Podcast - Rachel Perkins on The Australian Wars
Director Rachel Perkins on a career that includes Redfern Now, Total Control, Mystery Road and her latest documentary series The Australian Wars.
Rachel Perkins
Find this episode of the Screen Australia Podcast on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher or Pocket Casts
How to fit more than 100 years of conflict from an entire continent into three hours of television? This was a central challenge for director Rachel Perkins in making the SBS/NITV documentary series The Australian Wars.
“It's a big story to tell, but we've had a go at it,” she says, with episode one beginning with the conflict that began in 1788 with the British occupation of the east coast, and then tracking it across the country until it concluded in the north of Australia more than a century later. All three episodes are available on SBS On Demand now.
“It charts why violence occurred, who was involved, how it was fought and what it means today,” Perkins, who also presents the documentary, says. “I wanted to really give people a way to talk about this conflict, this warfare, and in calling it The Australian Wars, acknowledging it its role in the formation of our modern nation.”
Throughout the podcast, Perkins talks about why she wanted to tell the story of The Australian Wars, the shooting style and making personal stories as a documentarian, as well as reflecting on her career more broadly. Perkins, an Arrernte/Kalkadoon woman, is one of Australia’s in-demand directors and has worked across a wide variety of genres and formats, including feature films Jasper Jones and One Night the Moon, television series such as Mystery Road, telemovies like Mabo, and documentary series including First Australians. On the podcast she talks about getting her start in the screen industry at CAAMA in Alice Springs and then founding Blackfella Films in 1992 – a company she has recently left.
“It's been 30 years [since Blackfella Films started], so lots of different content has come through that production company,” she says. “Things like producing Warwick Thornton's first dramatic short Payback was amazing, to doing things like Total Control with Deb Mailman, the Mabo telemovie… and then of course Redfern Now which really introduced Indigenous people to television drama, directing, writing, [and] producing.
“It's been a really fruitful collaboration predominately with Darren Dale, my business partner, who produced for many years. But actually this year I've actually left Blackfella Films now and I'm out independently on my own… So different changes over the decades, but a body of work that I'm really proud of and filmmakers and communities that we've worked with, that we've formed lifelong relationships with. Looking back I'm really happy on what that company achieved.”
Watch The Australian Wars on SBS on Demand now.
Subscribe to Screen Australia Podcast on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher or Pocket Casts
Audio Transcript
[00:00:05] Caris Bizzaca Welcome to the Screen Australia podcast. I'm Caris Bizzaca, a journalist with Screen Australia's online publication Screen News. I'd like to firstly acknowledge the various countries you are all listening in from - the unceded lands of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. This podcast has been created on the lands of the Gadigal people of the larger Eora Nation, and I've had the great privilege to be a visitor and be able to work on these lands during my years at Screen Australia. Always was, Always will be. For this episode of the Screen Australia podcast, we are joined by acclaimed writer/director/producer Rachel Perkins, Arrente/Kalkadoon woman from Central Australia. Rachel has worked across a wide variety of genres and formats, including feature films Jasper Jones, Radiance, Bran Nue Dae and One Night the Moon; television series such as Mystery Road, Redfern Now and Total Control; telemovies like Mabo and documentary series including First Australians. Rachel's latest project is The Australian Wars, a three part SBS and NITV documentary event, which she both directs and presents. Now available to watch on SBS on Demand, the series delves into Australia's Frontier Wars - the battles fought on home soil and the resistance of the First Nations peoples - a history that has been largely untold until now. Throughout the chat, Rachel talks about why she wanted to tell this particular story, the shooting style, the research aspect and making personal stories as a documentarian, as well as discussing her career more broadly, including getting her start in the screen industry and founding Blackfella Films in 1992. Before we get to the chat, remember you can subscribe to the podcast through places like Spotify and iTunes. Feedback can be sent to [email protected] and subscribe to Screen Australia's Industry eNews for the latest from the local industry. Now, here's The Australian Wars director, Rachel Perkins.
[00:02:04] Caris Bizzaca And so a bit of background about your career in the industry. How did you get your start in the screen industry?
