I WAS ACTUALLY THERE - KIRK DOCKER

That he has been acknowledged with multiple awards and that you Can't ask that format is the most successful series in ABC history, selling to thirty two territories and broadcasting in nine different languages worldwide. One of my favorite things about Kirk is when it comes to his content, no

subject is off topic. Through Kirk's work over the years, he kind of has this methodology that every human, no matter what they believe or how high their stature is, that they all share a call value and that is the desire to be understood. Today we unpack the bold new six part document series which explores the defining moments of our recent history through the eyes and ears and voices of those who witness them first, from Port Arthur to the Beatles, and even to the depths of the

beacon filled minds. Each topic is compelling and I think you will walk away wanting to devour this whole series, which is now available to watch on iView. We will unpack what happened to you can't ask that if it has run its course, could have come back, and where

that conversation with ABC is currently at. There is a great opportunity to talk about how Kirk manages to get the crucial human element out of his interviewees, how long it takes to film and edit each episode, and what he wants people to feel with his brand new series. We will talk about the Companion podcast and what made him want to release a longer edit of some of

the contributors retelling their story. Kirk shares some really fascinating behind the scenes elements to the show and why he is more fascinated with some of the nuances and mannerisms over what is actually being said. There is, of course, so much to unpack with Kirk, so sit back and relax as we unpack the wonderful world of I was actually there. This is very exciting, by the way, because this show is amazing.

shows that are being made. So trick is trying to create something that people want to actually talk about afterwards and discuss and feel something, hopefully learn something and create conversations and all that sort of stuff. So, yeah, hopefully it's going to do that.

added to that mix. And then, you know, even I remember in season two thinking we're going to run out of groups. You know how many misunderstood groups there were, and then we expanded what that idea of being misunderstood was. I don't think I felt the pressure from anyone out in the world, but I did have pressure myself to go, Okay, this thing has done well, and what am I going to do next? How am I going to leverage this

great thing that we've done to do something new. I wanted to take the learnings of you kin't ask that, and I've done this before. Years ago. I did a website online and we got some money to make a pilot, and we sort of ignored all the good parts about what that project was and tried we went, oh, we've suddenly got a budget now and let's just go nuts. We lost the soul of the project in a way.

So with this new one I did, I don't want to forget the learnings that we had from yukon't ask that, the things that work so well, It's cut from the same cloth. As you can ask that, but it's a new suit. We're taking these things that we'd loved, speaking to people that normally don't appear on camera, understanding stories that we that we feel like we are stereotyped in our eyes, and this sort of beautiful way of interviewing or intercut stories. But then the sort of applying it

to new craft and taking a moment an idea. People who are far more linked as opposed to you can ask that where they're very they're linked by a label, but that's sort of it. People here at linked genuinely come across each other's paths, are involved in each other's stories for this particular period of time, and it was different storytelling because we're telling one story where everyone's giving their bits, their perspectives, their take, versus the smattering of

different stories. So yeah, to go back to your original question, I was nervous about progressing on from ukn't ask that and doing something that you didn't want to people to say, oh, it's yeah, it's good, but you should have kept doing You can't ask that. You do have that year in the back of your mind. You can't just keep sitting on that one idea. I did want to be known as the you can't ask that guy for my whole career.

There's other stories to tell and another steps in your own personal progression you want to make, and just very simply in this we used archive, We shot stuff in location and use that as part of the storytelling. We didn't have this card system that we did. It was all intricately woven. It was this time of day, so

there were these new elements that we bought in. Didn't really think of you can't Ask that as a format when we started it, but it became one that around the world they made their own versions of it, and that was really exciting to see a French version, or a Dutch version, or a Norwegian version. And so with this one, you thought, God, this actually could really work

in other parts of the world too. So how do you create something that can be transplanted somewhere else and they can plug in their events and it can work as well. How do you create a format where you can put in a tragedy and you can put in a really happy, amazing moment and it still works. And so that's a really fun part of the process too.

