Home and Away has better writing than most Aussie films says Packed to the Rafters creative

That’s all very well; Bevan Lee has been very well supported in the infrastructure of Channel Seven for a long time hasn’t he, so he has had a great opportunity to hone his skills. It’s pretty rare to see some of the issues tackled in Australian films like ‘Blind Company’ or ‘Samson and Delila’ in a tv show like ‘Home & Away’ because of the time-slot (mostly) and Lee has a point, but it should be taken into consideration that he, as a writer, has had a great deal of support – it makes a difference.

I know that ‘Home & Away’ scripts are used a lot in teaching environments to help young and training actors come to grips with the style of television script they are likely to encounter in the Australian industry, and I know from my own experience having lines to deliver in scenes here and there (in Home & Away) that the scripts are usually concise and clear.

The big gap is the content and mood – not many (any) incestuous HIV+ blind Uncles in ‘Home & Away’ because it’s not the time slot for it. Not many sex workers or same sex attracted people or drug addicts… Not that I’d be rushing off to films about these examples either.

In a concise and simple way Bevan seems to be promoting his new show. Fair enough… at least it is employing a few Australian actors, crew and publicists hey.

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A sex worker analogy.

Christ on a fricken bike.

Disappointing and vile, proudly showing that the uber sexist commercial TV dinosaur boys club is still alive and kicking.

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Home and Away is an institution in the UK, as is Neighbours. Both shows make buckets of cash too.

These are two shows that probably (please can anyone confirm) do not get troubled by piracy as the time slot is convenient for families to watch casually…)

Now, I wouldn’t say either are riveting, otherwise they might well be troubled by piracy (quality is desired NOW as opposed to in a few months…) Catch my drift?

Both shows are definitely supported and well maintained, unlike the Australian film industry. If you are an awesome screen writer / director, where would you set your sites? Aussie film industry or Hollywood? It is a bit like Soccer. If you are 16 and excellent, you will leave Australia and go to Europe.

What we need are Hollywood Films made in Australia………………

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That doesn’t mean the writing on Home & Away is good either.

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Bevan maybe its time to put in to action your great scriptwriting talent crafted by many years of Australian public feedback/support and actually write or even script edit an Australian feature film? I have a feature film script that could do with your valued feedback, and I imagine I am not alone. It’s a horror script, it doesn’t have any call girls in it but it is set in a coastal town a bit like that in Home and Away, so maybe there’s hope for it yet…

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@ David Paul Jobling … “Incestuous HIV + blind uncles” and “sex workers or same sex attracted people or drug addicts” are among the reasons Australians reject so many homegrown films – they’re tired of all this gloomy downer stuff. They want to be entertained – not be preached at with the implication that they don’t care enough about society’s infirmed and under-represented. Well, I admit I’m not sure about the “same sex attracted people” bit – a couple of hot lesbos going at it can be, umh, quite enlightening, if not downright entertaining, for a boring old straight guy like me.

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Bevan clearly hasn’t seen Housos Vs Authority.

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Another cheap TV gimmick to get publicity for A Place to Call Home. The Tele seems to be the publication of choice for these spinners.

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Bevan Lee is quite right. But Seven has made no contribution to the Australian Film Industry for nearly 30 years. Just imagine if Seven was put on a platform with every other world broadcaster and had to compete. It would emerge bruised and battered as audiences cherry picked the best. This is what every Australian movie has to do.
I would love to see Bevan get involved in trying to make better Aussie films. He has great commercial instincts but these comments are not constructive.

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Can we please have a link to the original article the quote came off?

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@ zumabeach – I agree – that’s what came to mind as the last few Australian films I’ve seen – and then thought I’d rather see something entertaining instead.

I’m not suggesting ‘Home and Away’ is anything more than what it is – long running, well supported, highly admired television soap aimed at a predominantly youth market – I’d like to see some great Australian films – heck, I like to see great films full stop, I’m not bothered if it’s Australian. I enjoy a good story well made.

If there is a good film with characters that are HIV+, Same sex attracted, Indigenous, Politicians, Film Critics, Bloggers … whatever your poison, I’d go see it and then probably buy it on DVD and encourage other people to see it. I think Bevan should take up the offer above to get into feature film script editing; Boaz Stark one of the many writer’s who’ve worked on H&A is doing some pretty fun stuff on You Tube – there are lots of really good Australian writers… they just need support and encouragement.

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Cheers Tim.

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Not online. That says it all really. Things move slow at News Ltd.

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There is nothing wrong with Australian writers, that is to say, those who can write and are indeed entitled to be called writers. The great continuing problem with Australian film and much television, is the fact that there is no sense of, and often very little relationship between the writing and the art form.

Writing a story is one thing, writing good dialogue is quite another. There has been some measure of success using improvisation, but whenever it is embraced enthusiastically, it quickly falls into abuse.

I am pleased that Bevan Lee has given his opinions on Australian film and what is good and otherwise in Australian writing, because I watched the opening episode of A Place To Call Home last night, and was not even slightly surprised.