[00:02:13] Rachel Perkins It was quite random actually. I'd grown up mostly in Canberra because my parents moved there to be involved in sort of Australian political life, but I spent a bit of time back home in Alice (Springs), but I felt this sort of longing to be back here. And so when I was 18, which was way back in 1988, I sort of packed up a bag and headed to Alice Springs and there was a job going at CAAMA, which is the Central Australian Aboriginal Media Association. And I got a traineeship there in the television unit alongside people like Warwick Thornton and Erica Glynn. And so yeah, that's where we all sort of began our careers. So 30 years on, I'm back home in Alice Springs and still making films.
[00:03:00] Caris Bizzaca And so was that during the time when you were a producer and writer on the documentary Blood Brothers?
[00:03:08] Rachel Perkins It was a bit before that. So a couple of years before that. Yeah, so we were making programmes predominantly in Aboriginal languages and Aboriginal sort of current affairs or cultural content and putting them up on the television station here, which had just been introduced, satellite television had just been invented. And so yeah, it was all very new and fun. Fun times.
[00:03:34] Caris Bizzaca Yeah. Yeah. And so Blackfella Films, how did that get started?
[00:03:41] Rachel Perkins I started that a couple of years after CAAMA, so in 1992, I think. And I started it because I realised that I wanted to do things independently that were clearly Indigenous led, and I sort of called it that because, you know, I sort of wanted it to have the attitude to be sort of really forthright in what its aim was. And yeah, I just, I had bigger ambitions that I wanted to make films that would reach, you know, potentially wider audiences and different genres than what was currently being commissioned by ABC and SBS at that time.
[00:04:22] Caris Bizzaca And so what would be some of the highlights in working with Blackfella Films over the years?
[00:04:30] Rachel Perkins Well, it's yeah, it's been 30 years, so lots of different content has come through that production company. Things like producing Warwick Thornton's first dramatic short Payback was amazing, to doing things like Total Control with Deb Mailman to the Mabo telemovie to celebrate 20 years of the Mabo decision, which is now 30 years. And then of course Redfern Now which really introduced Indigenous people to television drama, directing, writing, the whole producing. So yeah, it's been a really fruitful collaboration predominately with Darren Dale, my business partner, who produced for many years. But actually this year I've actually left Blackfella Films now and I'm out independently on my own. And that's a new start again. So yeah, different changes over the decades. But a body of work that I'm really proud of and filmmakers and communities that we've worked with, that we've formed lifelong relationships with. So yeah, looking back I'm really happy on what that company achieved.
[00:05:46] Caris Bizzaca Mhm. And you know you work in factual and drama. How do you feel kind of moving between the two of those. Do you have to switch into a different mindset?
[00:05:58] Rachel Perkins No, I think that as storytellers, there's often these boundaries put up around what people can and can't do. And certainly there is certain expertise and experience that comes with both forms of documentary and drama. But I find the fluidity between those forms really satisfying. Like, I really love documentary making. I think documentary making is more difficult in some ways because it's more limited by the truth or by reality. Whereas drama knows no bounds. But then drama is, by its nature, often more expensive and therefore more stressful. The stakes are often higher in some ways financially. But I like both worlds. And now with this current show, it's a dramatised documentary, so it's got it all.
[00:06:53] Caris Bizzaca Yeah. And so with this current documentary, The Australian Wars, can you give us a bit of an idea of what it's about?
[00:07:02] Rachel Perkins The Australian Wars is a three part documentary series that traverses the violent conflict that began in 1788 with the British occupation of the East Coast, and then continued more or less for 100 or more years until it concluded in the north of Australia. So it charts why violence occurred, who was involved, how it was fought and what it means today. So it's quite a significant and really difficult in a way to encapsulate in three hours of television. But what it gives I suppose is some of the broad brushstrokes, because how can you tell a story that lasted more than 100 years across a whole continent - it's a big story to tell, but we've had a go at it. And we've called it The Australian Wars quite deliberately, because these were the wars that really founded the modern Australian state. So as in New Zealand, Aotearoa New Zealand, they've just renamed the Maori Wars, The New Zealand Wars. I wanted to really give people a way to talk about this conflict, this warfare, and in calling it The Australian Wars, acknowledging it its role in the formation of our modern nation.
