16

0.11 ‘If I had to describe my job as a cattle farmer, it would take a long time. It’s sun up to sun down. The job changes constantly- certainly as a woman. You’re a cook, you’re a cleaner, you’re a vet, you’re a dog (??5.07), you’re a gardener, you’re a book keeper, you’re a lawyer, you’re an accountant…you’re helping the boys do fencing, guard work- it’s an extremely varied job. There’s not one word to describe it really.

Animal bones then Scott walking through dry dam on drought-6 from 46.00

ADMA SARGOOD

SB_730_Drought-16

2.32 ‘I think farmers everywhere always think the drought’s going to break- I mean it’s gotta break. It’s part of the weather- good days, bad days. It will break. There’s a saying out here- every day’s one day closer to the rain. So you just work along (?) to that theory. But every now and then you do think, oh surely when is it going to rain? But it’ll rain. It’ll stop. It’ll break one day.

Drought-17 from 23.13

Scott’s son on bike going through dry dirt with cattle.

Or Adma walking through dry soil from drought-17 from time 27.50

Or tracking shot out of car from drought-20 from time 33.46

SCOTT SARGOOD

cams_DroughtCard2_730_1407

15.20: ‘I bought this place sort of right in the peak of a drought. It was as bare as a badgers bum. People who don’t know the mulga country would say why’d you buy that? There’s not a grass there. Dad used to say, if you’re gonna buy a place, buy it in the middle of a drought and if everything’s still alive, it’s a good place you know.’ 

We see Mitch here

MITCH SARGOOD

SB_730_Drought-17

11.37 ‘I’ve learnt everything from dad. He’s taught me everything I know..//.. There’s not much he can’t do.

So my dad flies a gyrocopter, in between a plane and a helicopter. It’s a lot easier to see everything from the sky.

Shot of parents here looking at the camera

Drought-21 from 45.26

Or shot of mitch and dad from behind, both in cowboy hats from tape drought-6 from 39.56

Or Mitch in paddock drought-21 from 32.50

MITCH SARGOOD

SB_730_Drought-17

15.23 ‘One thing he has taught me about drought is, ‘it’ll rain’, so just go again tomorrow and go again the next day and go again the next day and it will eventually, as much as sometimes it mightn’t seem like it and you don’t want to get out of bed, it does eventually rain.

Scott in car driving

Also a cut away shot from camm_droughtOsmo from start to 7 mins camera is on the side of Scott’s car showing wheels and dust shot.

SCOTT SARGOOD (driving)

SB_730_Drought-20_1807

16.28 ‘It’s a big gamble for a young person to want to be on the land these days.’

SCOTT SARGOOD (driving)

SB_730_Drought-20_1807

17.32 ‘Having drought is apart of being in Australia.’

SCOTT SARGOOD (driving)

SB_730_Drought-20_1807

17.40  ‘When I want a feel good story I get old Frank around for a cup of tea and I say, ‘so what was a bad period for you? What was the toughest time you went through?’ And he goes ‘oh yeah 40s, 50s wasn’t good Scotty, we had a world war, a depression and 10 years of drought’ and I’m like oh well we’re not going too bad, we only got the drought.’

The peak of the drought, you don’t have any limitations on your hours, full steam ahead, you do what you’ve got to do to the best of your ability and you can’t have any regrets. You make a decision and you stick with it good or bad …you keep going and rolling with nature and rolling with the punches until eventually it’ll give in, you can’t give in because it always does end, you know.

Shot of windmill from drought-3 time 3.46

Drone shot of cattle from 25.35

Shot of fence

Drought-6

From 33.14

(leaning on fence talking about the animal hospital farm)

ADMA SARGOOD

SB_730_Drought-16

1.48  ‘No we don’t take a break during drought. It’s um…no, you can’t take a break during drought, you can’t take a break – I don’t know what else to say, you just can’t. If you take a break during drought your animals suffer so no, you can’t take a break during drought.

SCOTT SARGOOD

Tape SB_730_Drought-6_1807.mp4

00.21.01 ‘This is the hospital paddock, and this is where all the, well they’re drought victims really..//..all the drought victims that can’t fend for themselves.”

