Dual-award DVD preseves history

A GROUP of secondary students’ DVD on the construction of the Great Ocean Road has won two state awards.
Lorne-Airey’s Inlet College VCAL students make the DVD using archival photos from Lorne’s historical society.
The DVD won a VCAL partner achievement award and a Victorian Community History Award.
The Great Ocean Road construction project employed nearly 3000 returned soldiers as a memorial to diggers who died in World War One.
The idea for the pot-holed history of the iconic road was born when the historical society realised its valuable collection was at risk from a major catastrophe such as a bushfire.
Society volunteer Peter Spring said the group had no space to exhibit the collection, either.
“We wanted to digitise the collection to safeguard it and give us more options for displaying the work,” Mr Spring said.
“We called the project Freeze Frame and we enlisted the help of the college in scanning and cataloguing the collection.
“The school was enthusiastic, the kids were terrific and brought their youthful technology skills to the project.”
Mr Spring said the DVD would lead to other projects, portraying Lorne’s timber industry past and the importance of the fishing industry to the town.
The DVD would be included in multimedia displays at Lorne’s busy visitor information centre, he said.
“We also want to run an exhibition and display some of the artefacts from the era. In fact, we’ve unearthed some more material and we hope to extend the DVD.”
The DVD will also be available on Sate Government website Victorian Collections.