Without This One Interview Technique Australian Story Might Have Died

Topic: Television

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

Deb Fleming tells a story from the early days of Australian Story, laughing about a crew leaving the car phone on and hearing doubts the show would survive.

Deb was their boss, the first executive producer of this new style of current‑affairs documentary, but the start was rough.

Before the show aired, the ABC cut its budget and reduced the planned one‑hour program to 30 minutes.

Deb Fleming leads an early meeting of Australian Story with Patricia Barraclough and David Gunzberg (ABC Archives).

The crew were venting. “They didn’t know I was still there, listening, and they said, ‘God, this will be a disaster… it will go down in flames,’” Deb recalls.

Everyone in TV knows most shows fail in the first year, and Deb says the crew were rightly worried about their jobs.

“We were really struggling, thinking ‘What do we do now? How do we make this work?’” Deb says.

Deb Fleming meets two memorable guests, Mac and Gayle Shann (Sophie Kesteven).

Deb says she told the crew she had heard them, “we laughed then and we laugh now.”

History shows the team had the last laugh. Australian Story reaches 30 years, becoming one of Australia’s favourite news and current‑affairs programmes.

“A few years later we were collecting another Logie or Walkley for journalism excellence, and it was amazing to think how close we were to disaster,” says Deb, who led the show for 19 years.

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

With a goal of finding the extraordinary in the ordinary, Australian Story has shown a farmer with a cause, a celebrity with a secret, and the motivations of local heroes.

After 1,125 episodes, the show has changed its look and pace, but Deb says its core success is staying “a little beacon of something positive.”

“Polling shows people are unhappier than ever,” she says. “So a beacon of humanity, positivity, insight, and sharing the human condition is welcome.”

“Perhaps the need for it is greater than ever.”

Episodes we can’t forget

Producer Ben Cheshire says getting the shy AC/DC members to talk about late singer Bon Scott was a highlight in his 30 years; the episode has 7 million YouTube views.

Retired founding producer Helen Grasswill recalls her hard‑won interview with media baron Kerry Packer about a kidney donation from his pilot Nick Ross.

Deb loves Janine Hosking’s piece on Gayle Shann, a Queensland woman who lost an arm in a fence accident but kept farming with help from her husband Mac.

Caitlin Shea, a founding producer who became executive producer in 2018, says her favorite episode was co‑produced with Greg Hassall about basketball star Luc Longley.

Caitlin Shea films with Luc Longley in Denmark, WA, after COVID delays (photo credit: Caitlin Shea).

Caitlin explains how she got the exclusive interview with the basketball legend.

Longley was left out of the hit documentary The Last Dance about the 1990s Chicago Bulls, and he told Australian Story how much that hurt him.

“That was one of those moments,” Caitlin says, “people said, ‘Did you see Australian Story? They had Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen, Phil Jackson, Steve Kerr.’ It was a real ‘Wow, this small program can do that’ moment.”

The episode went global, gaining over 12 million views on ABC iView and YouTube.

Wayne Bennett: the ‘breakthrough’ moment

The first time Caitlin felt an electric impact was in 1999, when quiet rugby league coach Wayne Bennett talked with producer Vanessa Gorman.

Vanessa knew little about rugby league but understood what makes people tick, creating a revealing portrait of a softer Bennett and his three children, two with disabilities.

Caitlin says earlier years were hard to gain momentum. The format changed from three 10‑minute stories to one, and the time slot moved until it settled on Monday 8 pm in 2000.

But Bennett was “the breakthrough story.”

“We learned from that story what we could do that no one else could, and audiences loved the confessional, personal storytelling,” Caitlin says.

“I think that gave us focus on what we did really well.”

Caitlin pushes back against the idea the program is soft on interviewees or gives a free pass to image‑repair.

She says the show follows the same strict editorial standards as other ABC news programmes, asking hard questions without a “gotcha” style.

“It’s storytelling that seeks to understand the human condition and the lessons for all of us,” she says.

“Just because you’re on Australian Story doesn’t give us the right to pick at all your scabs. You don’t have to share every gory detail of a marriage break‑up, but it must be acknowledged.”

Gayle and Mac Shann and then‑executive producer Caitlin Shea watch as camera operator Marc Smith flies a drone over the Shanns’ western Queensland farm (photo: Ally Graham).

Original producer Wendy Page says this approach was part of the founding ethos in the mid‑1990s, when aggressive, ego‑filled journalism was being mocked by the ABC comedy Frontline.

While making three programmes about the disappearance of Lyn Dawson, Wendy talked to many people involved – family, friends, Chris Dawson and his teenage lover.

“People were tired of journalists who wanted to be the star, chasing people with microphones,” says Wendy, who joined after the state‑based 7.30 Report ended.

A director saw a pilot episode and suggested removing the reporter’s narration for more power. The show was re‑worked using the subject’s voice, and he was right.

Thus the reporter was put in the background, rarely heard or seen, but always guiding the story flow. It was new then but common in documentaries now.

If not for this innovation, Helen Grasswill says, “I think the program would be dead.”

“The power of the story is in gently revealing character, motivation and why things happened, not just what happened,” Helen says. “A reporter’s voice would kill that.”

