A town keeps its stories in the heads of the people who live in it. We record them properly, while we still can, and turn them into something visitors and residents actually want to watch.
A local, telling it properly
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Every coastal town has the same aerial shot and the same three words underneath it. The thing that actually makes a place different is sitting in the heads of the people who live there, and none of it is written down.
The publican who knew everything retires to Queensland. The woman who ran the shop for sixty years passes away. The bloke who remembers the flood stops coming down the street. Nobody notices until somebody asks a question and there is no one left to answer it.
We find out who holds the story, we work out what to ask them, and we sit down and record it properly. Not a phone on a table. A real interviewer, a real camera, and the patience to wait for the true version.
A place is not its buildings. It is the people who can tell you why they are there.
Every town has these six. Most have never recorded any of them. The Story Map works out which ones matter most here, and who holds them.
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The trades, the farmers, the publicans, the family that has run the same shop for sixty years. The people who physically made the place work.
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The person behind the thing everyone now takes for granted. The pool, the festival, the bypass fight, the co-op that saved the main street.
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Why people chose here. What it was like to be new. Migration stories that explain the food, the clubs and the surnames on the war memorial.
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The flood, the fire, the closure, the win. The thing everyone still talks about, told by the people who were actually standing in it.
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What the industry here really was. The mill, the boats, the line, the season. Told with the detail only someone who did the job can give you.
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What it actually feels like to live here today. This is the one nobody records, and in thirty years it is the one they will wish they had.
Most places start at the first rung, because it is the cheapest thing here and the one that makes everything after it possible. You can stop there, and plenty do.
We work out what stories this place has, who holds them, and which ones are urgent. You get a scoped document your team can act on, apply for funding with, or hand to volunteers.
Your staff, your volunteers or your historical society do the recording using the map. Send us the footage and we edit, colour, master and deliver films that look like a real production.
We arrive with an interviewer and a crew and work through the map ourselves. The deepest result, and the one that gets the story out of people who would freeze in front of a volunteer with a phone.
Pricing for Places is being set with our first council partners. Figures will be confirmed in writing before anything is committed.
The hard part is not filming. Anyone can film. The hard part is knowing which twelve people out of four hundred hold this town, and what to ask them.
That is the thinking we do first, and it is yours to keep whether or not you ever film a frame with us. It is also the document that makes a funding application legible, because it turns “we should capture our history” into a scoped project with names, an order and a reason.
A recording nobody meets is an archive. Our sister studio, Learn Awesome Experiences, works out the best way to package what we capture so a visitor actually walks into it.
The interview, the shoot, the film, the audio. We go and get the story out of the people who hold it.
Sixteen years of designing how people learn, pointed at your captured story. QR codes placed where the thing actually happened, and a route that holds someone for an afternoon.
One proposal, one price, one team. You never manage two suppliers.
This is a project with an end, not a platform you have to run. We do not build you somewhere for locals to upload things and then leave you moderating it forever.
Your team, your historical society, the people who know who everyone is. Usually a day, sometimes two.
The stories, the holders, the order, the questions. You own this outright from the moment we hand it over.
Us, your people, or both. Whichever the budget and the timeline actually allow.
Finished films, stored properly, with full rights to you. Packaged into an experience if you want that too.
We know how council money works. We know it arrives in rounds, that it is committed a year out, and that the person who wants this usually cannot sign for it.
A scoped one-off. Strategy, capture, hand over. Suits a budget line or a grant round, and the Story Map is usually what gets the grant across the line.
Local businesses fund it. The cafes, the pubs and the shops along a trail have a direct interest in visitors staying an extra two hours, and they will often say yes when the council cannot.
A standing arrangement with the council, region or tourism body. Capture a few stories every year rather than trying to do everything in one budget cycle.
If yours is not here, just ask. A real person answers, not a form.
Councils, cities, regions and tourism organisations. Australia wide, and further when it is worth the flight.