It's in the news today, but it was actually on TV Reload the podcast last week Airline. Welcome back guys to TV Reload. My name is Benjamin Norris, and on this podcast I go behind the scenes with the biggest players in television. Each episode you will get a front row seat with content makers like executive producers, writers, editors, and casting agents, plus the talent that we see on
our screens. TV Reload reloads the shows that you're currently watching and gives you a better insight into our television industry and our streaming services. Today on the podcast, I have two guests joining me to discuss their extraordinary work on the two part series Clamont A Killer amongst Us, which debuted last night on Network ten and concludes this
evening at seven point thirty. The series will be available on ten Play and if you want to catch up on this brilliant documentary, I do suggest you do so. I was lucky enough to preview this series and straight away I lined up this chat with ten publicity. Dan Brown joins me from Joined Up Films. He is the executive producer creative to rector on the series and his insights today and how we managed to produce this series
with empathy and integrity is fascinating. He is joined by network Executive producer at Network ten, Kieran Flannery, who shared Dan's vision for the story and should be really proud of the finished product because it is first class storytelling in the genre of true crime. The story of the Clamont murders rocked Western Australia for decades with no resolution and with many people aware of a killer walking amongst
their community. It is one of Australia's most notorious cases, and while we have the men behind bars, there's a lot to discuss as the series unpacks DNA technology, the police's dedication, and it also includes stories from the victims
of these horrendous crimes. We will talk about the popularity of true crime and why it's currently a phenomenon, what sort of integrity was needed to tell the story properly, some of the decisions in what makes the final cut, and how they manage to get so many people to be included in this series. However, let's get started with today's guest. I'd like to welcome Dan Brown from Joined Up Films and Karen Flannery from Network ten to TV Reload.
I have to tell that story was the tricky bet. We didn't want to just do a straight retelling of the event.
Today mark's the end of a dark chapter in its history.
But many questions from they unanswered.
In any true prime documentary about serial killings or murders, of course, the victims and the families are massive focus, and so they should be.
It all started decades agot. Young innocent women taken away from their families are.
Going to shock. I think there has to be a really strong reason in your storytelling behind that.
How can he go thirty our years committing the most painous crime. We had psychologists on hand to talk to them to make sure that we were doing the right thing by them. These girls got plucked from the quietest, most trusting areas in Australia. The bar has been raised. You have to do these things well. They have to be smart, They have to multi layers.
Hi, guys, thank you so much for coming on the podcast and talking about Clamont a killer amongst us. We do have two English accents here, so I'm going to have to try and help the audience differentiate who I'm talking to. But you know, we'll try and work it out.
Would you like me to do another accent.
If you can do the accent convincingly and it's not distracting, No, no, no, be yourself. We have Dan Brown from Joined Up Films. Thank you for joining us to talk about the Clamont Murders, The Killer among Us, which did debut last night, and we have a conclusion this evening on Network ten.
Oh look, it's such a I'm so delighted that you're interested. You know, you spend a lot of time coming up with these ideas and a lot of time crafting them, and then you put them out in the world and you hope that they do well. And you know, the response we've had so far has been fantastic, and the fact that you're picking up on all of the nuances that we've really spent a lot of time crafting is really gratifying. So thanks for having us.
Well, this must have been under your skin for quite some time and now people are finally getting to watch it. Are you keen to hear what people have to say after sinking their teeth into the next part this evening?
You always put these films out with a sense of trepidation. You hope that you've done the best that you can and you know that it's going to be received well. But it's been a long time. I think we've sort of worked out maybe December twenty twenty is when we went into paid development on this, so we started the journey with ten around then. It took about a year to you know before almost a year before it got fully commissioned because we wanted to make sure we were
telling the right story for the right reasons. And then it's you know, it's been we were at least six seven months in the edits week after we'd filmed everything, just really sort of crafting it. So it's been a lot of hard work.
