The Australian documentary maker Russell Porter kindly agreed to an interview about two of his films for the CSIRO, “the Coal Question” (1982) and “What to do about C02” (1984).
The short version (though you really would benefit from reading the whole thing) is this – we knew. We really did. Skilled communicators got hold of scientists who knew how to communicate.
The Coal Question: (watch here)
Can you remember, did Film Unit ‘pitch’ to energy institute’, or did the energy unit come knocking and say ‘we’d like you to do a film about coal’
1. The film project selection system worked in various ways. In some cases we would identify a subject that looked interesting and then discuss it with the relevant experts, and if it was broadcastable in theme and scope, we would talk perhaps to the ABC Science commissioning editors. In other cases, the Institutes (or Divisions as they became) within CSIRO would express interest in having a film made about their work, and my job would be to liaise with the scientists involved and prepare a script, which was then sent back in a few stages to be revised and refined. I was always keen to avoid them looking too “institutional” and boring.
In this case I think the energy Institute expressed an interest in publicising their work, I developed the script and, once it was approved, it formed the basic blueprint for making the film. Shooting and post-production on 16 mm was expensive, so we used to aim for a ratio of about ten to one (of material shot to the final edited length), so pre-scripting was essential. (Ratios these days are often 50 or 100 to one – false economy because the saving by shooting on inexpensive digital video are lost in lengthy post-production, and the craft and quality elements that come from careful preparation also suffer.)
Where did your information re: climate come from (did you already know Graeme Pearman from, say, the 1980 climate conference he organised)
2. The film unit was located in the old Information and Media (or some such) Centre in Albert St East Melbourne. which also housed a large library full of journals and editorial departments for specialist publications. It also housed the very experimental computing research division (where they were trying out a kind of prototype internet/electronic data-base sharing system, in collaboration with Harvard and Oxford). I tried to keep on top of interesting-looking developments or program as they came through the internal bulletins and publications like New Scientist (which I still subscribe to). CSIRO was a big and highly respected organisation in those days, with over 7,000 very bright employees engaged in often pure and original science. The climate conference was before my time (I joined in 1982), but the subject was beginning to create some lively debates within the organization.
Was there any attempt to control the script/content before it was released?
3. I don’t remember there being any attempt to “control” the content, but as I say they had to approve the final draft of the script. The heads of the Divisions and their scientists were the experts, and I deferred to them. But they were all also pretty smart characters with considerable social awareness and sense of responsibility. I loved the fact that they would not say or allow any opinions that were not based on hard empirical evidence. Proper old-school scientific rigour. With films for a general audience I used to say that if they could make me understand what they were doing, I could interpret that for the public.
Was there any overt ‘push back’ from anyone (within coal industry, government CSIRO etc) after it was released? If so, from who, what kind of push back?
4. I can’t remember any negative reaction to the coal film – there may have been some, but it would have been at a level that didn’t reach me. The industry lobby groups were also fairly docile in those days, and the politicians were less obsessed with pleasing their neo-liberal constituencies – that came later I think. I remember feeling that I had to be careful not to be promoting an industry that to me, even back then, I saw as environmentally destructive, so the “balance” in it, regarding emissions etc, was at my instigation – and they went along with it.
Are there other, earlier films I should be aware of? Or films about renewable energy?
5. In terms of other CSIRO films, if you go to the website http://www.scienceimage.csiro.au/ you can search by subject,and it will then give you the option of images or videos. “Climate” + “videos” for example yields this: http://www.scienceimage.csiro.au/search/?tags=&newkeyword=climate&keyword=&library=&assettype=video&rgb=&deviation=30&page=1
I made “Mysteries of the Lleeuwin” which is mainly about oceanography rather than energy / climate issues per se, and “The Heat is On” (2001) was after my time, but seems to be one of the “Sci-Files” shorts, which replaced the old “Researchers” series which were originally screened as fillers on commercial TV. There is another two-minuter in the series called “Oil from Plants”. A search on the site for “solar” yields these:
http://www.scienceimage.csiro.au/search/?tags=&newkeyword=solar+&keyword=&library=&assettype=video&rgb=&deviation=30&page=1 HIAF was the only one I worked on.
