Me on Aussie docs, no paywall AIDC 2014: ABC Factual on the march Screen Hub Thursday 6 March, 2014 Phil Craig, head of factual at ABC TV, has a fighter`s passion for documentary, which he joyfully unleashed in support of his department`s contribution to his embattled broadcaster. Here is his address, including the rise of Event Television, Auntie style. Over my 18 months in this job I’ve discovered that one of the best things about being a broadcaster is the daily drama - the treatments, the cuts, the RE-cuts, the promos, the reviews… the ups and downs of dozens of different productions, some going well, some not so well. And then the best bit. The daily 8.45am email with the Metro overnights, which you click on with trembling fingers….. Often it’s a surprise – who knew that would work? Who knew that wouldn’t? Shit, why do so MANY people love that bloody Kitchen show? But it’s always a thrill to discover that something you’ve made a contribution to – however great or small – has really connected with our audience. Sometimes it’s the overall numbers of viewers, sometimes it’s pulling in those hard-to-reach 30 and 40 year olds that the ABC is chasing hard at the moment. Sometimes it’s seeing a difficult subject or an ambitious film draw a substantial crowd. At ABC Factual, we’ve had a lot of good moments like that in the past year. And I want to start this session by thanking two people who are not on this panel with us today but who made a massive contribution to some of our best morning email traffic– Karina Holden and Chris Thorburn – and, of course, to the producers, directors and production teams who work so hard to bring their best work to the ABC. Now we don’t simply celebrate ratings or demographics - in fact one of our proudest moments all year was when the majestic First Footprints won the Walkley, and that had only modest ratings - but I opened today with excited talk of the numbers for a reason. Because we’re not embarrassed about loving them. Because we willingly embrace our mission to put audience first, and reach as many Australians as often as we can. A lot of you will support the Indie-doco campaign to de-couple more of Screen Australia’s cash from broadcaster pre-sales. It’s a long running debate and it’s not down to me or the ABC to resolve it. No can I fault anyone for fighting for their sector or their vision of what a real documentary is. All I can do is assert as passionately as I can that we try to use the current system to finance a diverse range of shows - series and one offs - that we believe are artistically and culturally ambitious. In the last twelve months or so that’s included a huge variety – amongst my favourites are Whitlam, First Footprints, Desert War, Re-Design My Brain, Making Couples Happy, Kakadu, Bodyline, Head First, Shitsville Express, Ten Bucks a Litre, Ocean Super Predator, Canberra Confidential, Reptile Battleground, Hello Birdy, Family Confidential, Kids on Speed…These and many other great projects have picked up a sackful of Walkleys AACTAs, SPAA and ATOM awards. Now some people think what we do is Documentary Lite, factual entertainment driven by spread sheets and demographic pie charts. A bit formulaic, a bit cynical. A sausage machine. Well, we disagree. As a modern public service broadcaster in a super-crowded yet ever more fragmented market place… we’ve adopted a strategy based on getting to the viewers that the ABC needs to reach if it is to fulfil its charter commitments and justify its unique place in the life of the country. But at the same time we’re committed to quality, to innovation and to telling great stories at whatever running time best suits the subject matter. We want to see films with a social purpose or a unique perspective getting out to our audience. Not dumbed down but widely accessed. Tonight we’re proud to screen episode one of Terry Carlyon’s wonderful series Trigger Point. Now that started life as a project of which any Indy-doco supporter would be proud. A single, authored, idiosyncratic, tough and gritty portrait of the Melbourne police and criminal war of the 80s and 90s. But we liked it so much that we extended it into a short series. Does that mean that when the next tendentious report is drafted bemoaning the decline and fall of the Australian documentary it will move from the good column to the bad? Because I don’t see a decline or a fall. And I don’t believe there is any moral value in running time. Turning this one off into a series is simply the best way, in our judgement, for this story and this film-maker’s talent to reach an audience. This film and many more besides proves to me that the Australian documentary tradition is alive and well and regularly finding a welcome home on the ABC. Its just evolving, that’s all. Later on each of the factual team is going to be talking about a genre and an individual show currently in production that excites us … talking you through it in detail, explaining what we like, how we work, and the kind of issues and enthusiasms that drive us. I want to show today that whether you like or dislike our commissioning choices – we make them out of a passion for telling stories and reaching audiences. Now last year I chose this (BAYONET POSTER) as our AIDC image, a still from Desert War. I used it to argue that you can take a classic but rather dusty genre like military history – in this case a documentary made up almost entirely of the words of 90-something old soldiers – and energize it, give it enough pace, emotion and flair to connect to a broad audience, including those 30 and 40 somethings. This is something I still believe in very strongly and later on I’ll be showing some extracts from an upcoming WW1 series from the same team, where we are pushing even further into this territory. We needed a new poster this year and I went for a slightly less masculine image (VAGINA DIARY CUP CAKE POSTER). Because there’s something I missed out on the honour roll earlier on that I want to talk about now in a little more detail – and that’s Opening Shot. I didn’t mention Edwina Waddy either, and that’s because I want to say now that she did an extraordinary job working with some inexperienced but hugely talented young film-makers to make a series that just shone with ambition, quality and, yes, real cultural value. And I also want to thank Sam Griffin from Screen Australia who had an equally important role on the