Australian Story was ‘on the precipice of disaster'. Then it lasted 30 more years

Topic:Television

Former guests, together with Sam Mostyn, Deb Fleming and Leigh Sales, gather at the Sydney Opera House for Australian Story Live. (Australian Story: Tom Hancock)

Deb Fleming is relaying a tale from the embryonic days of Australian Story, laughing about the time a crew left the car phone off the hook and she overheard their doubts about whether the program would survive.

Deb was their boss, the founding executive producer of this "experiment" in a new style of current affairs documentary, but things were not off to a great start.

Before the show could air, the ABC slashed its budget and what was meant to be a one-hour program was cut to 30 minutes.

Deb Fleming leads a meeting in the early days of Australian Story with Patricia Barraclough and David Gunzberg. (ABC Archives)

And the crew was venting. "They didn't realise I was still there and still listening and they were, quite understandably, given the situation we were in, saying, 'God, this is just going to be a disaster … this is going to go down in flames,'" Deb recalls.

Everyone in television knows most programs fall over in the first year, and, says Deb, it had been very realistic for the crew to be worried about their jobs.

"We were really sort of struggling with, 'Whoa, what are we going to do with this? How are we going to make this work?'" Deb recalls.

Deb Fleming catches up with two of the most memorable guests, Mac and Gayle Shann. (Australian Story: Sophie Kesteven)

Deb says she told the crew she'd overheard them, "and we laughed about it then and we laugh about it now".

History shows the team had the last laugh. Australian Story is clocking up 30 years of broadcasting, having cemented its place as one of Australia's favourite news and current affairs programs.

"Fast-forward a few years and we were standing there collecting another Logie or another Walkley [for excellence in journalism], and it was a wonderful thing to think back on … how close to the precipice of disaster we thought we were," says Deb, who was at the helm for 19 years.

Caroline Jones was Australian Story presenter for 20 years. (ABC/Australian Story)

With a mantra of finding the extraordinary in the ordinary and the ordinary in the extraordinary, Australian Story has taken viewers to meet a farmer with a cause one week, a celebrity with a secret the next, or delve deeper into the motivations of a local hero.

And 1,125 episodes later, the program has evolved in look and pace, but Deb argues that at the core of its continued success is that it remains "a little beacon of something affirmative".

"We know from polling that people are unhappier than they have ever been," she says. "So, a beacon of humanity, sometimes positivity, of insight, of sharing of the human condition is a really welcome thing.

"And perhaps the need for it is greater than it's ever been."

Episodes we can't forget

For producer Ben Cheshire, snaring the co-operation of the notoriously media-averse AC/DC band members for a piece about the group's long-dead lead singer, Bon Scott, remains a stellar moment in his 30 years with the program. The episode has clocked up 7 million views on YouTube alone.

Helen Grasswill, a now-retired founding producer, recalls her hard-won interview with the late media baron Kerry Packer about the life-saving gift of a kidney from his helicopter pilot, Nick Ross.

Deb has a soft spot for the piece by Janine Hosking about Gayle Shann, a Queensland woman who lost her arm in a fencing accident but persevered on the farm, with the loving help of her husband Mac.

For Caitlin Shea, a founding producer who became Australian Story's executive producer in 2018, her most memorable episode was one she co-produced with Greg Hassall, the show's current executive producer, about basketball great Luc Longley.

Caitlin Shea films with Luc Longley in Denmark, WA, after months of delays due to COVID restrictions. (Supplied: Caitlin Shea)

Caitlin Shea reveals how she secured a scoop interview with the basketball legend.

Longley had been left out of the hit documentary The Last Dance about the 1990s rise of the Chicago Bulls and its star Michael Jordan — and he chose to tell Australian Story how much that omission hurt.

"That was one of those stories," Caitlin says, "where people were saying, 'Did you see Australian Story? They had Michael Jordan on. They had Scottie Pippen, they had Phil Jackson, Steve Kerr.' That was a real, 'Oh my God, look at what this little program can do,' moment."