The same four problems, often encountered in Australian drama, were, in my opinion, instantly obvious in A Place To Call Home.

Any sense of period created by the cars, the ship, the interiors, costumes and settings, was immediately destroyed by the modern day wishful thinking and political claptrap about the status of women, the obvious disregard for the complexity of characterisation beyond one dimension, the absence of direction due to a preference for painting by numbers, and dialogue fit for a ruthlessly edited novel.

Australian drama writing and dialogue will be amongst the best in the world, when writers stop trying to write funny for comedies and stop trying to write conflict and tragedy for drama. Dialogue is not information alone, and drama is not found within the actions or words of the characters, but as a result of their intent.

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Actually, what Bevan doesn’t mention is that it doesn’t matter how good your script is, if it’s not small minded and very Australian (which seems to just mean it’s NOT Hollywood) in content, it doesn’t get funded. Don’t try taking a hollywood style film to funding bodies, they will laugh in your face.

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Peppa, buy the paper…not that hard really…you do go outside occasionally?

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Not sure about the hooker analogy, but Australian films will continue to suck until we rid the industry of ‘auteur’ directors and producers who delude themselves that they are writers. Just because you can bandage a cut, doesn’t make you a surgeon, and so it is with writing, which is a deep skill it takes decades to attain. The American film industry has understood this for a century, and ours did once until we forgot it. And guess what? It’s successful. Until we accord screenwriters appropriate status in the process, and bar meddling illiterates from scripts, the Oz industry is set for a perpetual repetition of failure.

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@ Mike, Amen with all my heart.

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Australia has many great and skilled writers… But not many good storytellers.

Unfortunately many scripts aren’t ready to be made into films.

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@ Serhat Caradee

This is the Somerset Maugham syndrome, he was undoubtedly a great author, but he was a fairly ordinary writer, who happened to be a great storyteller.

I doubt that we have as you claim “many great and skilled writers” I know we have a few and I suspect we had more (not necessarily better) 50 years ago.
As for storytellers, I think we have perhaps turned a corner and are about to experience more storytellers in the near future.

The art of story telling began to die out in the mid to late 1970s and by the late 1980s was well in decline.
As a result of spoon feeding, audiences began to expect less from story lines and more from action and surprise sensations, which have always been important ingredients of drama, but like sugar and salt, though they enhance the culinary arts, make for very poor staple foods.

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@ Serhat M @Richard M – I don’t think it’s so much a lack of great writers or storytellers – there are plenty of both in Australia – I think the ‘problem’ is the lack of support and encouragement for writers who are gifted as story tellers – they most often slip through the net as it were.

The focus seems to have been on young writers for a long time, and now we have ’emerging writers’ as a focus which is a little less drawn in on age restrictions; there are many very skilled writers who have written short stories, poetry, prose, play scripts and screenplays that don’t fit into the accepted categories as far as funding opportunities go – I think a similar problem exists in the music industry; lack of support for mid-career artists.

I think this is related to what someone has already mentioned in terms of the people who select what gets a look in and what gets rejected. The funding area, from what I have observed, seems to go with the ‘tried and true’ with the best self-promoters, the most well-connected; any way that’s my experience after having plays produced by major companies and then being ignored because someone else has come along who is somehow deemed more worthy of support.

The whole ‘culture’ built around funding writing seems like a closed shop. At least the internet has shifted things around so that it’s easier to communicate with more people around the world.

I don’t suggest have all the answers, but I don’t think it’s as simple as saying Australia doesn’t have the writers because we do, all around the country there are really amazing stories being told through the output of writers – they simply don’t fit into the box of what has been ordained as acceptable – and when the film ‘industry’ seems to encourage (as @Mike suggests “… ‘auteur’ directors and producers who delude themselves that they are writers.”) auteur’s who want to have complete control over their product it doesn’t really make for great opportunities for writers. It’s as if you have to write and direct and produce your own work.

I don’t know many writers who want to go down that road. I have produced and directed my own theatre work at times, and then it has been bought by someone else… but in the end that also creates a situation where you burn out your creative juices or at least dilute them because you have to start thinking about a whole set of other skills to develop… any way that’s my thinking. Another way of putting it would be – don’t shoot the messengers.

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Orson Welles said many things and much of what he said was conflicting, but he held and expounded the belief that people interested in making films, should do their own work and avoid Hollywood.

I am with him and not with him. He made a couple of great films within the system, and he made some very bad films away from it, yet he always gave the impression and he certainly sounded like a man who was on top of the game.

Theatre is a collaborative art, it brings talented people together in a collaborative exercise resulting in a magical exhibition which is, ideally, a positive and enlightening experience for audiences.

Film and television are no less theatre, they must have this collaboration of artists and the force that comes from the writer’s art and onward through the setting, the dressing, the arrangement and the performance arts.

Theatre requires, at least, good artists to work together and pull it off, but good actors aside, it takes absolutely exceptional artists to do all the other things at once and achieve good results.

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