THE EXECUTIVE PRODUCER'S AUSTRALIAN STORY

Welcome back to TV Reload. My name's Benjamin Norris, and on this podcast I'll be going behind the scenes with the biggest players in television. What a week it has been. I've been overwhelmed with the feedback on last week's episode, which send it around Binge's new TV series Catch and

Sometimes people themselves don't really know what their story is.

Tonight's Australian Stories about a man.

Can we just have an ordinary person who would present the Australian story every week.

I'm stronger than I ever thought I was.

I kind of pointed as stories that make you think and feel. A Brisbane teenager is in intensive care after he was seriously hurt in a high school rugby match. I want to tell Indigenous stories. We want to tell it stories with more diversity.

There was absolutely no doubt in my mind that it was a positive thing for the environment and also a positive thing for people.

A good story is not about the great pictures or the great soundtrack, all the amazing graphics. It's about the story.

Well, thank you so much for having me.

I love talking about Australian Story because I have been on the program since the beginning and it's kind.

Of in my DNA.

You have worked on Australian Story for twenty five years, just celebrating the jubilee, which is quite impressive. My question for you is what is your driving passion with investigative journalism?

Well, Australian Story.

You know, we've kind of spent a bit of time going well, what are we, how do we in the mix of programs that the ABC does, Where do we fit? And what we've kind of come down to is that we tell compelling personal stories that have a sense of revelation to them.

Precious Max was living in long Pin with his girlfriend Charlene Savarino, and both of them were part of an international drug syndicate who were operating to lure Australian men and women to travel to Cambodia to bring drugs back into Australia.

So sometimes they're investigative, but often their profiles it's just the full gamut. And I think part of the reason I love the program so much is that we take this kind of narrationless documentary style and we apply it to anything I go. There's nothing that we can't do in our narrationless style.

How did Australian Story come about? What roads led you to this incredible body of work well.

Australian Story came about, I think because the ABC realized that it needed to be doing more programming about people and particularly in rural and regional areas. And originally when the concept was floated, it was called Australian Correspondent and it was going to be foreign correspondent but set in Australia, So it was going to be largely that personality based journalism of the correspondent going in and telling the story.

Out of that.

I love the intro It's one of my favorite things about it that you've found someone who really truly fits the story instead of just an everyday journalist or the same journalist on every episode. I think that could be quite powerful.

Do you know I have a little part to play in all of that.

So I was a young twenty something when I first joined the program, and I was just really antie this whole concept of the all seeing, all knowing presenter who sat behind a desk and would present this story to you. And this was before the days of reality TV and Big Brother, when you know, ordinary people couldn't be on television. And I came up with this idea, what about we change it every week and we just have an ordinary person who would present the Australian story every week.

Hi, I'm Jodi Meers. I'm a fashion designer and big time supporter of the young woman you're about to meet, Tara Winkler, is the force of nature behind an organization that's helping some of the world's most impoverished families in Gambodia.

So we started that and we found that a lot of ordinary people aren't very big television presenters, but we have kept with that concept. The whole time in that we mix it up every week. You never know who you're going to get. Who's going to present Australian story this week. It's somebody who's got some kind of connection

Over a fifty year career.

Colleagues admired her calmness, dignity and determination to expose injustice and wrongdoing.

So when she.

Left was really sad because we all love Caroline. But we went for a long time who could be this next presenter for Australian Story And we haven't been able to find anybody who we think can kind of do that broad gamut of story presenting from all different topics, all different people, and so we just kind of change it up every week and ask different people and just

My favorite parts of a current affair programming is when you don't really remember the presenter if they've done their job well, they're kind of a little bit invisible.

I completely agree with you.

I watch programming now that has that presenter who inserts themselves into the shots and the voiceover. I don't know, it just irritates me so much that voiceover. You have to virtually be like David Attenbrough, or you have to bring something so special to it for me to enjoy that kind of storytelling. I just love being able to

I love the choices that you make when you put the shows together. I love your choices of text instead of a voiceover.

If we're doing a complex legal story and we want that really neutral voice to deliver some information that doesn't seem partisan, then we'll just put that text on screen to say, you know, the court found that bloody bloody bla and she was sentenced to blidy bloody blah. I always feel that's a really good use of captions on screen.

To think about the amount of times where they put an over emotional score behind it. Sometimes when it goes silent and then you get what's happened in the past or something that's happened in the future. That's I think it's way more powerful than over complicating it or overproducing it and just trying to be too a motive with a score.

Yes, I like what you said before.