The episode quickly went global and has accumulated more than 12 million views across ABC iview and YouTube.

Wayne Bennett the 'breakthrough' moment

The first time Caitlin felt that electric vibe about the impact of an episode was in 1999, when the enigmatic and taciturn rugby league coach Wayne Bennett spoke with producer Vanessa Gorman.

Vanessa knew nothing about rugby league but quite a bit about what makes humans tick. The result was a revealing portrait of a softer Bennett and his devotion to his three children, two of whom have disabilities.

Caitlin says it had been difficult in the preceding years to gain momentum. The format changed from three 10-minute stories to just one, and the television time slot kept moving until it found its home on Monday at 8pm in 2000.

But Bennett was "the breakthrough story".

"We found out through that story what we could do that nobody else could do, and what audiences loved, which was this confessional, revelatory, personal storytelling," Caitlin says.

"I think that gave us a focus on what we did really well."

But Caitlin bristles at the suggestion the program is soft on interviewees or offers a free kick to those wanting to rehabilitate their image.

She says the show operates under the same rigorous editorial standards as any other program in the ABC's news and current affairs stable and asks the hard questions but without a "gotcha" style of journalism.

"It's storytelling that is seeking to understand the human condition and what are the lessons for all of us," she says.

"Just because you're coming on Australian Story doesn't mean that we have the right to pick away at all your scabs. You don't have to go into all the gory details around your marriage break-up but it has to be acknowledged."

Gayle and Mac Shann and then-executive producer Caitlin Shea watch on as Australian Story camera operator Marc Smith flies a drone at the Shann's western Queensland property. (Supplied: Ally Graham Photography)

Wendy Page, an original producer, says this approach was part of the founding ethos of Australian Story, forged as it was in the mid-1990s when aggressive, ego-filled journalism was being mercilessly parodied by the hugely successful ABC TV comedy Frontline.

While producing three programs about the disappearance of Lyn Dawson, Wendy Page spoke to a wide range of people connected to the case — family, friends, Chris Dawson and his teenage lover.

"People were sick of foot-in-the-door journalists wanting to be the star and chasing people down the road with microphones," says Wendy, who like many of the originals, joined the program after the demise of the state-based 7.30 Report.

It was in this climate that a director watched a pilot episode and opined that it would be more powerful if the reporter's narration was scrapped. It was rejigged using the subject's voice and he was right.

And so, the reporter was put into the background, rarely heard, almost never seen, but always guiding the flow of the story. It was a fresh approach then but common in documentary-making today.

If not for this innovation, contends Helen Grasswill, "I think the program would be dead".

"The power of the story is in the gentle revealing of character and motivation and why things happened as much as what happened," Helen says. "And that would be killed by the intrusion of a reporter's voice."

Australian Story crew Anthony Frisina, Quentin Davies, Ian Harley and Helen Grasswill film with author Brooke Davis in 2014. (Australian Story)

'Extraordinary joys' of interviewing

Whether it's scrambling through dense Tasmanian forest in the search for clues about missing backpacker Celine Cremer or hanging out with regenerative farmer Rachel Ward and her actor husband Bryan Brown on their NSW farm, Australian Story crews get around.

Marc Smith (left) and Erin Semmler navigate through dense scrub in north-west Tasmania while filming a search for signs of missing backpacker Celine Cremer. (Australian Story: Morgan Timms /Erin Semmler)

They can spend weeks in the field, interviewing and collecting stunning images before the raw material heads into the editing booth.

The average Australian Story takes 10 weeks to produce, but some are years in the making as researchers and producers follow a developing story or interesting person, building up trust and contacts.

Once a subject agrees, the main interview can take several hours.

Vanessa Gorman, Quentin Davies and Anthony Frisina carry their gear through a national park in Canberra for a 2022 Australian Story. (Australian Story)

Belinda Hawkins, a former producer who served 23 years with the show, says one of "the extraordinary joys" of an Australian Story interview is having the time to elicit a person's deep feelings and motivations.

