How the ABC got directors

Background

* Alan Burke - Elizabethan Theatre Trust

* Paul O'Loughlin - radio

* Ray Menmuir - radio and some amateur theatre

 

 Tom Jeffrey in the NFSA:

Often out of radio um a few from university ah some were being brought in from overseas.  Ah Bill Royston, there was a specific reason why he was brought in but others, and it was only for a short ah for a short while like a year or so, maybe a year or two ah and he came with a reputation.  Ah but there were other people um one or two of them that um that were brought in and at the time none of us could figure out why.  Um they were sold a pup you know.  Um also ah a bit later than where we are at chronologically, often people were brought in from interstate ah and sometimes Charlie Moses had met somebody overseas and I can remember one person who is still alive so I better no mention his name, you know he was a good polo player and Charlie Moses had met him at some party and said well you should, and he was interested in being in film you know.  And so Charlie said well come back to Australia, come to Australia and we’ll give you a job.  And that was pretty unfair.  There were quite a lot of people who were you know, becoming quite informed about the medium and so on, young people who should have been given a break.

The ABC’s training approach in those days for producers was that they’d look around the ABC you know across Australia and pick I think fifteen or twenty people and bring them in over the Christmas holiday break or the down time and give them a three week stint called a Producing Course or a Directing Course and ah and if you came through that you know, you could be asked to direct or produce as we called it in those days.  And that was pretty haphazard sort of stuff.  Um I felt that there was a natural kind of progression from the studio floor up into the gallery but um my betters felt otherwise.  But I did keep pressing or started pressing for opportunities to direct and um occasionally I would be given those opportunities when people were away sick or taking holidays and things