All This in 60 Minutes

by Lee, Nicholas

  Here I was, a skinny, raw nineteen-year-old kid from Wellington, a small country town in the central west of NSW, overwhelmed to be working in television and with the star of The Link Men Kevin Miles, a great bloke and a great Aussie actor with a big masculine jaw, à la Roger Ramjet. In every scene Kevin oozed machismo charm. It never ceased to amaze me how tough he was when delivering his heavy cop lines. Then, at the shout of ‘Cut!’ his lips would purse, his voice would soften and he’d fold, oh so elegantly, into the nearest chair.

  On day two of the shoot of a particular episode, he was asked to do a bit of an action scene, running from a cop car brandishing a pistol and shouting, ‘Stop or I’ll shoot!’

  On the call of ‘Action!’ the big tough cop leapt out of the car, arm fully extended, gun raised to fire, his ‘Stop or I’ll shoot’ delivered faster than any bullet. He didn’t wait for the ‘Cut!’ but hurled the weapon through the air, just missing the camera, and with his voice an octave higher he shouted, ‘Ooh, I hate these things.’

  An image of the pistol being fired was still needed for the scene but Kevin refused to do it, so a close-up of the first-assistant director’s hand firing the pistol saved the day, and Kevin moved on to his chair to have his jaw powdered for the next scene.

  A week later we were shooting a sequence in the city morgue. The smell was overbearing, and we all wanted the shots over and done with as fast as possible. We were told the morgue was full so we must be very discreet. The first scene required Kevin to slide out a drawer containing a body, look down and say, ‘Yes, that’s him.’

  We needed a body. A first-assistant director will offer a hand, but a full body is another thing, this calls for an assistant cameraman, everyone else is far too important. So into the cold drawer I got, terrified in the knowledge that there were real dead bodies in the drawers beside and above me. ‘How weird is this?’ I thought.

  The door closed and claustrophobia immediately set in. It was pitch black and freezing and I started to wonder about wanting a career in ‘The Arts’. Finally I heard the director yell ‘Action!’ and seconds later Kevin pulled open the drawer, looked down at me, lowered his head and ... kissed me.

  The whole crew erupted into howls of laughter. I didn’t quite know what to do. I’m pretty sure the heat of my embarrassment started to thaw out the neighbouring corpses.

  A few weeks after my onscreen kiss, we were all summoned to the Channel 9 boardroom. Surrounded by mounds of champagne, every other form of alcohol, and some quirky little canapés, we waited for the good news. There was excitement in the air. We all thought the show, only twelve episodes old, was about to be extended by at least another thirteen episodes, along with our substantial pay rises.

  Clyde Packer appeared, standing in the doorway. ‘The show is finished as of now,’ he said. ‘You’re all fired!’

  Some of the women burst into tears. ‘We’ll just finish this episode,’ said the director. ‘There’s only one day left to shoot.’

  ‘You fucking heard me, the show is finished as of now!’ And Packer was no longer in the doorway.

  We all stared at each other, too shocked to speak. I looked around at everyone. What did they have to worry about? They were at least 30 years old, or even 40, so their careers were almost over. But I was only twenty. What was I to do? I felt I should also leave the room grumbling about murdering the Packers like everyone else, but there was all this free grog, and it couldn’t be drunk in just one night.

  Solution? The twenty-year-old assistant editor and I backed our cars up to the rear entrance of the Channel 9 boardroom and loaded them. Cases of champagne, gin, scotch, crates of Coke and soda, all split 50/50. And when the boardroom grog cabinet was completely empty, a quick handshake and we were both on our way to uncertain futures.

  •

  For me it was straight to Channel 7 as an assistant cameraman in the news department. I knew nothing about news or journalism, but to get myself up to speed I tried to read/understand Marshall McLuhan’s The Medium is the Message. Needless to say I didn’t get the message, but I also saw Haskell Wexler’s great film Medium Cool, about news cameramen and their ethical responsibilities, i.e. when to shoot and when to help, and whether the story is the be all and end all. I wanted to be as cool but not as detached as John Cassellis, the cameraman in the movie, and when he said, ‘Jesus, I love to shoot film,’ I couldn’t have agreed more.

