FILM director and screenplay writer Robert Braiden was in Rosewood last week to film a documentary for his YouTube channel, Walkabout With Rob.

Robert’s videos garner millions of views on the platform, and each one focuses on the history of a town, suburb or region in South East Queensland.

He’s a professional filmmaker who has won awards in the screen industry.

One of his movies ‘True Love’ won the Best Film Award at the NYC Picture Film Festival in New York City.

It was Rosewood’s history he was after last weekend and capturing footage was just one part of the project.

“The [documentary] covers the history of the Rosewood area from just before European settlement, right up until the early 21st century,” he said.

“Questions asked and answered are why was [Rosewood] put there, why were the first roads put where they are, and where were the first inns and hotels?”

He looks for answers and takes the viewer along for the ride as he sleuths through an area.

“These are broad brushstrokes of history rather than getting into the nitty gritty details of naming family after family and business after business,” he said.

“I show people the area and how it came together while encouraging them to visit and see it for themselves.”

His passion for historical documentaries stems from a desire to capture firsthand experiences.

“The older folk pass away and their families find photo albums and throw them away,” he said.

“They are throwing away heritage and memories that are lost forever.

“I am always banging on about this, but we need to get the older folk to write their experiences down or at least commit them to a tape recorder.

“Then give that to the local historical group or historian or even the State Library to be catalogued and filed for future reference.

“If this doesn’t happen these wonderful stories will be lost for eternity.”

Robert shoots his footage using a DJI Osmo 4 Action Camera.

“It is tough as nails and gives beautiful 4K vision. It is mounted onto a selfie stick and I use that to film myself on location,” he said.

“I now have four days of editing to do from the footage I shot in Rosewood.

“I did three months of research for it, shot it for three days out at the town and the surrounding areas.

“There is a lot of work that goes into producing a film.”

Scripts are written ahead of time.

He even knows whereabouts he’ll stop to talk on camera.

However, despite meticulous planning sometimes things go awry and that’s fine too because “if you are sincere, enthusiastic and earnest, that communicates through to the audience”.

Robert holds a Bachelor of Visual Arts in Film and Television Production and has decades of experience from being involved on film shoots and on sets.

“I am a former producer at Channel Seven as well as a movie director and my first movie, ‘Horizon One’, is screening now on Amazon Prime and Apple TV+, which is really cool,” he said.

The movie was released last year, and it is a fictional full length drama directed and written by Robert.

He’s worked in commercial television as a writer and story assistant for Big Brother, he wrote and directed ‘Nine Miles’, ‘Beautiful’, ‘Falling’, ‘True Love’, ‘Ink’ and ‘The Housewife’.

‘True Love’ won several industry awards including the Kinetone Award for Best Film at the Queensland Filmmakers Awards.

He was also nominated for Best Director and Best Emerging Talent.