I always see putting together Australian story is having a ten thousand piece jigsaw puzzle. But this puzzle hasn't come out of a factory, and there's a way to do it with a picture on the front. You have to create that puzzle yourself with words and pictures and music and whatever else, and you have to kind of force those pieces to fit. They just aren't perfectly cut, so there is a lot of editing that goes on to

Months and months.

It's really difficult. And I think people watch Austragon's story and go, well, that was so seamless. That story just made sense. It unfolded so beautifully. So much work has gone into making it appear that way. You know, people don't speak in perfect answers and perfect grabs. Sometimes people themselves don't really know what their story is, and it sometimes takes us to cut to come along and look at it with the big picture, to go, ah, that's what the narrative is.

I was suddenly unsure of everything, of how I'd lived my life, for how I'd been with my mother, if I'd been enough of a daughter to her.

It's really really difficult, and I'm actually sort of don't know how bosses at the ABC understand how difficult it is to create this narrationless television in this really short amount of time.

I'd love to call you after every episode and then for you to tell me all of the things that went wrong.

You wouldn't believe what happened. Oh my god, we didn't think we were going to get it to air.

It's always like that. There's always some drama every single story.

How has Australian story evolved over the years, do you think, because twenty five years of storytelling is phenomenal.

It is.

When I started, everything was shot on tapes, so we had digib to CAM I think it was, and these tapes were expensive, so you didn't go overshooting. And when I started, you do an interview and you had to transcribe your own interview yourself. We had these basic linear

Some of them.

Aren't that great, some of them don't quite make sense because we were editing in this very linear way. So I think that that's probably where we've evolved the most, is that our ability to edit and get clarity and you know, push the story for drama. I just think our storytelling has got better over the last twenty five years. And I think too, maybe some of our visual filmmaking was a little bit cliched and corny in the past. I think we've got better.

At that too.

Was there ever a time where you thought, I'm going to do this whole thing differently? I remember reading your fear that you thought the show could end up being like an old, comfortable pair of slippers. So I imagine that there has been some reinventing along the way to keep it fresh for the audience.

I know that as a producer, as I got to understand how to really script well, because that was.

Probably a little dodgy at the start that I.

Went every story I do, I have to challenge myself and I have to do something different. If I'm not doing something different with every single story, then I'm not learning I'm not growing, the format's not growing.

There is a pressure sometimes to try and change something that is working perfectly, and I guess that's sort of the essence of that question is do you feel that pressure and has there been a point where you've just flipped it on its head?

Well, very interesting.

After Caroline Jones, our founding presenter, left, we experimented with not having a presenter at all, so the theme tune was on and then bang, it went straight into the story and it didn't work at all.

And I thought at the time it didn't work because we.

Were having to front load that introduction to what the story was, the who, what, when, where, and why we were having to front load at all, And I think that was part of the reason why it didn't work. But I think another reason why it didn't work was that that presenter is that time that people sit and relax and that they are gently introduced to what this story is going to be about. It's like a warm welcome. And that's what somebody said to me, that they're now

Is being compared to that.

So the bar is so high these days, and you know, we're just you know, really really trying hard. On our very limited budget and with our very limited resources. We're just doing the best that we possibly can.

You know, I think Australian story is twenty years ahead of the true crime phenomenon. The way that you unpack your stories draw people in to offer you some context. If you're flicking the channel and you come across a strand story you just can't turn away. Can you see the parallel between true crime and the way Australian story has always been told?

Well, we really saw the power of true crime that our founding EP, Deborah Fleming, who was a legend, she saw the power of true crime really really early on. So if you were to go back through our archive, you would see, oh my god, they were doing those stories way back then and doing them well. So that is certainly one of the staples in our repertoire. We know that the audience enjoys that true crime genre, and.

I do agree with you.

We have that sense of when we're structuring a story that you have to tease it at the start, you have to lure people in. You don't give too much away there's some question that's not being answered here. We really structure those stories very keenly around those sorts of,

And that's the surprise I think, you know, with changing around from politics to an unlikely friendship story or a celebrity story. You know, there's just such a tapestry there that allows us as a viewer to have so many different types of emotions, which I think is the magic behind this program. What story was your favorite and why was that your favorite?

There's so many stories and for me, some of my favorite stories are those stories that I had the most fun on as a producer. You know, part of the joy of working on this program is working in a team. And I had so much fun filming that story or the talent were just so great to hang out with. I guess I have a few key ones in my career. There was one about a quadriplegic farmer, and he and I are still friends and he calls me from time

Have done too.