Applying all the learnings you can't ask that to create a format where we can almost put in any moment, any event, and you can analyze it from the perspective of those that were just there. And that's the simplicity of it, despite there being all these little complex moving parts.

ideas that are sitting on the shelf. So I wanted to sort of pause it while we felt like it was still fresh or still doing things that you felt like the audience was still keen to see it, that it hadn't run its course. So I thought that was important. I also felt the itch to do something new that I didn't. You know, if we've done another year or two,

that's almost a decade of doing one idea. And I was a little bit fearful of forgetting how to make other content that that was my only I only knew how to make that, so and I wanted to apply my craft. You know, I'm very fascinated with the interview about asking questions about understanding people and experiences, and I speak about it. I go into these organizations and I unpack this interview process. I write about it, I think

about it a lot. I'm very fascinated by it, and I wanted to apply my craft in a different scenario. I felt like i'd sort of in a lot of ways mastered that you can't ask that style of interview, so I wanted to do that too. So there's personal growth in it as well as the desire to create something new and to also I suppose get out. Yeah, like I said, before the show got stale or people got sick of it, or they didn't want it anymore, that you want to sort of not head out on top,

because that's not how I really think about it. But head out while it's well, it's still good and fresh. You are the master, though, at storytelling. I think you can tell story worry very well. Even when people listening to this now, they'll be like, you know, you tell a story with a beginning, in the middle and an end,

and you don't leave out the detail. But people don't get a chance to probably see when you're behind the camera or maybe not even in this interview, is that you're an incredible listener, and you're an incredible listener to detail, and that is such a skill. Look, it's a weird thing for me to be on this side talking as much as I am, because my natural place is behind the camera and listening. It's interesting you pull up on the details. The details is what makes things trusting and

real and not cliche. And getting people to when I'm interviewing people, asking questions, getting them to reflect on what they've learned or how they've grown, or how it changed them or what impact it had on them, getting to sort of think past that second or third or fourth level of how they might tell that story to someone in their normal life, to get new revelations, to find curiosity in the weirdness of stuff that to me, is

just the joy of it all. We're such a what a nation of turning our nose up to things, to finding problems with people, to disagreeing to not liking something because it's so different from how we live as opposed to looking at with the lens of what are you doing? Why does that bring you joy? And how do I get that? And what's so interesting about that? And let me stand in your shoes for a little period of time.

That's the That's the beautiful thing about being able to interview someone is that for a period of time, maybe two hours. I've got this person who's going to sit there and be open about their life, and I get to stand in their shoes and understand it. It's so good as opposed to how we might exist at a pub where we're fighting for our chance to tell our two cents, our little bit, how good we're going, what's

great for us. Sometimes I actually really struggle with that when someone says, oh, how's this thing going, and I'm like, oh, how how do I do it? That keeps their interests so they don't sort of glaze over and move. You know, we've all felt that in public interactions where you're trying, in some ways entertain someone with your response so they don't get bored of you, Whereas I feel like if you're just curious, what that does is unlock someone and

then they will start telling all these things. And you know, I can be interested almost anything.

this is. I'm going to watch it. But I just was scared about unpacking some of these things, like Port Arthur. It's a very sensitive topic. A lot of people have told their story in very different forms sixty minutes, et cetera, but no one's ever unpacked it like we've seen and what Australia will see in this first episode, you learn way more than we've ever learned about what happened in Port Arthur that day. Might I had to pick my drawer off the floor because something like this that happened

so long ago. I've all of a sudden just given a fist full of information about it, and I learned so much in just a small period of time from these people.

all these interviews. It's like imagining you're getting access to someone who's gone through an extraordinary moment, and you get to I got to just ask them what did you see, what was it like, how did it impact you? And what are you rem because part of this, too is about memory and what sticks in your mind and what doesn't, and none of that is right or wrong. It's fascinating.

You know, one of the participants in the portart episode, she was the GP And some of this isn't really included ultimately in the episode because we can only include so much of each person, but one of the things she often would say in the interview is I can't remember. I can't remember blah blah blah. And to me, that was fascinating. What details stick in your mind and when

they stick in their mind. For some of these people, it's in minute, detailed, incredible detail, sounds and smells and intricate stuff, and then there's other huge blanks that they just can't remember it all, and that's how the mind works. Then there's other stuff where people get details wrong. You know, in one of the episodes, a gentleman, no, it doesn't argue with me, but he's you know, he's telling me this detail and they're through research. I knew that detail

is telling me was wrong. And I said to him, look, I actually think it's this, And even in the interview he wouldn't admit it. He would say it's this all that for me. I found that very interesting, how details, how they get forged in your memory. The other thing I found interesting, here's multiple people hurt the same thing, where they might be standing somewhat near each other, yet

their experience is vastly different how it impacts them. And look the boxing n tsunami, for example, there's people just talk about very broadly who've gone back to Thailand, who have gone to the memorial see Thailand as almost like a sacred place where someone's been lost, and they see it as a very special place. Others haven't been swimming. Again, here's two people who have seen the same thing from the same angle, yet how it's impacted them is vastly different.