We also have Kiaren Flannery from Network ten and you're here to talk about your involvement. Hey, Benjamin how I this story spans decades and has had Australians you know, glued to all the twists and turns. Do you think that for audiences out there, what do you think that they're going to learn from this retelling of the story.
There's a lot in it, you know, with two ninety minute episodes, it covers a lot of ground. But I think the thing that sort of resonates the most for me is really the human story of the investigators and what they went through as well as I mean, in any true crime documentary about serial killings or murders, of course the victims and the families are massive focus, and so they should be, and they are in this as well.
But I think the access that we had to the investigators through WA Police was something that sets this documentary apart. And I think often you ignore the human toll it takes on the people who are trying to find a killer, especially when they can't find him or her, And for me that is I think that, yeah, that human face on the investigators is something that people will take away. Did you know the story before you watch the documentary?
And we all know it to a certain extent, but absolutely not with the detail, do you know what I mean? Like you know, if you mentioned the Clamont murders, I would know certain parts of it, but I absolutely didn't know it was him, and so that was a revelation.
The variability of how much people know about the case is huge, Like there are people who I think in way everyone knows all about it, right, it's sort of part of the discourse and almost popular culture over there. But once you sort of get to the Eastern States. It's kind of it's variable. Some people know it really well, some don't. And I think the way that Dan's team told the story is actually really clever because it's they assume that you don't know anything, which is good.
It's the best way that you can make a documentary like this, though, I think, is to assume that the audience doesn't know everything and to take them on a journey. And I think also having the time to do it over two episodes was important.
There really was a lot to tell, and there was a lot of nuance, and that's really what we wanted to do was get to the heart of the emotion of what it was like to be there, what it was like to live through this, what it was like to be one of the victims or the victim's family, but also what it was like to be the police who were investigating this, because you know, that's a pretty teneteous effort to be able to solve this crime after so long and there was so much pressure on their shoulders.
So to tell that story from a human perspective but from all all department that was really the key, and we wanted to be able to make this show and be able to look at the families in the eye and know that we had done this with dignity and with respect, with empathy. You know, we spent a lot of time crafting it, a lot of time in the edits week, like, we held it back from going to
the network. I know, maybe a month, maybe two months, a long time more than you know I've done on anything else I reckon, because we just couldn't get this wrong. It needed it was so important.
And you know, often when when when a production company holds back from showing me something, it's normally not a good thing. But in this instance, it was a really really good thing, and it was great you know when when and that extra time they took was well worth it.
You could tell that there was a lot of respect for these people who had to talk about something that's the hardest thing that's ever happened to them in their life.
It's respect as well. It's respect for the surviving victims. Obviously, the way they are treated is very respectful, and there's respect for the families because it's not about pouring over you know what it's like to lose someone close to you. It's not kind of that kind of gratuitous pouring over history. But I think there's a lot of respect and empathy for the police in the way that Dan and the team tackled it. You know, the police don't shy away
from the fact that mistakes were made. With twenty twenty vision in hindsight, you can always look back on a case that long and find the places where they might have done something different. But the documentary doesn't choose to pick over that. It respects the fact that those police officers cared deeply and they did their best, and I think that really comes across and even where they can look back and say we would have done it differently,
it's from a place of maximum effort. And I think yea, the empathy really applies not just to the victims Batchel, to the investigators as well, which I think is quite unique in this kind of documentary.
Our starting point was the first people that we spoke to were Wendy and Liz, So the surviving victims, and that's some of the people I've worked with. Jacque and Willinge and Lisa Dupenoa did a really good job of developing relationships with those guys and really cared about them, and we had psychologists on hand to talk to them to make sure that we were doing the right thing
by them. This was going to be a cathartic and useful experience for those guys, and I'm really sure that it was, having spoken to them and seen them over the journey. I remember we did a show reel, We did a taste of Real to show Channel ten. You know, Wendy and Liz, and their interviews were brilliant, really strong, angry interviews. And then the second time we interviewed them, they were still super strong, but some of the anger
had dissipated because they were being heard. That was one of their biggest problems, that no one had been listening to them. And you know, we had to balance their story because they survived with the grief and trauma that the other families went through, you know, and get the
balance in the storytelling right between those things. But it was really that level of sort of how these crimes were treated at the time, or how fences against women were treated at the time, and how victims were often treated back in times gone by, and how that has now changed and is changing constantly. That was a really important part of the film. It was sort of their underneath. It's not the main driver, but it was definitely a big part of the story that we wanted to tell.