So I can tell you which stories the audience liked was the story of and it still has brought up to me all the time. Gale and mac Shan, the young couple, lived on a farm. She was involved in a terrible accident where her arm was ripped off by a posthol digit was terrible.

When the doctors told us that the left arm was paralyzed and to their knowledge, your repairable. We were terrified of telling Gail because we thought she might not want to go on.

But her tenacity through it all, their love story through it all. Our audience just loves that one. I think Gayl and macshan have got a bit sick of us coming to them all the time saying can we please update your story, because that's a big thing about what we do too.

I often watch a strain and story and I think, oh, that didn't give me everything I needed. They're going to revisit this, and I'm going to look forward to that. Yeah, you know, yes, And it's not that you haven't tidy the story off properly at the time. It has evolved and has been brilliant, but you can't help it sometimes wonder where's this going to go? That must be so amazing to know that your viewers want to know more.

Well, you know, we came up with the update idea simply because if you're doing an update, it's recycling. You can take twenty minutes of that thirty minute program, you can take that chunk, you can use that chunk, you put a bit of new stuff at the top, a bit of new stuff at the end, and you've got a whole new program. So for us, that saved money, that saved time, and the audience loved it because they'd

People.

Actually, there's some of our best rating programs. People really really enjoy it, and they will always be a fundamental part of what we do because we often do need to fill a black hole in the production schedule very quickly, but also because the.

Audience loves it.

And you know why I think the audience loves it as well, is because they love to go, they love to feel a part of it. And then when they see it start, they go, oh, I remember this, and they turned to the goggle box with their partner and they say, oh, I remember this such and such happened

That's really interesting that you say that.

I'm really interested in exploring that concept of inclusion of the viewer because I'm not there sitting watching viewers when they watch a straighten the story. And I'd love to be because I've watched these things so many times, like sometimes I've watched them fifteen times before they go to air, and I watch it on a Monday morning the final version.

You know, I think that that's a really interesting concept.

Do you feel like you know how the story is going to go and how the show is going to perform with an audience once it's in the camp.

Mostly I think I'm pretty good at picking it mostly, but sometimes it really surprises me and I'm like, Wow, that one did well.

Or jeez, I would have thought that one would have done better.

But then you know, you're also up against things on the commercials, and if they're having the final of Maths or something like that, you're just not going to have a huge audience that night. Sadly, twenty twenty one, the ratings for Free to Wear have fallen a fair bit

How do the stories arrive and how do they get born? Because I'm assuming that there's a team of people that sit there and pitch ideas, and I'm assuming that you've always got your ear to the ground. What is that process?

Like?

How do the stories arrive and how do they get born?

I always talk about my antenna for a story is up constantly, you know, it's always up everything I read and look out and I go, could that be an a strating story? Is that where we should be going with the program? But everybody on the program, there's probably about twenty of us, we're all like that. We're all looking around for stories constantly. We read a lot, we listen to a lot, So everybody's pitching stories all the time. And we have a team of people, a research team

The best stories?

You know, we only have thirty five stories a year. What are the best stories that we can tell out of those thirty five? But you know, we have a lot of strategy goals that the ABC wants us to kick too, and that we want to kick. So we want to tell indigenous stories, We want to tell stories with more diversity. We want to tell stories that are out and the rural and remote areas as well, so we factor that into the mix.

We get pitched a lot. We don't really get.

As many stories through our story inbox as we used to, where some of our best stories came from just members of the public kind of coming to our inbox.

We just don't get as many as we used to.

And I'm kind of wondering how do we connect with our audience a little bit more so that we can get those stories from them.

So, yeah, just open to all ideas.

I get a lot of emails from PR people, but they generally don't ever get commissioned those sorts of ones.

What kind of approval process is there to get the concept lit? Like you yourself is the executive producer, you would have a lot of handle on that. But do you have to then take it through to the heads of the ABC for them to look at it before it goes ahead.

No, No, I've never done that, to.

Be honest, I want your job, And look, my bosses.

Are amazing in that they just completely leave us alone.

We just kind of been doing our own thing, and I guess.

We're not causing anybody any great headaches fingers cross touch wood that they need to intervene.

They really do leave us alone to make our own story judgments. I know that I am not the be all and.

End all with respect to story judgment and needs to be a team of people making those decisions. I ultimately have the final say, But if it was just all about the stories that Caitlin liked, you know, it'd probably be seventy five percent.

Okay.

There are different people on the team who think differently to me. My supervising producer, Rebecca Latham. She and I were a very very close team. I always say that I'm kind of more instinct and emotion and she's more intellect so she pictures very different stories to me. So I feel that we really balance each other really really well. And so it is very much a group effort about, you know, finding that mix of stories.

