It's in the news today, but it was actually on TV Reload the podcast last week Their Life. Hey guys, welcome back to TV Reload. I want to thank you for clicking and downloading on today's episode with Sarah Basioni, their content creator and writer of Critical Incident, which is set to be released on Steran Australia on August twelfth. You might have seen some of the banners around Australia while you've been driving on some of the roads. Sarah
is a Sydney based writer and director. Since graduating from the Australian Film Television Radio School in twenty sixteen, her short films Little Secret and Junes have premiered at Academy Accredited film festivals. Her work ranges from comedy to drama and is often informed by her previous career as a
human rights lawyer. This series We're Talking About Today is set in the suburba of Sydney, where a police officer pursues a teenage suspect onto a busy train platform, where a bystander is critically injured and the lives of the pursuit and the pursuer are all thrown into term well. The series is gripping from episode one, and I think that audiences are going to be really invested into this
crime drama that is set in Australia. We will unpack how this show was made, from where the ideas came from, to some of Sarah's inspiration. I will find out what the locals reaction was to a story being filmed that is set in their hometown. We will talk about how they created the authentic voices for some of the young people in this story, and what she thinks of Joie Waiteford's acting, who some of us would know from his
time on X Factor back in the day. Plus, we're going to dive into this show lends itself into a series two, and what Sarah hopes to do with some of the characters if the show does get picked up for more seasons. There is so much to unpack with Sarah, So sit back and relax as we unpack the wonderful world of Critical Incident, which, as I mentioned, is due out on August twelfth on s Down Australia.
Hi sentmin, how are you?
I just was playing something at the same time as it was Actually this is hilarious. I was playing the Stan Originals Facebook clip of all of the actors using their words to describe the show. I'm so excited to be talking to you about this because I got in contact with Stan when I read about it, and the weird thing was, I was in Sydney the train station where you filmed a part of it, and so it was in my mind that I was wanting to watch this from my own ego point of view as you.
Yeah, yeah, oh great.
And then I watched the trailer and I was like, you know what, I need this in my life, like I really want to watch a proper Australian crime drama in the era that we're in now, which is with streaming services we can make shows that are a lot like what the Americans are making.
It's really exciting time to be making Australian drama.
It so is, it so is, and also to be in your chair as well and be creating it as well from a background of knowledge, I think is why this show works so well. So I have to say I started watching episode one last night and it was a really gripping first episode. That is all I've seen, but I cannot wait to keep watching it.
That's great. No, thank you, thanks so much. I'm glad you enjoyed the pilot. We hope that it's a grouping, fun, thrilling ride.
That's what we want for the whole series.
You know, the audience to really roll the coaster along on this big emotional, psychological thriller that's you know, set somewhere we haven't seen before on Australian TV.
Absolutely, And you know it's interesting because like the characters in this feel so real and there is a bit of a danger of making these shows a bit too bleak, where I feel like this it is entertaining. That is still a part of it, if that makes sense.
Well, yeah, definitely, that's what we want. I mean, we're in the entertainment industry. We're here to entertain people, you know, generously giving up some hours in their life.
We want to make sure we may it with that.
I think the other thing is, you know, coming from this that world and knowing it intimately and the people are involved on both sides of it. Real life isn't people don't not many people think their real life is bleak.
It's not how they feel about it.
You know, it might be tough or difficult, and so we wanted to show that is authentic and real, and I think sometimes with those shows they have their place, but you don't want to I don't want.
People watching TV and feeling worse than when they turned it on.
I'm trying to think about what we were eating, because we were really enjoying it, like a good popcorn flick. I got my partner to watch the first episode as well. Yeah, oh it was ice cream. It was jamm donut ice cream. And we were like, yeah, yeah, but so's the show. We were like, yum, that's so nice.
A few things.
It's nice when you can find something that you get excited to watch, you know. It's like when you put down a good book and then when you finish that book, for the first few chapters of the next book, it's hard to get into and that you were knee deep in something that you were enjoying before.
Yeah, you get.
There, and with shows you may get there. But with this, it's a very good first episode.
Yeah, you know.
They we put a bit of extra money into the budget for that episode, and.
They had a couple of extra days shooting it. But it was hard. It was just like a lot of running for a lot of paper.