00.21.45 ‘This paddock has saved a lot of lives of a lot of animals.”

25.25’We feed them a bit extra, that’s Adma’s project.’

(footage of this from Tape SB_730_Drought-5_1807.mp4 from 30.49)

ADMA SARGOOD

SB_730_Drought-16

38.47 ‘The thing that annoys me, not annoys me, that’s sad about the drought is probably the calves because that’s something that affects me. I get all the calves when it gets really bad drought we do tend to ween our calves earlier to give the mothers a chance to live as well as the calves and I guess perhaps it’s a woman thing- taking the calves off the mother is just a bit sad. So drought for me is 60, 80, 100 little baby calves everyday to keep alive.

(Can use good shots of dry dam here with animal bones from Drought-2 from 35 mins in)

Adma close up of face not talking from drought-5 time 44.19

Adma on bike from drought-5 from time 46.18

ADMA SARGOOD

SB_730_Drought-16

9.40 ‘It’s not only our domestic stock that suffer, it’s certainly also the wildlife and we care for them as well and I can remember one time I was on a (? 16.08) run- you actually take the lick (?) out to the cattle and you shovel it out into the drums to supplement their feeding- and I came across a number of kangaroos that had obviously made it into the trough and had obviously been standing there for 2 or 3 days and there was no grass, absolutely no grass, and they were going to die, they were at the point where they just couldn’t move anymore, so I had to end their suffering. It wasn’t much fun considering I didn’t have a gun um but you just have to do that. I was actually physically sick afterwards but if I hadn’t have done it I wouldn’t have slept. To this day I wouldn’t have slept. I would’ve thought about, well I just turned my back on those animals and left them there.

(Scott walking through Mulga trees from Tape Drought-1 and Drought 19 and Drought-6)

SCOTT SARGOOD (in the Mulga trees)

SB_730_Drought-20_1807

00.50 ‘You can see this one was freshly broken, last week you can see that, so the cattle have pushed that over there themselves, they’ve broken that off to get to the leaves on it, it’ll keep growing like that, that tree, but when they start breaking them down this big then that’s when you know they need more.’

Shot of trees through car window on tape drought-5 via the time 00.00.11

POSS CUT. Might cut grab in half to save time

ADMA SARGOOD

SB_730_Drought-16

24.34 ‘We’re farmers and as farmers we work with nature, with animals, with the land, so we’re um…in order for our business to succeed, we have to make sure our animals and our land are well cared for. If we don’t look after our land our cows won’t survive and then we won’t have any money so our life’s all about nature, animals, land, grass, water, soil.

ADMA SARGOOD

SB_730_Drought-16

12.05 ‘Mitch works here with us, thank goodness.

 ADMA SARGOOD

34.30 ‘He quite often will drive the bulldozer to feed the cattle and in order to do that he goes and finds patches of Mulga and pushes the trees over with the dozer. The roots are left in the ground so the tree stays alive and the cattle will eat the leaves on the trees.

Cows eating mulga drought-7 from 00.00.02

Shot of mitch on drought-21 from start of tape

ADMA SARGOOD

‘SB_730_Drought-16

Cattle can live on the Mulga tree. It keeps cattle alive.

Scott walking through mulga on drought-20 from start of the tape

ADMA SARGOOD

SB_730_Drought-16

14.45  ‘The regulations on the clearing of Mulga in this area have changed over the years. They’ve been tightened and made a lot more expensive so it has become increasingly difficult to manage Mulga lands.

ADMA

I’m disappointed and annoyed and angry with the red tape that’s being imposed on farmers with the management of our mulga.

ADMA SARGOOD

SB_730_Drought-16

27.58 ‘It’s just hard to understand how people in charge, in politics um make decisions that they must know in their own heart are wrong (crying)…sorry, I wasn’t gonna do that.

POSS CUT

SCOTT SARGOOD

cams_DroughtCard2_730_1407

18.38: ‘My fears are of our livelihood is under threat by the state government without a doubt.

********NEW GRAB*********

**SCOTT SARGOOD**

Drought-15

18.19 ‘We always had this dream of living this life. It’s far better than we ever imagined it to be.’