So what we're trying to say with this show is that there's no right or wrong answer. That you and I can stand next to each other and we can experience it completely differently and we can both be correct in a lot of ways. In twenty twenty four, we've lost this idea that we can have different perspectives that

we can have different takes on something. It's like you're right and you're wrong, but actually we can both be right and we can compare notes, and there's all these different reasons why something might affect you in different ways. But there's this idea that Okay, well you're at Port Arthur, everyone's traumatized. Well, actually that's not the truth. There's definitely some people who are still very much traumatized by that day and can't talk about it and don't want to

talk about it. There's others who definitely still feel trauma and are triggered by it, but feel like they can handle it when it comes up, and they wanted to share their story even if it felt very sensitive. There was others that felt like they could talk about it very very openly. They've definitely come to terms that they've moved on. There was a day in their life that happened,

but it isn't the defining day of their life. And then there's sort of other things in between that depending on what your role was, what you saw, depending on your personality type and your character traits and the support that you had, and all these other things that add into it. There's not just this one blanket you're traumatized, you're not traumatized. But that's sort of how we often look at these sorts of things, don't.

that story because someone was asking about it. But then I woke up the next day and I felt like this huge weight had been taken off me, and I thought to myself, how long have I been walking around with that?

We all think that we want to be these perfect publics speakers, where we have these eloquent stories and we're funny in this and that. But what really resonates is when people are just honest. They're truthful. The people that have appeared, you know, on YU can't as sad and appear on this show. They own their story. They've come to terms with it, even if they might struggle with certain bits, they may not love all the certain bits in some respects, they've accepted who they are and they're like,

this is me, take it all, leave it. That's why, you know a lot of people would say to me, Oh, but what's going to happen to these people when they share all this honesty you know on TV. I'm just gonna say they're going to get respected. That's what's going to happen. People are going to look at them and go, my god, I wish I had the courage of them, or I really identify with that, or oh my god, I thought you were so different, But in n aatural fact, now

I know the truth. I understand this. We're all yearning to connect with truth, and we're not that different from each other really. All these things, these labels, these traits are just that's all they are, is labels. But underneath it, we're so similar in so many ways. We want to be loved, we want to feel connection. These people sharing

these things, it's only a positive. Some people aren't in a situation to do it, they haven't necessarily feel like they're too delicate or tender to necessarily share those things. But if you've come to a place where you feel like you can share it, feel like you can take the risks, you've got the support around you, or whatever it is to share it, it becomes, like you said, a shared load. It doesn't become the elephant in the room anymore. It becomes something that is just part of

who you are. It's not something that's hidden, it's just the truth.

manipulated content to make it perfect. TV presenters that speak perfectly in unison. It used to be very impressive. But I actually think that that's kind of where the death of television could come from, because an actual fact, people have always watched television to see themselves. And the more and more we see these word perfect TV presenters and stories being put together. If it's unauthentic, if it's not real, it doesn't matter how perfect it is, people have stopped watching.

Whereas the further you head away from the big major cities, people are less that way, and so you just feel like it's a bit more. You know, Here I am take it or leave it, or if you get you know, some of the older generations. I've lived in my skin long enough. I don't give a shit anymore. Here I am. I'm with you, like I like to see the imperfections, the weirdness, the strains, the bits of people that haven't been edited out to make them, to make them perfect.