Anything else you’d like to say about the Coal Question
6. I think “The Coal Question” was aired on the ABC Quantum programme, as was my film on Australian trees called “Green Envoys“, shot in Zimbabwe and Southern China in 1986, funded by the Fed government as part of the Australian contribution to the International Year of Peace. (1986)It was originally planned to make it about two CSIRO research projects in Africa, trees in Zimbabwe and dry land soil farming techniques in Kenya. I went over to research it in February, returned with the crew in June, shot the trees project and then discovered that the Kenyans had withdrawn our permission to film at the last minute. It was due to go to air in September so we had to frantically re-schedule and re-write, and decided to make it all about trees. We had to get the then Foreign Affair Minister (Bill Hayden) to fast-track permits and visas etc, and off we flew to remote areas of southern China (Guangxi and Leizhou). http://www.scienceimage.csiro.au/video/12230/green-envoys/
What to do About CO2? (watch here)
Where did the impetus for “What to do about C02?” come from?
1. “The Greenhouse effect” as it was known then, was certainly an emerging interest of mine, and I think the ABC also wanted to do something on it. Much of the research was coming out of Atmospheric Physics Division in Aspendale so I went there first and met Graeme Pearman and I think Barrie Pittock, They were both keen to spread the word, and very charismatic interview “talent” (unlike many scientists).
You interviewed Bert Bolin – did he happen to be in Australia at the time?
2.Bert Bolin was in Australia at the time, I´m not sure why, but he was already internationally renowned for his work on climate change, so we took him to a Melbourne beach and interviewed him there. Similarly I heard that botanist and broadcaster David Bellamy was addressing a crowd at the Myer Music Bowl in Melbourne, we ran down there from the Unit´s base and grabbed him after the talk. He was quite a famous figure in those days for his arrest during protests against the damming of the Franklin River in Tasmania. He became an all-purpose environmental issue commentator, so we got the interview opportunistically. He was discredited (and banned by the BBC a least) when he became a denier of anthropogenic climate change, calling it “poppycock”. https://www.azquotes.com/author/30827-David_Bellamy).
Was there any attempt to control script/content?
3 No I don´t think there was any attempt to control the content. CSIRO and its scientists were kind of national sacred cows in those days, a source of national pride. This was before the whittling away and push to commercialize and downsize the organisation. This was also before the age of the internet, so here was much less official manipulation of media and ideas. Fake news, and the rot of anti-science and anti-intellectualism that has since taken over Australia, at least in terms of the people in power, were still decades away.
Can you recall any effort to get a politician (e.g. Barry Jones) to talk in the show about carbon dioxide as a problem?
4. No we didn´t approach the sainted Barry Jones. The Film Unit was intended and I think mandated to be non-partisan politically, and the feeling was that our brief was to stick to scientists, but in retrospect he would have been good value. The choice of Jeff Watson as the presenter was made by the ABC I think. He had a lot of cred as the founder of Beyond 2000, and he was a good choice.
What was the response? Positive? Negative? Any attempt to ‘push back’ from anyone?
5. The response to the film was generally good, it got a few positive reviews in the press and was deemed suitable by the Education department to be distributed to high schools. My own kids saw it at school. The Unit never promoted the films we made much, apart from within CSIRO´s general educational outreach through magazines etc. I don´t recall any pushback, but I can imagine the outcry from the conservative heads-in-the-sand brigade if it was made today with government money. Bob Hawke and Keating were in government for most of the time I was there.
Anything else you’d like to say about the film?
6. Not much more to say about it, other than I have used it quite a bit when teaching documentary in the USA and elsewhere, usually to positive feedback. It is old fashioned didactic filmmaking in a way, which has almost disappeared in the current digital point and squirt observational/reality style filmmaking. I´m currently working at the Uni of Tasmania making a series of films/online courses about identifying, living with and managing dementia (via the Wicking centre). Some of my colleagues there have seen it, and one said it is the best film they have seen on climate change issues, despite being made over three decades ago.
For more about the CSIRO’s Film Unit, see
Hughes, J. 2018. From cold war to hot planet: Australia’s CSIRO film unit. Studies in Documentary Film., Vol 12, no 1.