And you must be very proud and you should be very proud of a collaborative team. I think it's when people manage or you know, are in total control and they won't let other people's ideas penetrate them, that's when it doesn't work.

I am really proud of our team. We have an amazing team. We're all working together towards a common goal, which is to make this program the best that it can be, to tell the best stories.

So, you know, there's little.

Bits of you know, difficulty along the way. Sometimes they say I'm a bit of a control freak and I'm changing things too much. But even then I had somebody who actually ring me up me I had changed his story a bit, and he rang me up and said, I'm sorry.

You were right.

The story is better for your changes. So what a fantastic team that we can all speak so honestly together. We speak really candidly, really directly. We've all been working together for so long.

You know, there are a.

Group of people in this program who have been working together for about.

Twenty years or so and we keep getting you know, fresh all the time.

But no one wants to leave either because it is it's probably one of the best things in television, to be honest, where you get complete control over telling the story about someone that you genuinely probably respect, you know. That's most of us stories that we tell. So now, look, I'm really proud of our team. It is all a team effort. Not one person could do this, it's just many, many people involved.

What's their total time that it takes to make an episode from the point.

That it's commissioned. We say to our producers, there's one producer and the formula. The pattern is, you have ten weeks to now get this story on air. There might be a brief fare, but they might need to do a fair bit more research. They have to lock in the talent, they have to do the shooting schedules, they have to organize the crew, they have to arrange the archive. Then they go out and they film all the interviews. Then they have to direct with the camera person all

So it's incredible. You know, there's not.

Too many people who would produce thirty minutes of narrationless television at the high standard that we produce it at in a ten week production cycle, all by themselves independently.

I've just watched a documentary series which is going to be seen on a global scale, made by some of the best storytellers in the world, and at the same time researching Australian story and I was blown away by the standard. The standard is so high, and every episode being churned out is in the same league as something that everybody's watching around the world. Like that's phenomenal.

Yeah, thank you for that, thank you.

Yeah, I think we can hold our heads high. Sometimes I look at those fantastic docos on the street services with those amazing graphics and whatever, but you know, ultimately, a good story is not about the great pictures or the great soundtrack or the amazing graphics. It's about the story, and it's about will this last and does it sustain me? And are the characters interesting enough? So sometimes no, I don't think we look as slick as what some of

Sometimes just the simple narrative can do the job.

You know, I think narrative is so powerful, really really powerful, And those twists and turns and the sort.

Of surprising stuff.

I think that that's for me, what makes a really good story.

How do the contributors usually respond to the finished product? Because people are putting themselves out on the line to be open, to be honest, to tell sometimes they're appalling truth or someone else's appalling truth. I mean, there's a lot of pressure on these people. Do people try and control certain narratives? Do they call you in the product and say can you change this? And then once it's gone to air, do you have an open line of dialogue to those people?

Yeah? Look, I actually take this really really seriously. So you know, there are sometimes that you call them contributors. I call them talent because that's just what I've been calling them for twenty five years, where you know it's a precious thing, your story, and you're handing it over to a complete stranger to tell that story, and there's a level of trust involved, and why would you trust that person because there are strangers, so we'd have to

Have you ever found that someone's lied? What do you do when you've put someone to camera and then you've found out that what they've said isn't true.

I can only think personally where that happened to me once. And we can't let anything go to air that we know isn't true. So I don't think we've put anything to air that's been untruthful.

We've either clocked on pretty.

Early in the piece that when we were out there filming that things weren't stacking up, and we haven't continued with the story.

We've gone in this particular.

Case gone things are quite stacking up, but it seems to be this is the reason, and that can be a theme of the story. And as long as we get another voice in that story that tells the truth, we can then editorially justify that. But that was a long time ago, and to be honest, I don't think it would get through our rigorous processes if somebody was lying to us, and I don't think we would continue with that story because I would see that as a breach of.

Trust on their part.

Can you remember if there was ever a time, I mean, you definitely remember this if this happened. But did you have a complete story that was never run?

Yeah, a couple of times.

It's a bit sad when it happens because a lot of effort has gone into that story. It's always very sad.

Actually.

I think one time it happened because this is before my time, someone didn't check out and we realized someone checked it didn't check out, so we didn't ever run that. There's been plenty of stories that we've started and haven't continued with because things haven't haven't checked out.

How do they respond to being told that the story's been dropped?

I just really try and be open and honest and explain it to them and say, look, this stage, it's not quite strong enough to go the full distance of thirty minutes, but we'll see what we can do.