The courage of these women to come forward. They had to. Both of those women had to get suppression orders removed to be able to talk.
What I thought was really impressive was creating a sense of the time. I don't necessarily know whether or not this man would have gotten away with what he got away with. You know, now that we have the technology that we have today, if that was real world now.
Yeah, I agree. One of the things that you said earlier about the time and placing people back in that time is really important because actually trying to solve these crimes without mobile phones, without CCTV, without the internet. You know, DNA was in its infancy when this was starting. This is you know, almost a history of how to solve
crime at the same time. And I suspect that, you know, there must be a lot of kind of nervous perpetrators of crimes that now this technology is available, you're seeing them solved. You're seeing more and more crime solved. But that was really interesting to me because when you start to look at it, you think, well, how did it take this long and then when you look back at what was available to those people, they did some amazing stuff like they DNA swabs every taxi driver, police officer,
ambulance worker in path. I mean, that was at the time just unbelievable. So and just the fact that you know, when you start to make this film and you realize that all of these the three women were from were visiting one pub one one. This is a tiny, tiny little community that was so close you know that everybody knew everybody. So that made it an incredible story.
That's part of what I think probably makes this particular case really resonate with an audience as well, that it's that pub. There's a pub like that in nearly everyone's neighborhood. There is that place that people gather. Whether you live in the city or in the country somewhere, there's always that place where you, as a youth, you'd go all the time. That was the kind of the local as it were, And I think Claremont as a place and those pubs, they almost become a kind of a character
within within the documentary. And you know, the way that Dan and the team sort of created a sense of the nineties and what Perth was like back then. It sort of feeds into this kind of scary sense that it could have happened to anyone and it could have been anyone, which is sort of where we got the title for the film from as well.
Absolutely, I mean I think that was what it was for me was I think we all think that we're smart, you know, and we wouldn't let this happen to us. But it did happened, and it happened again and again, and someone was getting away with it, so you know, it does sort of you know, permeate with people who are watching the show. You know, Dan, how did this project come up for you? Because I know you moved from quit Are you sorry you moved from England to
Western Australia. I don't know how did it come across your desk?
Yeah? Well, I think at first sort of I knew of the story, but didn't know that much about it. And then when he was arrested after so long, that just was a really remarkable ton of events and everybody was interested in that story. But how to tell that story was the tricky bit. You know. We didn't want to just do a straight retelling of the events. All of the work that we do generally has other sort
of societal layers to it. So it was finding the way into that through, you know, in a different way. So that's how it sort of and finding finding the surviving victims and hearing their stories was a really that then started us thinking about, okay, how we tell this for it more intelligently, I think, But yeah, that was we wanted to do something other than just the straight retelling. We wouldn't have done it otherwise, we really wouldn't, and we did even have you know, we thought long and
hard about doing it. Even when we were we could do it, was you know, we had to do it the right way. It was really weighed heavily actually on our shoulders that every decision we scrutinized really carefully, even down to yeah, we removed any sort of gratuitous words from news reports. We cut out you know, naked body or whatever it was. We just wanted to make sure that we were we were just telling the essence of the story and not backing over anybody's grief unnecessarily.
Karen, what was it about the Clamont murders that made Network ten want to tell this story?
In many ways? I was the perfect test case for the pitch, actually, because I had never heard of the Clermont serial killing. So I moved to Australia eleven years ago, so it was that in that perfect window where the case had gone cold. Really, So when when and pitched it to us, and I think two and a half years ago now that the pitch first came to us, it was completely fresh to me, and I was just stunned by this story really, and you know, when Dan told us it, it it was just a remarkable story.