show. So I’d like now to show a powerful extract from the film Suicide and Me from Corrie Chen and Jian Cen – a film that reached a large audience on ABC2 and was subsequently picked up by the Huffington Post and seen all over the world. .... We are now well into production with Opening Shot series 3 and we’re hoping to launch Series 4 soon… and I think it’s fair to say that the project proves that however it is funded, and whatever the running time, the future of Australian documentary making is in some very talented hands. Now turning to that future and our place in it. If any of you went to the roadshows that Richard Finlayson led before Christmas you will have heard about the new focus right across the ABC on two key words - contemporary and event. In Factual we’re looking to be at the heart of a series of events right across the ABC, telling powerful contemporary stories that reflect the lives, the struggles and the dreams of modern Australia, pulling in colleagues from newscaff, radio and online to grab the attention of the whole nation. Soon there will be an event on violence and drinking, later this year a Mental Health Week. Next year there will be the Family season - where we curate a number of one off films together for maximum impact - and we’re looking for more ideas like that. But a contemporary event can actually be about the past– later this year we will have the first of our WW1 centenary projects coming to air, all jointly funded by Screen Australia and the DVA. We expect it will be scheduled alongside a big drama series called ANZAC girls, as the ABC’s first statement about the Great War, marking – for us – the beginning of what may be the most important historical celebration in this country’s history. And then next April there’s a suite of great films in production for the Anzac Centenary itself, a fantastic mix of commemoration and questioning that’s going to have the ABC at the heart of the national conversation, which is exactly where we want and need to be. As I said before Christmas, the new contemporary focus does mean extra pressure on history, science and natural history for the next year or so. We’re not abandoning any of the many genres we cover, but the real heat will be around contemporary. That’s enough from me for now… ANDREA – discusses Call me Dad MATT – discusses Life on the Reef ANITA – discusses Dream House PHIL – discusses Plumpton High Babies and The War That Changed Us Close with reference to the ambition to the ambition of The War That Changed Us. This series is built on the experience of making Desert War, and involves with many of the same team...the cinematographer, editor, the whole fantastic drama unit of WA, assembled over many years by producer Andrew Ogilvie.....some of whom all picked up awards for their work on Desert War recently, this time led by series producer Don Featherstone and drama director James Bogle. I have always liked the idea of truly energized drama doc that is based on 100 percent real testimony but also uses the full drama tool kit to engage an audience as much emotionally as journalistically. So that character leads and the drama isn`t simply wallpaper for pre written narration tracks, but something that pulls the viewer along by the heart strings, and then some sparse narration and the occasional well chosen interview fills in the historical details and offers analysis and insight. A great drama creates a world you believe in and characters that you care about. I wanted to do that in TWTCU with an even higher proportion of drama than Desert War. We`re also colourising the archive too, so that there won`t be a frame of black and white in a four hour documentary series on WW1. I`m hoping all that will immerse, educate and really move a massive audience. And if you do want to engage an audience emotionally, well music is key, and we`ve been very lucky to come across a young folky, Indy singer from Melbourne called Marita Dyson. ..Think a kind of Aussie Lorde.... We wanted to see how those old war songs, songs we all associate with the voices of old men, would feel like sung by a powerful young female voice....and it really helps I think make the story feel real and contemporary. Take a listen. HANGIN ON THE OLD BARBED WIRE, audio only..... Marita did that as a little audition tape and when we heard it we were mesmerised, and there were a few tears. So here’s another song from her, an original composition that we’re using as the theme song, with some pictures this time…giving a sense of the colour and intensity of the series. TITLES. Yes, as I say, I want to really reach, hold and move a huge audience with this show....I mean basically I won`t be happy until the nation dissolves into a big emotional puddle as the final credits roll......and it`s that ambition that takes me back to the theme of my earlier remarks. Reaching an audience....Because all of us up here on this stage are incredibly lucky and privileged to be able to commission films that can reach an entire country like I believe this one will. So I`m confident, up-beat...yes, Screen Hub, even irrepressible …and with good reason. There`s some mouthwatering documentaries coming up on the ABC. Just looking ahead to this series, to the astonishing Vietnam ANZAC story that David Bradbury is making for us, to Marian Barch and Russell Vines’ stirring War Horses film, to Plumpton High Revisited, to Once my Mother, to Dream House, Life on the Reef, the family docos, Victoria Pitts extraordinary Afghanistan series, the return of the inspiring First Footprints, an under the skirts look at the making of Priscilla Queen of the Desert, the mental health season, another journey into Todd Sampson`s brain and much more.. Looking at these, and the great shows on our friendly rivals over at SBS…. well it does make me believe that documentary, real documentary, is in anything but decline in Australia. I sometimes think that the great one off debate is an exercise in what somebody cleverer than me once called the narcissism of small differences. Because documentary and the very idea of public service television itself has some real enemies right now. And maybe that is what should be preoccupying us this week. Of course, we won`t stop arguing about funding... hey we`re documentary makers... but I do like to believe we have more in common than we think. Thanks for listening....
Posted on: Fri, 07 Mar 2014 11:24:51 +0000