That's why he looks so skinny. We were talking about him in the gmoor scenes. We're like, we don't look like that, mind, you were eating ice cream. Also not for our fitness, but yeah, I can imagine a lot of running, a lot of running.
Yeah, two solid days of running, I think for quite a lot of casting crew.
How did you get this story up and going? Like, you know, we'll talk a little bit about your background at a minute, but like, this is quite an achievement to get this story up and going, and there's a lot of people trying to get in now with more original ideas with all these streaming platforms. I'm curious about how you've made this happen.
Well, it's definitely not just me.
Lots of great people have contributed and it was really fortunate.
You know.
I got a great opportunity working on a long contract with Matchbox Pictures when I was starting.
Out in the industry, and so I got to know them.
Quite well and was able to pitch to them this idea, you know, quite early in my career, I guess.
But also everyone involved is.
Really hard workers, you know, and that hard work and a bit of luck has come together and we pitched the show to stand and they've been phenomenal partners. They signed on, you know, straight away, and yeah, we've just been working to make sure we get all the elements of the show right and I think I think we've done a pretty different job.
I love that story. Tonys was on the podcast a couple of years ago and he was talking about when Matchbox started how there was a lot of people that just wanted to work there. So there was like people that would take a reception part of it, the job, or the legal part anyway, anyone that was kind of doing the functionality of the business. We're all budding content creators,
you know. And then as the business grew and you know, they had their success, people that had been on the ground floor from the start sort of doing other things were given the opportunity. And I don't know how real that story is, but I loved the idea of it.
Yeah, No, I think that's pretty true. I mean, I should say slightly different.
For me. I got a job as a trainee script editor on The Heights, which was their production and that's how I got to know them really really well.
But yeah, they are a great.
Production company for incubating talent, and I think they also really reward hard workers as well, and so if you have those things, then they're a great place to reach out to and look for them that first break.
Yeah, and so many people there have even gone on to do other things that they're now on the teledex. I don't know how old you are, but that's probably a bum reference for young people. But you can still reach out to them and get their advice. That's kind of cool in itself.
And I think you know Sheila jdev who is our executive producer and was my kind of creative.
Partner in the show on the journey for this season.
She does loads of panels and has you know, works with co Curious as well in building up new talent, and it's definitely something we tried to do in this show in front of and behind the camera. So it's you know a lot of our writing teams first credit, you know, our long credit. Quite a lot of the crew, you know it's their first big drama series.
So I read this came from your real life experiences working as a lawyer in Western Sydney's juvenile justice system. You come across this story because I was curious, did you borrow from real life critical insightdence.
This story isn't based on any one incident, and I didn't take any of the kind of action elements from any of my experience. But I guess I know those the world, I know the characters, I know what's likely to happen, so, you know, took that authenticity and then I love like action movies, and you know, Speed and Point Break are two of my fat all time favorites, and.
So I was like, oh, what could we do that has a cool action element to it in this world? What would that look like?
So it's kind of that combination of knowing how things work but having a bit of spice and imagination.
I've just ticked the speed off the Bingo card because I was watching it last night with the running scene just before the critical incident, and I don't want to give too much a weight, so I'm just going to leave it at that. But running scene very Keanu reeves in Speed. I'm just going to say, and I did mention that to my partner while watch it, So Bingo excellent.
How did you go about getting the tone right for this story, especially with so many young voices, so you know, accurately depicted, you know, in this story.
I think again the fact that you know, I only left the law in twenty sixteen, which yes, is an eternity ago, but also isn't that long ago. And most of my clients were young, very young, and so I guess I tapped into those memories. But you know, we also had a writing team with daughters and sons of the right age. We had an amazing cast who would pull us up if something didn't feel true to you know, their world. And a lot of the actors playing teenagers are teenagers.
Which they do before Sarah, like you know before back in the day. You know, it's like we went through this phase where you know, nine o two or oh, they had all these old actors playing teenages. And then also the issue that I had was Dawson's Creek era, where you're getting young people to speak as adults. You know, the language that they were using didn't match what young
people would say. And so there's something quite amazing and beautiful and engaging in seeing authentic voices being displayed on screen. And I think that's something that you do quite effortlessly within this And it doesn't mean that it comes across sort of looking like heartbreak high after dark. It does suit the tone of this show, this sort of thriller.