And I went back and actually was at the West Australian, I think, did a podcast and there was a lot of episodes of this podcast. So I went home that day after the pitch and put the podcast on and I don't know how many hours of this I listened to, but I listened to dozens of hours, and I was just completely hooked on the story. And I think immediately it was obvious that this is a story that had
to be told. The timing was just right, with the case finally being being ended and you know, the perpetrator going to prison, and I think Dan's angle of telling the story in a different way and not just retelling it as a blow by Blow really resonated with us. I think Dan mentioned a moment ago societal layers at
that time and still to this day. Of course, there's a big topic around the way victims, particularly female victims, are treated by the media and to a degree by the police and society generally, and I think the timing felt right to tell this story as well.
I'd love to know from both of you your thoughts on the popularity of true crime, you know, and why we have had a rise and popularity for this genre, you know, both in podcasts and in television, you know, what makes us so invested? Dan, I'll start with you.
I think anything on the edges of society or the extremes of society is generally pretty interesting, you know, and you want to feel safe, so you want to be able to look at people who commit these kind of crimes and think, well, that's not me, or they're different to me, or they're a monster. And I think what's really interested in this case is that it wasn't well they were a monster, but they were just able to
survive in society. And that's the bit that I think is really intriguing to people and why they want to learn about cases like this because it just feels like it literally was someone next door who was creating these terrible events, and you kind of I think true crime you want to be able to look at the perpetrators and say they're different, because that makes you feel safer.
That's what I think I mean. And I think that there is obviously, you know, there has been such a large amount of really good true crime that has been produced internationally. Now the bar has been raised. You have to do these things well, they have to be smart, they have to have multi layers. So I think that's probably probably a combination of those things. There's a there's a fascination in the worst of society.
Yeah, and look, there's there's a fascination fascination in the people who perpetrate these crimes. But there's different types of true crime documentary as well. You know, there are documentaries that focus on those perpetrators and what is ticking underneath it to make them do these things, But there's also
good old fashioned who done it? And I think you know, audiences are well versed in in you know, procedural crime dramas, and I think if you can apply those you know that there's sort of the rules of procedural crime drama to a real life story through documentary, You've got yourself something that's even more engaging. Really so, I mean an element of it is just people have a good old fashion who done it well.
I think they feel like they can become invested. I will share something with the two of you. And I started listening to a series of true crime podcasts, and after listening to them for a while, I realized that all the ones that I was listening to at a beginning, in a middle, and an end, and I needed that somehow conditioned myself into needing that payoff at the end.
True. It's true of podcasts a lot, because so often podcasts are coming out that are tackling a crime that has just been reported or just happened, and you know, very often no one has been caught, or it's a missing person and they haven't been found and maybe will never be found. It's a fair point as well, because I think this story probably wouldn't have come to us if it hadn't come to a conclusion. I think that
is it is an important part. If you're going to invest three hours of your week into a film, you do want a satisfying ending.
I think I'm quite interested in as well, looking at documentary versus scripted drama. You know, when it comes to exploring and investigating real life events, do you have a massive leaning preference to documentary over a retelling of real life events.
Yeah, I certainly do. I mean, I'm you know, I'm the sort of guy that only reads autobiographies and you know anything that there's enough interesting real stuff out there for me not to get too distracted by drama. And I just think you're not to knock any dramas. And I would do a drama, but I think you've got to be even more careful if you do in a drama as to why, you know, as particularly with a case of sensitive as this. And there is a drama coming out on this that I'm really interested to see.
But personally, I just I need to make sure I've got my reasoning right for telling these stories.
I think there is there are there are some great drama retellings of famous crimes that are brilliant. You know, I've watched the House of Gucci not that long ago, and it's a remarkable film. But you know, even something like that is there's there's always points that are contested
about the way it's told. If you're going to dramatize a story that is fraught with danger, and you know, particularly the story like the Claremont serial killings, it's it is something that you have to tread very very careful on because it wasn't that long ago. The families are still around. You have as a great responsibility on the producer if you're going to if you're going to fictionalize something.