  As an assistant, I was sometimes allowed to shoot minor stories, those which the real cameramen felt were beneath them, and one that was beneath them was Sydney shrouded in early morning fog. So I headed straight for North Sydney for that classic shot of the city skyline, but couldn’t find a parking spot. In desperation I finally parked in someone’s driveway, hoping they wouldn’t call the cops, raced to the footbridge over the expressway, slammed the camera onto the tripod and looked up ...

  The only fog around was coming off my sweaty body. There goes my career again. While contemplating the best way to throw myself into the traffic, I took a look through the viewfinder and, remarkably, there were the tips of the city high-rise buildings piercing a heavy fog. Yet when I stepped back from the camera, there was no fog! Then I realised that I had placed the lens inches from the handrail, which was now beautifully out of focus and covering the bottom 50 per cent of the frame. Best fog I’d ever seen. So I shot it. It did help that it was in the days of black and white.

  That night my fog led the news with images of how my dreaded out-of-focus handrail had derailed Sydney’s traffic and public transport systems. Nobody ever knew, till now. Had my idea of truth in journalism already taken a hit? Had I become a Cassellis? I figured not, after all, I wasn’t a real cameraman, just an assistant. But I had a story that led the news. It was a start.

  A year later I scored a job back at Channel 9 in the newsroom. I felt I had come home. I was still keen to become a Medium Cool Cassellis, but with a heart and conscience. I wasn’t keen to go anywhere near the boardroom and its wonderfully restocked drinks cabinet.

  •

  News in those days was a nine-to-five job. The stories were shot on film which took at least 45 minutes to be processed in the lab before editing. The news bulletin appeared at 6.30 p.m., so it was extremely rare for a story to be shot after 5 p.m. At 5.01 p.m. it was straight to the pub.

  And it was to the pub that the eccentric and enigmatic cameraman Phil Donoghue and me, his faithful assistant, were headed when we bumped into Ron Casey, boss and presenter of sport. Ron asked if we could shoot a story for him at 7 p.m. World champion swimmer Shane Gould, the hottest thing in the coolest sport in Australia, was racing at the North Sydney pool and word was that she was going to break the world record.

  Sure, Ron, no probs.

  We loaded the car with the gear and headed straight to the pub, it was only 5.15 p.m., we had ages, Phil said. After a few drinks I started to get a little twitchy, and told Phil it was now 6 p.m.

  ‘Heaps of time,’ he said, and ordered another rum and Coke.

  ‘Phil, it’s six-thirty, we should go.’

  ‘Don’t worry, these things always run late.’

  At 7 p.m. we were finally driving out of the pub and I was shitting myself. Phil, cool as, laughed and told me once again not to worry. His air of confidence didn’t translate to me, and those few short kilometres from Willoughby to North Sydney were excruciating.

  There was not a parking space within a mile of the pool. Phil dropped me off with all the gear then slowly drove away in search of a spot. Half an hour later he arrived back, saying he’d just heard a great song on the radio and first thing tomorrow he must buy it. Wishing I could be cool like him, we walked towards the pool but were confronted by an official asking what we were after.

  ‘We’ve come to film Shane Gould’s race,’ said Phil. ‘Where would be the best position to shoot from?’

  ‘Shane Gould! You’ve missed her, mate. Pity, she just smashed the world record,’ said the smirking official.

  Strugg
ling to speak and hoping I didn’t look as pale as I felt, I asked Phil, ‘What do we do now?’

  ‘Hang on,’ he said. ‘I’m thinking.’

  A moment later I practically saw the light bulb over his head.

  ‘Got it ... I’ll put the lens cap over the lens, roll some film, and when it comes out totally black, we blame the lab.’

  The man’s a genius, We rolled film through the camera for about two minutes, packed up and left. A good night’s work.

  Next morning Ron asked how we went. Phil told him things went well but there could be a problem with the lab. He told Ron he’d been to the lab and checked but the film looked completely black. ‘No one seems to know what happened.’

  ‘Well,’ said Ron, ‘let’s lace it up on the projector anyway, we might see something.’

  ‘There’s no point, Ron, there’s nothing on it, I’ve checked. It’s totally black.’

  ‘Lace it up anyway, boys, there’s nothing to lose.’