Yeah, thanks, thank you. That's very kind of you to say that was our hope.
I guess, you know, one of the things we didn't want to go into bleakness or pseudo doco territory. And I just don't know real life that doesn't have a lot of humor and different voices, and I like to listen to all of them, and so we tried to throw as many of them as we could up in the screen.
Yeah, which I love Western Australia, Sydney, Blacktown paramatter with the filmingtions that you used for the story, What was it like to be telling this story amongst the locals? Like, what was it like filming? You know?
Well, we got to a lot of love on TikTok from when we were at Blacktown train station, so that's pretty cool. And one day when we were filming in the center of Blacktown, real school came out and I think we were filming the opening of season of episode two.
Sorry, so I don't want to give too much away there either.
But when the scene went down and finished, the kids, the real kids who had been stopped, stopped very kindly stopped for us, because we could only ask people to stop. Who had stopped and then watched busted out in like various dance moves and whooping and we got a little chance.
So I think we went down quite a treat.
I hope everybody who was excited to see us out there filming.
Watch the show.
Well, you've already locked them in as viewers. That's actually really smart because that a lot want to watch just to see whether they can see themselves in the background
doing their dance routines. Oh my god, that's what I was going to ask you about Jay, who I knew from X Factor, Like, I think a lot of Australians knew him from X Factor, and so some people that stumble across this show haven't seen him in a while, and so it's actually quite hilarious to me that I was sitting there going this guy's looks really familiar, Like maybe it's because he's a bit Heath Ledgerye, Like maybe I'm thinking he reminds me of Heath Ledger and ten
Things I Hate about You. I was like, No, that's the kid from X Factor and he's really good in this.
Yeah, he's amazing. He knocks out of the park. As soon as we saw his audition, we knew he was.
Hayden, and I think Gie's just going to explode, like so many of our cast, onto the scene, or at least if talent has anything to do with it, that's what should happen.
Yeah, I mean, this is what's interesting about this show as well, is there's no big distraction. I mean, there's kind of the Dad from Back to the rafters, but there's no big distraction of a big name. And I was curious about that. Were they trying to force you into having maybe a bigger name for the show or were you quite happy to you know, Jurassic Parks, Star Wars it and have some relatively unknowns to discover.
Yeah. Look, I mean it's always part of a conversation.
I won't like, it's really hard getting a show up, and so I think everybody is just trying to figure out what makes that journey easier, and sometimes a star does make that journey easier, but nobody thought that was the case with critical Incident. So no, they matchbox stand. They didn't pressure me at all in any way. They were just totally supportive. We knew that the lead roles were going to be faces we probably hadn't seen.
Before, and.
That was that was the path we signed up to take early in the day, and once that decision was made, it was stuck to. And yeah, I mean, I think we've discovered just amazing new new faces and so much talent.
It's interesting because I was thinking about there was a few shows for a while where I spoke to a few people in your Shoes and they talked about having an Aussie that's made it big overseas and bringing them back to Australia to put them in this show to try and get bums on seats. But I sometimes felt like it was a gimmick. And sometimes, you know, audiences aren't as dumb as what you might think they are.
You know, audiences will feel that sort of stuff. They may feel as though that's a gimmick to try and bring them in. It's kind of like freak casting in a way.
Yeah.
Yeah, And I think what we also, you know, stand committed to supporting us executing is like action, which is a different way of bringing people in. And I think sometimes, you know, we can underestimate the power of seeing things we haven't seen before, like action, sequences running through Western Sydney. Yeah, that can be a big drill card for audiences as well.
Yeah, definitely can. I think it's interesting as well for Australians to see ourselves on screen as accurately as we are. You know. I think sometimes and dating back like twenty years with some movies that were made here in Australia, you know, we'd sort of see people over sort of
leaning into their Australianism. And I find it really interesting now that we're in that era of sort of being a little bit less colloquial and being able to tell stories that are accessible to global communities that are going to watch this, you know, when they come across it on streaming platforms, when it gets you know, sort of resold overseas.
Yeah, I think you know everybody, well, I don't know, maybe not everybody.