**********NEW********

sunset drought-5 here 00.04.21

CAMP FIRE: shot of the fire here from tape drought-5 via time 00.00.56 and in slow mo 6.54

**UPSOT (at night)**

SCOTT SARGOOD (at fire pit)

Tape drought-5

3.50 ‘Grab a seat boys. What do you want? You know I’m the food man.’ (playing with dog).

family sitting outside drought-16 from time 47.50

ADMA SARGOOD

SB_730_Drought-16

31.15  ‘Oh the drought won’t beat us.

Cattle running from drought-21 at time 21.00

(not a drone shot)

ADMA SARGOOD

SB_730_Drought-16

 31.58 ‘I feel very sorry for the farmers in other states in drought. We’re incredibly lucky here in the Mulga lands because we have a resource that will get us through years and years and years of drought. These people in NSW, they’re just – they have nothing.

Shot of cattle from drought-17 from 20.44

ADMA SARGOOD

SB_730_Drought-16

 26.19 ‘If you’ve got cattle alive, there is hope. There is always hope. If you don’t have cattle, well where do you go from there? You just have to keep the cattle alive. Nothing else matters. If you don’t keep the cattle alive, there’s no tomorrow really.

THE KINGS

(Outside the farm)

GFX 2

Tullibigeal and Lake Cargelligo, NSW

Severe drought conditions since September 2017

(I like the first second of Drought-13 when Zara takes a breath before she starts talking, looking down the barrel. I wonder if it would work as a start after this plate).

Maybe one of zara’s drone shots of drought here

ZARA KING

SB_730_Drought-9

19.50 ‘Some of my first memories, as a child, was probably my parents getting stressed

out over this financial...situations on the farm during the drought, like, when I was a little tacker, so… I’ve just, kind of, grown up around this sort of thing.

Zara kicking hay from drought 9 from time 36.45

ZARA KING

SB_730_Drought-9

0.52 ‘My name’s Zara King, I’m 16 years old and I’m from Tullibigeal, New South Wales.

Drought-21

Silos – 39.30

Railway 39.40

Old House – 39.50

(NB: we don’t have a shot of the school)

ZARA KING

SB_730_Drought-9

1.05 ‘Tullibigeal is a small town. Has about, maybe 250 people around the area. My

school, I go to, has about 40 kids from kinder to year 12. There’s no year 12s this year, so we’re the oldest.

My family…My sister died when I was a young … then there’s my little sister Juliet.

Sunset shot

drought-13 from 5.00

ZARA KING

SB_730_Drought-9

1.58 ‘We own two properties. One’s here at Tullibigeal and the other’s at Lake

Cargelligo.

POSSIBLE CUT

ZARA KING

SB_730_Drought-9

2.08 ‘On our properties we run sheep and cattle.

We see zara here

ZARA KING

SB_730_Drought-9

7.19 ‘I was about 11 years old when I got my first little camera. It was just one of

those cheap, little digital cameras.

Drone shot from drought-2

Time 14.39

Another shot from drought-9 at time 50.26

ZARA KING

SB_730_Drought-9

7.30‘I loved to start taking photos

POSSIBLE CUT

ZARA KING

SB_730_Drought-9

8.07 ‘I asked if I could get a drone for Christmas.

(Possible cut)

ALLYSON KING

SB_730_Drought-13

18.35 ‘I think she has got a gift. I’m not sure where she gets it from- I can’t draw a stick figure and neither can her dad.

(ZARA DRONE VISION MONTAGE HERE WE HAVE HEAPS OF REALLY GOOD VISION AND STILL PHOTOS FROM ZARA. Maybe to the song Praise You, piano version by Hannah Grace

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3emgFna_Tc

ZARA KING

SB_730_Drought-9

27.35 ‘I’m just going to photograph the world around me as the drought does this thing.

(thought tracked over her vision and photos)

ZARA KING

SB_730_Drought-9

28.53 ‘I find taking photos of animals and that easier because if you take a photo of a person, you need their permission. If you take a photo of an animal, it’s like, you can just get their natural look.’

(thought tracked over her vision and photos)

ZARA KING

SB_730_Drought-9

5.36 ‘We’ve been hand feeding the stock for about six months, now.