That stuff doesn't feel I can't identify with that either.

to see from me. They don't. I'm saying the lines, and I could say the lines in a myriad of different ways. But what people are actually watching and enjoying. Is just those weird little things that we do every day. That's what people are fascinated by. That's what they want to see, That's what they've paid their money for.

you that one particular day last year. I said, but I've sat with you in the edit sweet for weeks and weeks and weeks, and I know every one of your little movements and ways that you say things at little quirks. And I said to her, I love the way that you did this little thing, or this little movement you did, or this funny little way that you said it. And it becomes it's exactly right. You stop in the edit suite necessarily loving the line they said, but you love the way a funny little look they

give you. It's these it's these little tiny moments in there that make that person endearing to you or you love them for it. But if you could, if you wrote it all down, if you watch the episode, no one's going to really see those bits. I think they unconsciously get into you. But when you sit with someone for weeks and weeks and weeks and weeks, you start loving all those little bits. So I totally get what

Meryl Streep's saying there. She's sort of doing and reverse, she's sort of almost sitting in a live edit sweet and picking up those little intricacies of someone and then bringing into a performance. And that's what makes someone real as opposed to I suppose, like you said, Wooden, doing doing lines how long?

amount of time. Whereas in this show, because it's chronological, it starts. It doesn't look not every episode starts there was a day like any other. Some start in the midst of the of the of the action. Some you don't know. You know on boxing day, you know, you hear these people these sliding door moments at the start where they're saying, I was going to go here, but I ended up going here. I ended up on Pepe Island on this day because of this reason. So it's

like this ominous thing that's about to unfold. They all have their different different ways in but essentially the show is chronological. It starts sort of at the beginning of the day. There's a clock that moves forward through the day until the event finishes, say it the next day. In this show, there's people who are there at the start, there's people who get involved as the event unfolds, there's people who get involved at the end. There's some people

there at the event all the way through. There's some people who'd leave. And so it wasn't exactly the same for every person, say Todd Russell and Brandt Webb who were in the beacons Field Mine episode, well they're there from the start to the end. They went to work and they get caught in this mind collapse and then they got rescued, and then we really hear from them right up to the present day about how this thing's

still impacting them. Whereas someone in the local town she got involved when she heard about it the next day, and then her involvement's more about the rescuer. And so depending on the boxing da tsunami, the journal too flew in there. He'd been flying in till the day till later in that day after the tsunami had happened, so he gets involved halfway through the episode. So different people get involved at different points of time, and so that

dictates how long I speak to them. So for the big stories, you know, I spoke to some of those people for a number of hours as well, you know, because I needed to capture all the detail, the facts as far as they saw it, and then I needed to capture the you know, how it impacted them, then how it impacted them over time, how it changed them.

So there was a series of things I needed to get out of every single person, whereas if your involvement was smaller, I might have spent less time with you, but still I would have spent a good hour with most people. At least. You know, we're not filming on film these days, so I like to go down the garden path, find out weird stuff, get the strange stuff

that maybe others wouldn't ask about. So I generally probably would spend between an hour and two and a half hours with each of the people on the show.

or anything like that. We need to get it in the interview, and we need to be able to edit. Between say you and me speaking, we need I need to say something that links to you and vice versa. So unless I've got that in the edit, it's very difficult to tell that person's story and all these sorts of things. So that was challenging. Plus working with archive was challenging, and giving the facts but giving the emotions

at the same time. We didn't want to get too bogged down, which is facts the whole time, but you also need to understand the facts so you could feel the emotion. And then giving the respect to all of these different people that have that are given their time and given us their honesty about the day. You want to make sure you represent their story and their take really really well. And thirty minutes isn't a long time to tell all these different people's takes, and some of

these stories are really really big. So like I said before, we can't tell every aspect of these days. We can't tell all the facts. Actually, that's not what the aim is. The aim is to try and give you a sense of what it was like to be there, the emotion of it, the feelings of it, and the feelings and the emotions of all these different people, and then harmoniously cut their stories together so you feel like you get

it and you understand it. So yeah, the edit was challenging, but the whole project we probably started in August last year and it's going to wear now, so it probably took a bit six weeks longer than maybe what it would take to make You cun't ask that, But again, we're making something new, and I think that if we've got to do it a second time, we've learned a million things that we could take into production second time around. It was a fun challenge. I didn't never hate it going to work.

discuss it and feel the emotions of this stuff. Something really nice that we've done too off the back of this series, and I would have loved to have done this on you can't ask that, but we just just didn't think of it at the time, is that we've taken you know, and this is another way to get into someone's world in a way that it's almost really impossible to do on the TV show, is that we've got this sort of companion podcast too, where we're we're taking one story from the series and you get to

hear their story in more detail. So that longer interview I was telling you about before that two hours or whatever it is, say, with the sniper at Port Arthur, we've taken that and you know, we've trimmed it down and we've added music and it's become its own story in its own right. But you get to hear in intimate detail more of one particular person's story. So six episode Podcast two where each episode we focus on one person from the show and you get to hear their

story in detail. So all these things, it's about trying to create an experience for the for the audience where they get to learn and think about their life differently. So that's really ultimately the aim of this stuff that we make. So but yes, thank you for being a supporter. I appreciate it for saying of those nice things.