[00:08:27] Caris Bizzaca And there's a moment in the documentary where you say that you were reluctant, almost in a way to make the doco because you knew how difficult that journey would be. What drew you to telling this story, though?
[00:08:47] Rachel Perkins Well, in many ways, I feel like it fulfils my purpose that I was trained for all those years ago. And people fought very hard for those opportunities for young people like me with the hope that we would tell these stories to broaden understanding and change the nation, I think. That sounds very ambitious, but that was our leader's intentions, you know. So, yes, I suppose I'm fulfilling my purpose and their hopes and intentions by doing this series. That sounds quite self-important, but really it's very practical. You know, we were trained to go out there and tell the stories of Indigenous people that hadn't been told, you know, the great Australian silence. These voices that hadn't been heard. So it's continuing in that line or that direction. But it is an extraordinary story as well. So not only politically but personally, I feel like it's an amazing story that we need to come to terms with and is a very challenging story, but still an incredible story. It's one of the great Australian stories, really. So as a filmmaker, that's always an attractive proposition, isn't it?
[00:10:02] Caris Bizzaca Mmmm. And it does, from what you were saying, like, it feels similar to, you know, with First Australians, another documentary series that you were involved with. You know, it gave a new - not a new perspective - it gave a different perspective than perhaps people had seen about Australian history?
[00:10:26] Rachel Perkins I think that's right. People of my generation and still people in school today, they aren't learning really yet. I mean, it's changing, but I don't think they're learning a really fully nuanced, holistic view of Australian history. You know, learning very much a colonial history. So it is new in that sense that it hasn't been a mainstream story. And in a way, yes, this traverses some similar territory to the First Australians documentary series that we made in 2009, but it has a more focused view on conflict and warfare. So I think for a lot of people it will be revelatory and shocking, but I think that's a good thing. It should be shocking, it should be upsetting and it should be compelling, you know, because of the experiences of people. It's meant to.. if it's none of those things, then I'll have failed to deliver the impact that the story deserves.
[00:11:33] Caris Bizzaca And with a documentary like this, I imagine that the research period was intense. Could you talk through that a little bit?
[00:11:44] Rachel Perkins Yes. So of course it had to be scripted and I like to do detailed scripts for the work I do because obviously it gives you a plan and approach and because a lot of it's all historical material, I had to sort of work out what to include. And so I read a lot of history books, some of which I was already familiar with from First Australians, and then it was about sort of distilling that material down into the three episodes. And it was very, very challenging because SBS wanted it to be a series that went around the country and so we had to sort of find places to go that related to the history and then people to talk to now and sort of. So it was quite challenging and COVID of course, hit right in the middle of it. So actually it was quite good because it allowed me to just sort of slow down and stop and just be able to focus on how we were going to approach it and scripting. So scripting took far longer than anyone had intended. But yes, we relied heavily on the historians work who, you know, these historians spend a decade or two in the archives and piece together amazing material. So we lent heavily on the work of a number of Australian historians.
[00:13:07] Caris Bizzaca And so you have a detailed script, but does that change much during production when you're doing these interviews with people?
[00:13:17] Rachel Perkins It does it. Yes. I mean it's the thing about filmmaking is that it's made three times. You make it in the script and then you go out and shoot it and it changes again and then you end up in the edit suite and it changes yet again. So what we did do though, early on in the piece, which I'm still not sure whether it was the best idea or not, but we shot a whole range of interviews and so we used those to draw from from the scripts. And then once we'd done the location shooting, then we brought people back into a sort of an interview set up and did more interviews. So that was our approach. But we had huge amounts of material because, I do like to do long interviews, you know, three or 4 hours per person because all of our interviews go into the archive and they're important historical records in themselves. So yeah, so we had a lot of material to wade through and we had to go around the entire country so.