(thought tracked over her vision and photos)

ZARA KING

SB_730_Drought-9

5.26 ‘There’s nothing really on the ground… you’re constantly feeding your stock because it’s just, there’s nothing for them to eat.

Dead cows here drought-10 from 12.30

ZARA KING

SB_730_Drought-9

15.38 ‘In the last two months we’ve probably lost about 25 herd of stock.

Vision of sheep running for feed

Drought-18

Time 1.47.

Close up shot at 6.45

ZARA KING

SB_730_Drought-9

‘You’re just doing everything in your power to help these animals.’

(Zara in the field talking about dead sheep under the tree. It’s windy so will have to kill one of the microphone channels)

Close up of dead sheep 16.14

ZARA KING

SB_730_Drought-18_1807

14.41 ‘You do everything you can to keep them alive, you feel guilty, you’ve got to help them, when you’ve lost them because you feel like you could have done more.”

Driving with hay on trailer on drought-9 from 33.05

ZARA KING

SB_730_Drought-9

5.40 ‘We’re nearly out of hay, we used to have about 500 bales, now we’re down to about 30.

Looking at hay from Drought 9 from 33

ZARA KING

SB_730_Drought-9

‘When we have to start buying hay soon, it’s going to cost so much money.’

Graham rolling the hay from drought-9 from 38.28

Graham in shed from drought-14 from 45.57

ZARA KING

SB_730_Drought-9

11.31 ‘My Dad’s really, he’s really full on all the time, so, he’s my pop’s full time carer and he’s also got the farm to manage, so he’s doing two things at once.

(outside their home, quick edit so you don’t hear us talking – on way to cow in trouble)

UPSOT:

GRAHAM KING (outside)

Tape: SB_730_Drought-18_1807

22.12 ‘I’ve got to get another sling.’

ZARA KING (outside)

Tape: SB_730_Drought-18_1807

21.56 ‘If it’s near the gate it shouldn’t be too hard because it isn’t steep.”

Cut away shot outside of car window while driving from drought-18

36.32

I also have a shot of Zara running to the cow which I’ll bring up to Sydney

ZARA KING (in car)

Tape: SB_730_Drought-18_1807

00.22.47 ‘We’ve had a call and we’ve just been told one of our cows has gotten stuck in the channel.’

ZARA KING (in car)

Tape: SB_730_Drought-18_1807

23.31 ‘It’s gone to get a drink and it’s been too weak to pull itself out and it’s just gotten stuck in the clay.’

(They pull cow out on Tape: SB_730_Drought-18_1807 from 37.40 and put IV drip in cow)

Show some shots of Zara patting cow, close ups.

The cow jumps when the needle is put into it.

A nice shot of Zara and cow at 40.55

Cow on its own at drought-18 time 57.11

ZARA KING

Tape: SB_730_Drought-18_1807

38.20 ‘Here put the needle in’

39.23 ‘This will help boost her system, get her up again, come check her again tomorrow.

We see Graham here

GRAHAM KING (Zara’s dad driving)

SB_730_Drought-18_1807

(He also says something here on running out of hay)

19.53 ‘If I’d known then what I know now I would have cashed the lot in and sat on the fence…//..it’s too late now, you’ve made your decision you’ve got to keep going.”

GRAHAM KING (driving)

SB_730_Drought-18_1807

20.20 “I’m a lot better off than a lot of people I suppose.”

We see Allyson here and super says she is Zara’s mum so we know who she is

ALLYSON KING (Zara’s mum inside)

SB_730_Drought-13

19.10 ‘How I would describe drought is heartbreaking on many levels.

POSS CUT

ALLYSON KING

SB_730_Drought-13

23.00 ‘Drought makes things really hard…//…

Allyson at computer, or drinking water on drought-14 from 1.40 to 5 mins for water

And doing washing from 20mins

23.05 ‘Two-minute showers or no showers. Having to go into town- my father in law lives in town and that’s where my husband stays to look after him so there’s times when we’ll go there to have showers- they’re on dam water. We’re not on dam water here at all, we have drinking water that we get in from town, um I take the washing into town. This is my house, this is my home, but I can’t even do my own washing here. And that actually upsets me.