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 trekking through dense Tasmanian forest for clues about missing backpacker Celine Cremer or hanging with farmer Rachel Ward and actor husband Bryan Brown on their NSW farm, Australian Story crews travel far.

Marc Smith (left) and Erin Semmler walk through dense scrub in north‑west Tasmania while filming the search for missing backpacker Celine Cremer (photo: Morgan Timms/Erin Semmler).

They can spend weeks in the field, interviewing and gathering stunning images before the raw material goes to the editing suite.

On average an Australian Story takes 10 weeks to make, though some take years as researchers follow a developing story or person, building trust and contacts.

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

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

Belinda Hawkins, a former producer of 23 years, says one “extraordinary joy” of an interview is having time to draw out deep feelings and motivations.

“If you sit someone down and say, ‘Tell me your story,’ a flood of confused thoughts can overwhelm them,” she says.

“But in an interview that can wander, pause, and take its time, a person relaxes and can explore thoughts until, as I’ve seen often, they say, ‘Actually, this is what I think.’”

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

Many favourite episodes are about little‑known Australians, some thrust into the spotlight by hardship, others pursuing a solution or a dream.

But celebrity or high‑profile interviews have always been part of the show, Deb says.

Celebrities sell, she says, and ratings rise when big names appear. “If you’re not getting an audience on the public broadcaster, think why,” Deb adds.

It is harder now to get celebrities on the show, Caitlin says. In early days the programme competed with commercial shows for stars without a big budget, but today social media and streaming add competition.

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

Now well‑known personalities curate their Instagram feeds or make their own documentaries, often over years, not 10 weeks.

“We’ve chased Kylie Minogue’s story for three decades and she went with Netflix – brilliant,” Caitlin says. “There’s so much competition for stories now.”

One answer has been adding one‑on‑one interviews with host Leigh Sales, for high‑profile guests who won’t spend days with a film crew.

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

Singer‑songwriter Nick Cave, Midnight Oil frontman Peter Garrett and tennis star Jelena Dokic have all taken part in that format.

“A big name in a promo brings bigger audiences,” Caitlin says. “If we get big names in promos and people watch on ABC iView, they may stay for more episodes with regular people’s stories.”

Turning 30 hours of vision into 30 minutes

Producer Ben Cheshire found the only way to reach pastoralist Chris Henggeler’s remote WA property was by air (Australian Story: Marc Smith).

Caitlin Shea remembers early days when soft‑focus camera work was the style, filming early morning or late afternoon for a “golden hour” feel.

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

That has changed. A more realistic, authentic style is now used, helped by cheap cameras that work in any light.

“We now use multiple cameras; before we could only afford one per crew because they were so expensive,” Caitlin says.

“We often shoot with three cameras now, or four if we want high‑end quality.”

Australian Story crew use drones to capture a different angle of surfer Tyler Wright in 2017 (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 Deb Masters reduced sentimentality, lifted visual storytelling and added colour grading and audio mixing.

When everything is gathered – many long interviews, hours of footage, sweeping drone shots – it goes to the editors. As Deb puts it, “where the magic happens.”

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

Editor Andrew Cooke, who won an Australian Screen Editors award for part two of the Making Lachlan Murdoch trilogy, says his job is to “bring these shows to life”.

It’s not unusual to have more than 30 hours of footage to sift through and cut to a compelling half‑hour.

“We pack a lot in,” Andrew says. “The pace now is faster than 10 or 15 years ago. Every picture must 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 quotes from the interviews to make a “bed”.

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

Then he might work on a sequence. For example, a recent story on Play School’s 60th anniversary needed a 30‑second look at the art department. He distilled that from an hour of footage, watching every second for the strongest combination.

“The whole process is layering,” he says. “You start with your words and get that right.”

Then the music, pictures, graphics and sound effects are added.

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

“Then everyone watches it, you get feedback and reshape it. 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).

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

Votes come from the public as well as industry peers.

The affection everyday Australians have for the program showed earlier this month when almost 2,000 fans filled the Sydney Opera House Concert Hall to celebrate the 30‑year milestone.

Tim Minchin, Eddie Woo, Claudia Karvan and Mechelle Turvey gather backstage before the 30th anniversary event (photo: 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 on his way to school.

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

Australian Story celebrated 30 years with a live event where past guests took the stage to chat with host Leigh Sales (photo: Sophie Kesteven).

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

Governor‑General Sam Mostyn gave 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 global uncertainty, volatility and division, the program still offers space for love, hope, care and compassion.

“It blooms there,” she told the audience.

Australian Story alumni Astrid Jorgensen leads a Pub Choir singing session with the audience (photo: Daniel Boud).

Musician Alex Lloyd performs his song “Amazing” at the live event as images from Australian Story episodes play behind him (photo: 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 has kept its core elements while moving with the times, still telling stories that inspire or challenge viewers.

“People see an issue that resonates, or something that triggers emotions or memories or pleasure. They see something of themselves, and it’s comforting. Sometimes there’s confronting stuff and they think, ‘Wow, other people face these challenges too,’” she says.

“I think Australian Story has documented our social history for the past 30 years. How valuable is that?”

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

Watch the 70‑minute special Australian Story Live: Celebrating 30 years Monday 8 pm on ABC TV and ABC iView.

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