"If you sit someone down and say, 'Tell me your story,' a whole lot of confused thoughts may overwhelm them," she says.

"But in an interview that can wander, can roam, can zero in and take its time stopping and starting, a person relaxes and can explore different thoughts until finally, and I've seen this over and over again, you can see them feeling it, that, 'Actually, this is what I think.'"

Belinda Hawkins interviews Richmond Tigers AFL player Jack Riewoldt in 2020. (Australian Story)

Many of the audience's favourite episodes have been about little-known Australians, some thrust into the spotlight by adversity, others plugging away at a solution or a dream.

But celebrity or high-profile interviews have always been integral to the program, Deb says.

Celebrity sells, she says, and audience ratings spike when high-profile people are featured. "And if you're not getting an audience with the public broadcaster, maybe you should be thinking about why that is," Deb says.

It is harder now to convince celebrities to appear on the show, Caitlin says. In the early days, the program vied against similar programs on commercial stations for access to celebrities without waving a chequebook, but today's proliferation of social media and streaming services has added to the competition.

Actor Paul Hogan in an interview with Australian Story producer Greg Hassall in 2019. (Australian Story)

Now, well-known personalities curate their Instagram feeds to present the image they want, or produce and control their own documentaries, which often are created over years, not 10 weeks.

"We've been trying to get Kylie Minogue's story for probably the best part of three decades and she ended up going with Netflix — and it was brilliant," Caitlin says. "There's just so much outside competition for stories now."

One answer has been the recent addition of one-on-one interviews with the show's host, Leigh Sales, to accommodate high-profile people who won't commit to being followed by a film crew for days.

Jelena Dokic in conversation with Leigh Sales for Australian Story with a live audience in Melbourne, 2025. (Australian Story: Briana Fiore)

Singer/songwriter Nick Cave, Midnight Oil frontman and former federal Labor minister Peter Garrett, and tennis great Jelena Dokic, have taken part in that format.

"The reality is a big name in a promo gets bigger audiences," Caitlin says. "Our hope is that if we can get those big names in promos and people come to ABC iview to watch that big name, they'll also hang around iview for a few more episodes and check out some other stories with just regular people telling their stories too."

Turning 30 hours of vision into 30 minutes

Producer Ben Cheshire discovered the only way to reach pastoralist Chris Henggeler's remote Western Australia property was by air. (Australian Story: Marc Smith)

Caitlin Shea remembers the pioneering days when soft-focus camera work was Australian Story's style, with filming done early in the morning or late in the afternoon to capture "that golden hour feel".

Ben Cheshire says the camera operators even added a soft mist filter to the lens to create a dreamy, "cinematic" look.

That's changed. A more realistic, authentic filming style has been adopted, helped by the advent of cameras that perform well in any kind of light and are much less expensive.

"We now use multiple cameras [while in the past] we could only afford to have one per crew because they were so expensive," Caitlin says.

"We often shoot with three cameras now, or four if we want to go high end."

Australian Story crew use drones to capture video from a different angle of surfer Tyler Wright in 2017. (Australian Story)

Australian Story producer Vanessa Gorman conducts a car-side interview for the 2025 episode about affordable housing and tiny homes. (Australian Story)

She says her predecessor as executive producer, Deb Masters, dialled down the sentimentality, lifted the program's visual storytelling and instituted a colour grade and audio mix.

When everything has been gathered — the multiple, lengthy interviews, the hours and hours of footage, the sweeping drone shots — it heads to the editors. Or, as Deb puts it, "where the magic happens".

The crew and Belinda Hawkins practise social distancing while filming during COVID restrictions in 2020. (Australian Story)

Andrew Cooke, one of Australian Story's editors who won an Australian Screen Editors award last year for part two of the trilogy Making Lachlan Murdoch, says his job is to "bring these shows to life".