Did you both watch the Jeffrey Darmer series, you know, by Ryan Murphy? And I wanted to know how that's sapped with you. I don't know if one of you wants to handle that question or you both do, but I'd love to know whether you watched it.
We delivered this a long time before that came out, so it didn't have any influence, and I think it would Miami Current would be around. It's a it's a great piece of work. The thing for me is, you know, we were very careful about one stage in the edit, we didn't even have a picture of the perpetrator of these crimes, so giving them airtime and making them some sort of pseudo hero would be really wrong for me.
So that's you know, I haven't seen all of the DAMA stuff, but that's the that that would be my take on it. Just to be careful of what you're doing.
Yeah, I think you have. There's a lot of choices you can make as as a producer of a drama. It felt, if I'm being completely honest, it felt of little gratuitous For me personally. I found it very hard. I think everyone found it hard to watch. I found it it was it was gratuitously explicit in places, and I think that you have to ask yourself what there has to be a reason for that. I think, you know, is it furthering your understanding of the character, Is it
furthering your understanding the motives whatever that is? So you know, to Dan's point, you have has to be a real if you're going to shock, I think there has to be a really strong reason in your storytelling behind that.
Well, it was terrifying that this man got away with his crime for so long. You know, is that a sign of the times and the world that you know, you guys had to create with this or do you think do you think then he would have been able to do this in twenty twenty two.
I think it's highly unlikely. I think the mobile phone technology, CCTV, the internet, you know, I think it would have been solved a lot of DNA in particular. I think it shows just how far, you know, the police investigative techniques have come that I think it would be very hard. It would have been solved much.
Quicker you've got. You've had a few cases in London recently, two over the last year of women who have gone missing, one who thankfully was found alive. And you see immediately as soon as these people go missing, the way the police are able to release a blow by blow of that person's movement just through CCTV, you know, dash cam cameras. I think that if this had happened, you know, if this had happened modern day, they would at the very
least have probably quite quickly found a vehicle. There would there would be a lot more to go off. Whether they would have caught the guy straight away, I don't know, but it would have they would have had more leads, that that's for certain.
And for the contributors like that, you know, you managed to find, you know, the real life people to be a part of the story. You kind of mentioned earlier about it being a bit of a cathartic experience for them. How have you gone keeping in touch with them and are they nervous about the show going on television.
We've definitely kept in touch with all the people involved and have a on call site available before or after broadcast whenever they need some support. And I think I don't really know wh they're nervous. I think that they want to get this story. They want to be heard, and they've written books, they've done some other media, so they want to get it out there and to have
their story told. So I think it's going to be It's going to be a really interesting week to see how the film is received and what the responses are. I'm looking forward to it.
How hard was it to get these people involved? I mean, was it hard for you to get them involved?
I think that it spoke, you know, to the efforts that some of the people who worked on this show went to that they they spoke to them a lot, they spent a lot of time with them. They made sure not from our perspective, like it wasn't just like we wanted to coerce these people into making the film, because that would have been wrong. It is the time, right for these people to tell their story, and are
they happy to tell their story. That's a very important distinction, because you know, you've got to you have a responsibility
here and you need to do things right. In terms of we took we had a number of conversations with the police before they became involved, and that they had played such an important role and so grateful that they gave us their time, and particularly Paul Ferguson, who had left the police force and you know, was reliving this again and I feel he felt he had a duty to tell this story, that he had been so close to it, so close to the family, he needed this
to be told. And then the journalists who did a brilliant job of doing that thing that you talked about, the scene setting, the taking you back there, telling you what it was like to live through this thing. And journalists are good at that because that's how they make their living, describing what things events are as they're unfolding.
And they did a brilliant job, people like Rexhare and Alison Fan and Bret Christian and Torran, They did an awesome job they painting the picture for us and really taking you back to getting the call that some you know a body had been found, what it was like to be on that you know that that car journey there.