Down the track.

You know, we'll keep the door open. If something changes in your life through a few more chapters to the story, you know, give us a call. That sort of stuff.

I can imagine it'd be a bit of a process for them. Looking at you more specifically, do you see yourself continuing with this show? You know, for the rest of your career? I mean, there are other things bubbling behind the scenes that you'd want to do as an addition to your work as an executive producer on Australian Story, I would.

Love to do one of those big six hour documentary series on something really big.

You know, For me personally, I would.

Love that because if you're doing six hours on something, it means it's a fantastic story. So and I guess as a journalist, I'm all about the story.

So look, I'm really open to that.

But I also I still feel vibed by what I do after all this time, and I'm still ambitious about Australian Story. I'm going let's do a three part let's do a full partut come on, guys, let's find that story that could be a four part or on Australian Story. You know, Yeah, anything can happen. It would take It would take a lot for me to leave Australian Story, It really would because I do love it so much.

I really hope that you do the six part series because from everything I've watched in and as an audience, I've just seen some amazing skill sets being put to amazing use.

Sometimes I do wonder this skill I have to take this word and this phrase and you know, put words together.

I go, oh, my gosh, what sort.

Of skill is this being able to sort of, you know, use people's words and interviews in this kind of jigsaw kind of way.

But no, it is.

It's like an big puzzle, and I do enjoy that complexity of that puzzle.

So if they pick up the phone and ask you to do a series of Married at First Sight, you know, how does that phone call go.

I don't think I'd be a good fit with Married at First Sight, to be honest, I don't think I would. I think i'd you know. I think what I love about Australian story is that our stories are meaningful and that they have substance and all of that sort of thing real and genuine people. That said, I don't mind a bit of Married at First Sight, I don't mind a bit of reality television.

I've got two teenage daughters and we.

Do quite like looking at the Bachelor and Bachelorette for.

Five of the time.

I would love to see you do a reality show, is what I'm getting at, just because I would love to see more integrity, because I think that we've gone in a certain direction with reality television where we are watching it and it's sensational. So I think that there would still be an audience for a strip back reality show where you're showing people more honestly.

You know, that's really interesting because it is just all about conflict these days, isn't it, and that generating conflict. That's what it feels like to.

Meal TV with integrity. That's a really interesting concept. You should pitch something.

The human experiment only works when you see the way in which people make themselves a cup of coffee, you know, or what their routine is when they go to bed. They're the moments that are now not even seen on reality shows. But I think that that was something of the magic that was there right at the start that's kind of gone away because people are impatient to tell stories faster.

You know.

There's something in the reward of telling something in long form for the audience who does stick in the program to be rewarded with the bigger picture.

But I've got teenage daughters who, particularly my younger one, doesn't have a particularly long attention span.

What does it mean for the future.

Of long form when these generations who are coming up they're bred on TikTok and that sort of thing, and there's nothing wrong with that content. There's some great content there, but the attention Seystan is social. Will they be interested in long form in the future, Will they be interested.

In a deep dive?

Sadly, I don't think so. I think you short shart pieces of information is the way forward, and people are getting so much of their content very quickly. It's so accessible these days. And also people being able to be their own content is also something that takes away from long form. You yourself can be on TikTok. Everybody can be now, so we can all be our own stuff.

That's exactly right.

We were the curators of people's stories before, but now they can curate their own personal story.

They don't need us. And I do think about these.

Issues and what this means for the future of Australian's story.

I'm still hopeful.

I'm still really hopeful that the big picture fundamentals are still there, that people still are interested in the lives of other people, and they're interested in the shades of gray, and they're maybe interested in somebody else kind of looking at this person in a more objective way than maybe that person can look at themselves.

I'm not sure.

Maybe that's just wishful thinking.

I really don't know.

One question I always ask my guests before they go is what is an amazing story from behind the scenes that we as an audience would appreciate. Something that happened behind the scenes over the many years that might be funny or interesting.

Oh, I think people have left their radio mics on while they've gone to the bathroom. I remember talking to a traumatized sound reporters once who'd had to listen to somebody going to look to the bathroom. That was not pleasant.

I want to say thank you so much for being able to join me today and unpack Australian story because it is compelling viewing. It is something that has been on our screens for so long for a reason, and I hope you continue to enjoy making the show as much as we are there watching it.

Yeah, well, thank you so much. And I just a big thank you to all those people.

Who still tune in every Monday night to watch. We're really really appreciative.

And you know, even though we.

Don't know these people, they're always at the front of our mind.

What's that audience thinking. So yeah, thank you very much for having me,