I should just speak for myself.
I want to tell stories that as many people as possible get to see, and I want Australian stories to excite people who live in Norway or Nigeria or whatever, because I.
Think we can all learn from each other.
I mean, my parents are both immigrants, ones Irish Catholic, the other's Egyptian Muslims, So like I've been growing up looking for the things we have in common, for that's been my life rather than the things that you know.
Push us apart. And so the stories I want to.
Tell universal stories, like I'm not looking to tell niche stories, but sometimes you go into.
A unique world to tell a universal story. And I think the more.
More specific you can get about with your authentic voice about where your story is set, the more interesting and in a weird way universal it becomes to outsiders, because I think people have pretty good bullshit detectors or you know, and for what they want are stories that know what they're saying, that are authentic about what they're saying.
You definitely get to have that. But also, you know, what's interesting about this as well is that it has a lot of heart. It has like you could just do a thriller like this and I could very easily see it without it having the pull through which I think this show has created, which makes me wanted to ask you about which sounds crazy, about what you want from audiences watching this, like did you have a mission statement about what you were thinking when you were pulling
it all together? Because I can feel that there's something really quite deep and rich behind it all.
Yeah, look, the whole pass and crew received a letterup when they signed on to this project about what our hopes were for the show, what this show wanted to be and wants to be, and I hope we've achieved, and what we don't want it to be. And we didn't want it to be a regular cop show. We didn't want it to be poverty porn, we didn't want it to exoticize Western Sydney. And then there's a whole lot of things we did want, which I'll happily tell
you once we've done a multiple season run. But I think one of the really important things of being a creator is you put your work, your heart and soul into your work, and then you put your work out to the audience and it's up to the audience to decide what it's about, if they give it, if they need to care about that. And I just hope we deliver a really thrilling, entertaining ride. And I'm pretty confident different people will take away different messages from this show.
See that.
No, No, you know what I think, because you're in on the ground floor, so you've got some you know your own feelings about this, but from an outsider who's come across this with no connection to it, I feel just really drawn into this. And I don't see it as a one and done series. I don't because I was interested about your thoughts on it being contained, because I feel like it could lend itself to so many other situations, so many other critical incidents.
Yeah, we're really hopeful that we get enough eyeballs watching the show the whole way through that we'll be able to come back to Blacktown and I have a whole.
New, exciting, thrilling ride through the world.
We'll meet some people who are new to us, but we'll also see characters we've already gotten to know. And yeah, we'll continue to explore the corners that don't get depicted on ONZTV that often.
Well, I'm definitely in your audience for all of this, and I have to tell you before I ask my last question, we ask everybody I sent my partner to go and get the good meal. And the good meal that we get is usually if we've just come across a really engaging series, which is this, so I get to keep watching this tonight. Australia will get to start watching it soon, but I just think I can't wait till today it can be over, except that it's exciting to talk to you right now.
Oh lovely, I have a bandanna, which means nothing to be listening to this podcast.
But yes, I'm wearing a survivor bandwnit because I'm having a very bad hairdach.
Afeel you mate a feel it.
It's a very common thing. What is something from behind the scenes that we as an audience won't get a chance to see, kind of your behind the scenes secret of what it was like to make this show.
I mean, I really wish that everybody could see the musical outtakes from this show. There was a running joke slash hope that we could turn this into it into a musical. There were a lot of dance moves and songs, improvised songs, and I mean, I like to laugh, so I really would love to share that with everybody, but unfortunately wasn't captured.
There's always next, There's always the other season. You know, it's a hard thing to do. I think Joss Weldon Whedon, Joss Whedon, who did it for Buffy, did a really good job of a musical episode Gray's Anatomy not so much. I think they really they really struggled with that one. I mean, great voices and but just the show didn't seem to be able to go that place. But I'm here for it.
Pretty phys it cool, Yeah, it was much weirder, kind of magical.
Well, absolutely, you know, Sarah, I want to thank you so much for being so generous with your time and talking to me today. I'm a big fan of this show, and I'm now a very big fan of your work. I can't wait to walk to the series and I'll have to slide into the publicis DMS to send you back my review once I get to the end.
Absolutely, please, it's been lovely talking with you.