Zara feeding cow from drought-21 from 17.53

Zara watching tv with her dad from drought-14 from 25.20

POSS CUT We could cut this grab down and start it at ‘it’s also impacted on the children

ALLYSON KING

SB_730_Drought-13

29.12 ‘This current drought, the impact on us directly, on my family directly, is becoming really stressful. We are down to our last bit of hay and I would think maybe might have another month at the most but then that’s it and so it’s also impacted on the children, especially our eldest Zara, because Zara’s the one who is here, Zara needs to get up before school and go and help Dad. There’s been a couple of times where they’ve been caught down in the paddock (11.26) and she hasn’t got to school til 10 o’clock. The school is OK with that, I have not been. I’ve had to- I’m going to sound like a bitch but I’ve had to say her education comes first.

I see the children taking on responsibilities or taking on anxieties and fears I wish they didn’t.

POSS CUT

Looking out the window of a car at dry land drought-18 from 18.05

Or husband watching TV from drought-14 time 25.41

Or cow on the ground from drought-9 time 43.16

Another cow close up from 47.40

ALLYSON KING

SB_730_Drought-13

39.45‘My husband’s very passionate about being kind to the animals we don’t have guns on this place, I refuse to have them.’

ALLYSON KING

SB_730_Drought-13

24.31 ‘It’s like Groundhog Day. To the point where you get sick of talking to each other. When you have the five minutes to talk to each other because really, I know that it’s bad on the farm and I don’t want to hear that.…//….24.48 At the moment there’s not a lot else to talk about. There’s no fun times, there’s no good times together, you know.

Zara in bedroom looking at photos from drought-21 from 13.20

Zara in farm drought-14 from 41.35

Graham putting on shoes from drought-14 from 33.09 mins

(I’ve just switched these two grabs around I think it works better.)

ALLYSON KING

SB_730_Drought-13

25.00 ‘Zara’s come home in the midst of all this and she’s like a breath of fresh air. And what she’s capturing…she’s like hey I think it’ll be OK and I’m like I don’t know if it is this time now because at what stage does it…we’ve done the last couple of droughts. At what stage do we go enough is enough.

ALLYSON KING

SB_730_Drought-13

32.27 ‘He just works himself to the bone and I don’t know for what at the end of the day…I think at times…at times I think he should just give up (crying).”

Transition to outside, maybe shot of trees or nature, or machinery

We see Zara here

ZARA KING(outside)

SB_730_Drought-9

2.53 ‘You can’t hear cars or anything, no traffic… I just love it out here.

Zara walking around dam from drought 9 from 31

ZARA KING

SB_730_Drought-9

14.50 ‘When it rains… when it storms, more like it, it’s really nice to smell the storm

coming and it’s just this really earthy smell, It’s really nice, it really calms you down I guess, I love the smell, I haven’t smelt it in a while.

Listening to weather in shed from drought-14 from time 46.52

(possible cut)

ZARA KING

SB_730_Drought-9

13.18 ‘It’s kind of upsetting when you’re watching the weather and stuff and you see rain in Sydney and that and they’re like, ‘...it’s going to be really nice rainy, sunny day today and tomorrow it will be raining but hopefully it will last long’... They just have no idea.

(Zara feeding cow here, one on the ground and gives it water from tape SB_730_Drought-9)

Drought 9 from 39.40 shows a cow down on the ground

ZARA KING (thought tracked)

SB_730_Drought-9

15.17 ‘If the animal’s on the ground and they can’t get back up, usually means

they’re going to die. Chances are, nine times out of 10, they’ll probably pass away but we’ve saved a fair few.

(show field of dead cows from tape SB_730_Drought-10 from 12 mins in)

ZARA KING (in field)

SB_730_Drought-10_1807

9.15: ‘Unfortunately the cow we pulled out of the river last night um it had died um yeah…did everything we could do for him, but she was dead this morning when we come…

Zara with poddy calf again from cams_Drought_DSLR_730_1307

ALLYSON KING

SB_730_Drought-13

34.40 ‘I’ve seen probably three or four droughts in my 50 years and I’ve just seen the impact and I don’t want my girls to think this is all there is (long pause).

ENDS