  Still full of confidence in his clever deception, Phil laced up the projector, started it rolling and, sure enough, the film was black ... But clear as a bell and clean as a whistle was the sound I had unknowingly recorded by accidently leaving all the sound gear turned on. ‘And now, here we are, ready for the men’s two hundred metres butterfly ...’ revealed the perfectly recorded magnetic stripe attached to the side of the pitch-black film.

  A long silence. I wondered, ‘How does Phil get himself, and more importantly, us, out of this little number?’

  Finally Phil said, ‘Ron, aahh, well, Nick and I went to the pub and when we got to the pool we’d missed her race. I didn’t know what to do so I put the lens cap over the lens so the film would be all black and then we could blame the lab.’

  A longer silence. I was stunned that Phil had actually confessed. What now? Then Ron burst out laughing. ‘That’s the funniest thing I’ve ever heard,’ he said, shook his head and just walked away. Phil had pulled it off again. Telling the truth—who’d have thought of that?

  A few years later a permanent late shift was introduced. The news crew was rostered on until 8.30 p.m. If there was to be a late story, it would make the next night’s news rather than be missed altogether. Not a lot appeared to happen after 5 p.m. (thankfully, Shane Gould had retired), so the lucky late crew would just go to the pub and be paid for it. If in the unlikely event a story did appear, the chief of staff would ring Channel 9’s local, the Bridgeview Hotel. We’d be called to the phone then finish our beers and stagger off to work.

  One night, after being paid to drink at the pub, Phil and I went back to the newsroom to be met at the gate by a foaming-at-the-mouth chief of staff demanding to know where we’d been.

  ‘The pub.’

  ‘I’ve rung the Bridgeview twenty times and you weren’t there.’

  ‘Oh, we forgot to tell you, we went to the Cammeray Rex for a bit of a change. What’s the problem?’

  ‘Fucking problem!’ he shouted. ‘Sir Frank Packer rang and said the Daily Telegraph building is on fire and to send the news crew now! That was three hours ago!’

  It was now 9.30 p.m. The other channels—2, 7 and 10—all got great footage of the fire. Sir Frank’s own channel had unfortunately missed it. We were in deep shit.

  Next day, Phil and I were fired. Maybe we should have told old Frank we shot it but the lab buggered it up.

  I’m still not too sure why, but after a few days the news director went in to bat for us with the boss, promising that the newsroom would become far more professional in the future. We were reinstated. Though having to act like a professional was a bit tricky.

  •

  I stayed at Channel 9 for another 38 years, still nervous whenever I got near the boardroom. But I didn’t need to worry. Sir Frank was dead, and Clyde, having sold his share of the station to his little brother Kerry, had moved to California to live amongst the stars in Los Angeles. But Kerry Packer, now the sole owner, was all over Channel 9, much more involved than any proprietor should ever be. Would he be looking for me and the missing grog? I tried to keep a low profile. But it was hard to do when working with Phil.

  One Friday morning, Phil and I were returning from the canteen with newsreader Ian Ross when Phil whispered to me, ‘When we reach the broom cupboard, open the doors quickly then jump out of the way.’ So I did.

  Phil grabbed Ian in a bear hug, bundled him into the closet then quickly shoved a broom through the door handles and ‘Roscoe’ was now trapped. Then Phil got sheets of newspaper (the classy broadsheet type, none of your tabloid rubbish), pushed them under the door and set fire to them, with Roscoe inside shouting, ‘Donoghue, you bastard, let me out of here!’

  Leaning against the door, busting a gut about how funny it all was and how utterly creative we were, we looked around for passersby to check out our hilarious prank when around the corner came Kerry Packer. Phil and I, enveloped in smoke, could hardly see him, but the anguished cries from the cupboard could clearly be heard.

  Kerry gave us a puzzled look, and muttered, ‘Everything all right, boys?’

  ‘Yes, Mr Packer.’

  And with that he was gone. We then tended to Roscoe’s second degree burns.

  •

  A year later I was a fully fledged cameraman, no longer working as Phil’s assistant. I missed Phil, but not the ulcers. In one of my first assignments I was told to meet our new political reporter Malcolm at NSW Parliament House. He looked twelve, seemed like a good bloke and pretty bright. I asked him how long he’d been a journo. He replied, ‘Oh, I’m not a journalist, I’m a uni student.’ I stared at him in horror and thought, ‘Shit, now I have to train some amateur.’

