There was a very successful scouting troop in the small town of Kawakawa.
One afternoon a parent said he had 5 minutes of 16mm film to use up and would we like to make a documentary to show the best of the troop’s activities.
How well could we describe from dozens of outdoor camps, adventures, sea trips and many more exciting things we had done in the past year, in so brief time.
.
There followed many discussions for the best way to use this precious donation.
After many proposals, finally one was accepted, and preparations were made for our short claim to fame.
Roll film action.
There was a large pond at the back of the scout den and surrounding it was clumps of native fern and small bushes, there was just a small clearing to one side and if you were there you would think you were deep in any bush clad pond miles from any anywhere.
A rope strung across the pond from 2 nearby trees was for a boy to commando crawl across it.
Lights camera.
The brave scout started across the rope and just as he got half way across this deep pond he slipped and swung by his hands precariously over the pond his feet just a metre off the water.
Not wanting to get very wet he signals for his fellow scouts to rescue him.
The camera pans across to the small clearing.
That’s when the real activity broke loose.
Two boys appeared out of the dense bush with a large plastic sheet between them and laid it on the ground, followed rapidly were about 10 more boys each with a large bundle of native fern (a very soft bushy sort) and laid the clumps of fern on the sheet of plastic.
Two more appeared with the collection of 1.5 metre scout staves and lay then on the cushion of fern.
Then two boys grabbed a couple of corners each of the underlying plastic and held them up so that the whole contraption formed a waterproof raft of sticks and fern.
Many helping hands dragged the raft to the waters edge, where it was pushed with great gusto towards the boy dangling from the rope in the middle of the pond.
Well the raft and its two occupants sped over the pond from its initial enthusiastic push and the boy dropped neatly onto it and the momentum carried it over to the far side of the pond.
The dramatic and rapid rescue finished, we all asked the camera man, “how long did that take.”
Well he said “what are you going to do with the other 3 minutes of film”.
That next week the film was shown to the troop and we all thought it was fantastic piece of action.
Particularly when the projector was set in reverse and the whole 2 minutes was projected backwards
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