The Australian sheep shearer holds a legendary place in Australian culture: the pioneer, the trade unionist, the true mate, the great Australian hard worker. Strangers to ordinary domesticated existence, sheep-shearers (and their fellow wool shed workers) stand as the last in the line of adventurers, maintaining their traditional language, roles and itinerant lifestyle.

THE ROUGH SHED chronicles several weeks during the sheep-shearing season at Budgerygar Station, in one of the remotest parts of the New South Wales outback. It focuses on one sheep shearing family, the McDonalds: Mary, a shearers' cook, her son Errol, a sheep shearer and a single father, and his four-year-old daughter Kayla. We follow their lives during a shearing "run" at the station.

The 1990s saw big changes in the wool industry, and aspects of the lifestyle began to disappear under economic and social pressure. Many workers mourn the passing of the old ways and some refuse to change, resulting in brushes with the law and loss of work. In the film we see something of how the pressures of the changes impact upon Mary, Errol, and their fellow workers.

Kayla seems to cope well in the rough male environment, but although she is self reliant and independent, this is not the life for a child. As the weeks wear on she becomes increasingly moody and lonely. Errol does the best he can for his daughter, and must soon face up to the fact that when it's time for Kayla to go to school, his shearing days may be over. But as he says "it's a hard job to get out of."

"Presents a fascinating overview and valuable insights into the sheep shearing way of life. The film is a good example of ethnographic filmmaking and provides a valuable resource for anthropological filmmaking courses."—Anthropology Review Database