  Within a few weeks, the assistant cameraman Jim Chrystal and I were amazed by how professional the uni student was and how quickly he’d picked up this TV gig. We congratulated ourselves: how skilled were we as trainers! And just as we began to really enjoy working with our new reporter, he told us he was leaving because he’d won a Rhodes Scholarship. Jim and I were both disappointed and thought, ‘Damn, that’s a shame, this Malcolm Turnbull guy might have the ability to go all the way.’ We even reckoned that he had it in him to one day become our chief reporter.

  With our student reporter off to Oxford, I went back to work with proper journos like Jim Waley. One day we headed off to Kerry Packer’s city office to film an interview with Packer about the announcement of World Series Cricket. Packer had just signed up 50 of the world’s leading cricket players for his renegade league and was about to stick it up the establishment, the Australian Cricket Board and the ABC. At his office, we were told to wait while he did interviews with channels 2, 7 and 10.

  ‘Cricket is going to get revolutionised whether they [the establishment] like it or not,’ he said. ‘There is nothing they can do to stop me. Not a goddamn thing.’

  We watched our opposition crews leave Packer’s office with huge smiles on their faces. They knew they had some great TV. He didn’t seem to spend as much time with us as the others, but then again he owned us and could run nothing but stories on World Series Cricket all night if he wanted to. As we were preparing to leave, he was being cordial when he said to Jim, ‘I trust this will get a favourable report on tonight’s news.’

  To which Jim, the consummate journalist, responded, ‘Yes, Mr Packer, favourable but objective.’

  The room was eerily silent for about point-nought of a second.

  ‘I don’t give a fuck about your objectivity, son, you give this a favourable report on tonight’s news or you’re out of a job.’

  ‘Yes, Mr Packer,’ said Jim. And the favourable report led the news that night.

  Later that year, I found myself shooting a documentary on World Series Cricket. What a bludge. Two months travelling the country with the best cricketers in the world, watching quality matches by day and partying with the players at night. Hangovers both behind the camera and on the field. The cricketers couldn’t believe their luck, actually being paid to do what they lov
ed most, playing cricket.

  During the series, on a players’ day off, Packer asked the West Indies team to give an exhibition and some tutoring to the first eleven at Cranbrook, the exclusive Sydney private boys school. Having just financed the school’s new pitch, Packer was keen to put it to the test, and I was there to shoot it for the doco. Packer’s ten-year-old son Jamie just happened to be attending the school and just happened to be there that day.

  At the time the West Indies had the fiercest, fastest, pace attack in the world and I could see that the eighteen-year-old batsmen of the school’s first eleven were shaking as they faced a barrage of balls coming from the arms of these giants. After a while Packer said, ‘Now give James a go.’

  James said he didn’t want to. Packer turned to me and said, ‘Put the camera down.’ He then dragged the little boy to the crease and told him to be a man. In ran the first of the Windies bowlers, who bowled a straight but gentle ball that James managed to pat away. Packer told the next bowler to bowl faster, so he increased the pace by about 5 per cent. James ducked just in time.

  Packer stepped forward. ‘I want you to bowl at him full pace,’ he said. The bowlers, seeing the little kid in tears, refused. ‘You bloody well will!’ snarled Packer.

  James was now really sobbing as each of the tall, powerful West Indians came running in at full bore and released the ball, obviously not at maximum pace but enough to put the wind up anyone but a top pro. It was a wonder that James could see the ball at all, but he continued to duck just in time. Packer then said, ‘Okay, that’s enough,’ and wandered off.

  For the rest of the documentary, I was partying around the country with the cricketers and when things weren’t too blurry I sometimes even lifted a camera to my eye. All the interviews had been done early in the season so it was up to me and Tony Curtis the soundman to pick up whatever shots we thought might be interesting for the doco. We were told to capture the ‘colour’.

  The drinking and partying and the endless parade of beautiful groupies in hotels and dressing rooms would have been the real story, but we dutifully stuck to bat, ball and crowd shots, which actually became unbelievably exciting in Melbourne in one of the many finals.