It's not unusual to have more than 30 hours of footage to scour through and reduce to a riveting half hour.

"We do pack a lot in," Andrew says. "The pace now is a lot faster than it was 10 or 15 years ago. Every single picture has to move the story forward, otherwise it's redundant."

The first step of a four-week edit, Andrew says, is to read the script and pull out the quotes, or grabs, from the interviews to make a "bed".

Episode edit timelines are complex as intricate layers are added. (Australian Story: Andrew Cooke)

Then, he might work on a sequence. For example, one recent story on Play School's 60th anniversary required a 30-second look at the art department. He distilled that from an hour of footage, watching every second to find the most commanding combination.

"The whole process is a process of layering," he says. "You start off with your words and get that right."

Then the music, the pictures, the graphics, the sound effects.

"Each time you work over it, you add another little bit," Andrew says.

"Then, everyone will watch it and you'll get feedback and shape it again. So, it's a constant process of refining and layering."

Greg Hassall and Leigh Sales pictured at this year's Logie awards after winning Best Current Affairs Program. (Australian Story: Greg Hassall)

The program has been riding high after winning a Logie for Best Current Affairs Program earlier this month, making it the program's fourth consecutive win in that category.

Votes are from the public as well as industry peers.

The affection that everyday Australians have for the program was on display earlier this month when almost 2,000 fans filled the Sydney Opera House's Concert Hall to celebrate the 30-year milestone.

Tim Minchin, Eddie Woo, Claudia Karvan and Mechelle Turvey gather backstage before the 30th anniversary event. (Australian Story: Sophie Kesteven)

The line-up included alumni Gayle and Mac Shann, inspirational maths teacher Eddie Woo, and Mechelle Turvey, the West Australian Indigenous woman whose 15-year-old son Cassius was murdered in an unprovoked attack on his way to school.

There was some celebrity sparkle, too, with actor and producer Claudia Karvan and Olympic swimmer Michael Klim sharing their thoughts about being on the program, and musical spots by Tim Minchin, Alex Lloyd and Pub Choir director Astrid Jorgensen.

Australian Story celebrated 30 years with the live event which saw past guests take to the stage to chat with host Leigh Sales. (Australian Story: Sophie Kesteven)

Maths teacher Eddie Woo and Olympic swimmer Michael Klim were a formidable duo on stage. (Australian Story: Sophie Kesteven)

And Governor-General Sam Mostyn took to the stage to give a speech about Australian Story's role in sharing "some of the most joyful, fascinating, intimate, and some of the most heartbreaking scenes of Australian life".

Ms Mostyn said that despite uncertainty, volatility and division globally, the program still gave space for a landscape of love, hope, care and compassion.

"It blooms there," she told the audience.

Australian Story alumni Astrid Jorgensen conducts a Pub Choir singing session with the audience (Supplied: Sydney Opera House / Daniel Boud)

Music ian Alex Lloyd performs his song Amazing at the live event at the Sydney Opera House as images from Australian Story episodes play out on the screen behind him. (Supplied: Sydney Opera House/ Daniel Boud)

Australian Story remains popular, Wendy Page says, because it reflects the country and its changing face, "documenting the evolution of society, its values and norms".

It's kept its core elements but moved with the times, all the while telling stories that inspire or challenge the viewer.

"People see some issue that resonates with them, or something that triggers emotions or memories or some kind of pleasure. They see something of themselves in it, and it's comforting. And sometimes there's confronting stuff and they think, 'Wow, other people deal with these confronting challenges too,'" she says.

"I think what Australian Story has done is document our social history for the past 30 years. And how valuable is that?"

The Australian Story team through the eyes of teenage artist Tim Sharp, the creator of Laser Beak Man. He gifted this drawing to the Brisbane office in the early 2000s as a thank-you for telling his story. (Australian Story)

Watch the 70-minute special Australian Story Live: Celebrating 30 years Monday 8pm on ABCTV and ABC iview.

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