[00:14:19] Caris Bizzaca And so, you know, this is a very personal story, particularly episode three. How do you as a documentarian, you know, a director, but also a voice, a participant within this documentary and in some ways a guide for some of the subjects in the documentary? How do you look after yourself in the making of this?
[00:14:42] Rachel Perkins Oh, well, my brother worked with me actually on the project as a sort of a location producer, and that was a huge help for me because he was sort of keeping an eye on me as well, you know? And that was nice, you know, but I don't know how you look after yourself. By the end of the process I was completely gutted and I was still really recovering, really, because we only finished it, you know, three weeks ago. So yeah, I was pretty gutted by the end of it, but that is filmmaking. It's very, you know, it's very tough as filmmakers know. You know, it's not easy. And we had a couple of COVID lockdowns as we were shooting this, we went over budget, we went overschedule - like years overschedule. So it was pretty full on and stressful. But, you know, films take the time that they need and and luckily we had Shark Island Foundation through DAF (Documentary Australia Foundation) come in at the end and help us keep going. Otherwise, it would have been it for me, I know 'disaster' is a big word to throw around, but it wouldn't, you know, the film wouldn't have been finished and it wouldn't have been a good outcome. So yeah, it just took the time it needed to take, you know, a year of editing, it was in the end.
[00:16:13] Caris Bizzaca And you do travel across the country and you visit some of these sites where atrocities happened and you know to a lot of people passing these places they probably don't look like a historical place. But how was it visiting some of those places and the feeling there?
[00:16:42] Rachel Perkins Yeah. You feel sort of sad and angry: sad for the people who were unjustly killed. And, you know, we'll never get any justice for that. And angry that there's no recognition for it. But I don't think it's a bad thing to feel angry. I think anger can be channelled into a force for change. And we should be angry about these things. You know, the things that happened weren't right and by anyone's moral measure. So, yeah, it's worth getting upset about, it's worth crying about and being upset about. And that's a good thing because I think it helps, it helps you move on, you know.
[00:17:30] Caris Bizzaca Mhm. And just lastly, could you just talk about the style quickly. It looked like there was maybe one or two cameras would DOP Dylan River and another camera operator on the location shots but then locked off shots on the interviews?
[00:17:46] Rachel Perkins Yeah. So we decided early on to bring the filmmaking process into the film. So there are shots where you see Dylan, the DOP and David sound recordist and and I'm in it as well, which is strange because normally I wouldn't appear in a film that I make, but we wanted to do that just to sort of make the process sort of transparent and also I suppose justify my presence in it. Like, why am I in it? You know, well, why am I in it? Well, I'm making the film about it. So, you know, that sort of became part of the film as a device, I suppose, and to show that it's not objective, it's very subjective. And yeah, we sort of decided to keep the on location, factual material, very fluid and a lot of Steadicam and on the move, always. With the interviews. We looked at Wormwood actually, and looked at the way they shot their interviews where they used like four or five cameras so that it really energised the interviews. You know, cut between all the different angles and that was a really good reference for us. And then the drama we kept quite handheld actually to try and give it more realism. So those were the sort of different style approaches for all different pieces. So we had over the project we had - because it was shot over a couple of years - so we had four different DOPs over that time. Tov Belling did drama, Dylan did the factual modern. Marden Dean did the interviews and yeah, Max was Steadicam. So, it's been a big collaborative process with also a lot of different editors. We've had four different editors cut the show as well. So many, many hands have made this series and they've done great work. All the people that came to the project. And they came to the project turning down other work because they cared about the subject matter. And I'm very grateful for that. They wanted to contribute because of the importance of the story. So that's something I'm really proud of, the collaboration of the team behind the show.
[00:19:59] Caris Bizzaca Fantastic. Well, we'll leave it there. But thank you so much for chatting today all about your latest documentary project.
[00:20:07] Rachel Perkins That's a pleasure.
[00:20:11] Caris Bizzaca That was Rachel Perkins. And a reminder, you can catch all three episodes of the Australian Wars on SBS on Demand. Remember to subscribe to the fortnightly Screen Australia newsletter to keep up to date with new initiatives, opportunities, videos, articles and more. Thanks for listening.