And there's a shot in the film that I think is one of my favorite films in the film and it's Paul Ferguson and he's one of the officers and he's walking away at crime scene and his shoulders are slumped and you can see the weight of this case
on one human being who's tasked with solving it. I thought that and the way that the edit ting handled the verdict, I think that's one of my favorite things that I've seen in all my time making TV shows, just the emotion that comes out in that the verdict and the people's faces as they're listening or they appear to be listening. Of course they're not listening, but you're going back with them and reliving their journey as the
verdict is read out. As a brilliant piece of documentary making by the editing.
I think we have to give a lot of credit to Dan and his team as well, because, I mean, anyone can come up to you as a network and say we want to make a documentary about the claimont serial killings, or Lindy Chamberlain or any other crime. But apart from that producer's ability to tell great stories, you need to have access to the people to help you tell that story. And that was a massive part of this because obviously we were sold on the story and we were sold on Dan and the team the way
they wanted to tell it. But you know, as Dan alluded to earlier, we funded some development first off, because a lot of work had to be done to make sure that that story could actually be told with the tools they had. And a credit has to go to Dan and the team because you know, the access and the relationship they built over a long period of time with the wa police or remarkable fruit because you can almost sense the trust and honesty between the producer and
the police in the film. They're very open in a way that I don't know I've seen police be in a document entry like this, And of course, had the trust required with the surviving victims, you know, you don't just you don't step forward and talk about this life changing event to anyone. You have to talk to people that you trust. So there's a huge part of it that it's about connecting with other humans and Dan and
the guys did an amazing amazing job there. And just to make a further point on the journalists that Dan talked about, you watched the documentary and you realize that this event, these these killing, they shaped these journalists' careers. These were huge moments for them reporting as well, and you know, you can see how much it means to them.
So I think that the the the assorted cast, whether it's the victims, that the journalists and the police, it's it took time and work to get there, but clearly it's it's it's it's helped Dan deliver on the on the vision.
You know, there's been some amazing technology and science used into solving this crime in Western Australia. Do you think that what's happened in Claremont gives hope to maybe some other people who were still waiting for crimes to be solved. I mean what comes to mind for me is mister crawl in Victoria. That's a crime that hasn't been solved. Do you think that gives hope to other people that maybe that too could be solved one day?
Yeah? Absolutely. I think one of the things that I hope comes across in the film is just how important Dennis Glennar was to making this solving this case. We didn't speak directly to Dennis, but from everything I told, he drove this investigation, invested a lot of money to help the police, and I think that's important that there is always someone from the victim's side of the coin that is driving this alongside the police, not letting people forget.
To your point as well, around the forensics, I think if you actually look at the if you were to pick up the best, you know, the most successful true crime documentaries of the last four years, probably three quarters of them have been made because of forensic breakthroughs, because stories have come back up. There's some great stories and
crimes that no one thought would ever get solved. And I think we'll see over the probably the next five to ten years, many more of these being solved and many many more films being made about them.
Guys, before we wrap up, I always ask this on the podcast. It's an interesting one to ask when it comes to a documentary of this kind of subject matter. But do you have a thing of like a behind the scenes secret, something that you know was a big aha moment or something unusual that happened through the makings of this documentary.
Rex Whore, who was one of a journalist. A lot of the archive he had kept himself. No one else had it. Ten didn't have it. He'd kept that on VHS. That was because he the story was meant so much to him. That was like he had so much really important material, but he gave to us to tell the story and that was that was so important because he not only was he a journalist for Channel ten during the time, he then became a police media person, so he just had this amazing personal archive.
Guys, I just want to say thank you so much for coming on the podcast and talking about Clammont murders a killer amongst us. It's a fantastic documentary series that you guys should be really proud of. It did debut on Network ten on the twenty third of November, and we'll conclude on the twenty fourth. If you have missed the series and you want to catch up on ten play, please do so. But to the two of you, what an amazing job and thank you so much for coming on and sharing your story.
Great. Thanks a lot much.
Cheers