I won't just film the Boxing Asunami one go. We'll go to a location where those people live and will I'll interview person from Port Arthur, the person from Boxing A Tsunami, a person from Warmra, back to back to back. So what's incredible about that is it keeps me fresh, it keeps me interested. But what's fascinating is all these

people come in. They've had these extraordinary moments, and a lot of them are very unsure about whether their story is worth listening to, and in some respects need to be reminded or convinced, Hey, we're interested, That's why we've got you here. This stuff is fascinating, and it's this sort of this humble way in which people go about their lives, even if they've had something quite extraordinary happen to them. They think, am I worth listening to? Am

I worth hearing? And so I think that people might find, and that's surprising that these people that you see in the show, they're not rehearsed speakers. They've often haven't spoken about these things before or in great detail or in the detail they're about to share with me, and some

of them think is my story even worth hearing? So when you see them in the finished product, they come across as incredibly confident, articulate, and you know, that's how we cut it, not that they don't speak that way in person, but a lot of people come to that set that day very nervous thinking am I worth being listened to? Am I going to do a good job?

And shit, is this even a good idea? So I think that that's probably one of the things that people maybe find most surprising about the people who appear in our show is that they're just ordinary like us.

But for some reason, whatever you did to me on that show made me likable.

become completely involved in themselves, in their own story. They completely forget about you that you're even there asking these questions that they're on TV that they're being filmed, it just becomes very very very very natural. So much so it's it's it's not uncommon for people like I remember interviewing a gentleman from Adult Virgins episode and I spent two hours quizzing about being an adult virgin and all the ins and outs of that lifestyle and the choices

he'd made and all that sort of stuff. It was like a pretty intimate couple of hours with this fellow, you know. I felt like we got a photo after and it was quite an amazing conversation. I saw that person the next day in the street and I walked up to them, say, Hey, how are you blah blah blah. They just completely blank me. They had no idea who I was. I was like, God, how bizarre, Like I just spent all this time with this person. You know,

of course I could remember. It was fascinating time for me. But it's sort of an interesting reminder that, you know, being the interviewer in these moments is not about me. I'm not there to be liked. I'm not there to make friends with this person. I'm there to understand this person, and if I can create an environment where they feel very comfortable just to be themselves in talk and almost in a way, completely forget where they are. I ultimately

saw that as a compliment that they didn't me. I was like, Wow, what a fascinating sort off election on that experience, that they should sit there and just talk about themselves and get completely wrapped up in it and everything else is sort of forgotten.

Because we briefly give a nod to this in the episode, but the government was talking from the old portable phone that you have your home phone, but it was a portable phone that had a battery and it could run out of power. That's how they were communicating. The hostage negotiator was communicating through this portable phone. What they didn't realize that that phone was running out of batteries, and when the phone rount of batteries, they had no more

communication to this guy. So then this is in the evening and there's still this siege going on, and so they're talking about how the hell do we begin contact again. So they're tossing up all these different ideas and One of them was they were going to get a tank and drive a tank up to the front door with a new phone in it and pass. They couldn't get a tank down to Port Arthur. So then they started

looking around. This is like on a Sunday night, nine ninety six, and they started looking for around for like a military museum of some kind where someone might have like a backyard. I've got my own military a few vehicles or something in my own house to see they could get like a vintage World War two tank or something like that that they could well, they couldn't make

that happen. So they're discussing, what if we fly across an F eighteen right over the top and create a sonic boom, and in this sonic boom, we drive up a car and this distraction is going to happen and we throw this phone out. These are sorts of things they were discussing. Wow, try and solve this sort of problem anyway. Some of that stuff just doesn't make it because it's sort of like it's not it's not part

of that the main thrust of the story. But I was sitting there with my you know, to use the saying you were saying before my jaw to the floor, going oh my god, this is just some of some of the things they contemplated.

about this what we do. Not many other people after they've worked on a project for twelve months ago it's broadcast, it's the world, and get feedback on it. But it's a good thing and a bad thing, and I'm hoping it's received well.