This is part of an interview Series for the National Film and Sound Archive Aural History Programme.
My name is John Fife (JF) and I have with me Morrie Pilens (MP).
JF: So you’ve moved on from stringer, to correspondent for channel 7 in Sydney – that’s all coming to an end now.
MP: Now I’m enjoying establishing a film section in the news department, choosing cameramen.
JF: For channel 0.
MP: Yes, choosing equipment for channel 0. Crumbs, we did well from the beginning. We used to run circles round the others! (Laughs).
*JF: In fact the first thing I think you shot for Bicknell? was Victory? Building channel 0
MP: The first thing I shot for him was a group of Monash Uni students making a mining claim on top of Mt Dandenong and blackmailing Reg (Sir Reginald Ansett) to buy the claim off them!
JF: Because Reg needed that for the transmitter.
MP: Yeah, they knew the transmitter was there so the students decided fine, okay, we go and put a claim on it yeah. It was all a giggle you know, it was good fun. They had the pegs in, and the flags in and the mining picks. (Laughs).
JF: And you filmed that?
MP: Yeah I filmed that.
JF: And so you came down and I guess – there’s footage of them turning the first sods out at Nunawading. You were there? You filmed that?
MP: Yeah, I filmed about ten thousand feet of film, black and white, and colour out of which they were going to make a documentary. But which was also used as a pattern during the thing – we had sound behind it with a test pattern and then now and then we had a little clip of what was going on.
JF: On the building of the channel?
MP: On the building of the channel. Once the transmitter was working you can do that. So we had *Stan Harder?
JF: Where did Stan come from?
MP: Oh I don’t know. I think he was working for a processing company or something. We had Stan *Harder, we had two Steambex – one with sound, one with film. And we had little clips of film going on air.
JF: We should just explain, this is the famous ability to edit film with two feet and then four feet.
MP: Yeah, exactly, yeah. (laughter)
JF: Two feet of one shot, four feet of the next.
MP: Yeah.
JF: So you’re making this little film, before channel 0 is on air, of them building the channel.
MP: Yes. It was called ‘Third Coming Up” I think I had a copy somewhere – black and white that was *out of sync. The rest of the film has all disappeared. I think Phil Gibbs? took it. Because they were cleaning out the storage at the back and chucking a lot of nitrate film out because it was dangerous…
JF: … Where’s the nitrate film coming into all of this?
MP: Oh, they were all the movie films.
JF: Oh right, so you used to have nitrate films coming in to show…
*MP: Yeah. That was bloody dangerous. How we didn’t blow up I’ll never know. All those old colbay *films and what have you, nitrate stuff… they took all that to the tip and I think Phil Gibbs took all my footage. It’s just disappeared. Because you never know what’s happened, you don’t know who’s going to edit, you don’t know what’s going to happen at the end of it, you just do your end and wait for the next to happen. By the time it happens, all gone.
JF: So you’re on the ground floor of the building channel 0. How many people did they have initially there?
MP: Well, we started out in Swanston st on the top floor, in Ansett House. I would say there would be *the chief engineer, Pascale Hoos? Reg’s right hand man, some typists… half a dozen people. Then it just sort of gradually grew.
We hired some technicians to unpack the equipment, and then of course the dirty was done to channel 0 by the government – giving them the wrong bloody frequency. You can receive it in Cairns but you can’t receive it in Melbourne!
That really stuffed it otherwise we could have been right on top of it – could have killed 9 and 7 because there was more rating of people listening to the test pattern than there were looking at the other channels!
JF: Yeah?
MP: Yeah! Beautiful music!
Laughter
JF: So maybe they should have stopped at being a radio station!
*MP: Ho ho. I think it had something to do with opening fox?
JF: So they had this sort of test pattern on air with a bit of music to promote… for how long, ahead of going on air?
MP: Oooh. 12 months? I don’t really know.
JF: But the nucleus of the staff are based in Swanston near the old Ansett terminal?
MP: In the old Ansett building on Swanston St, opposite the library.
JF: Oh, up that far.
MP: Yeah, it was a nice building that. The old building. That’s been pulled down – something else is there now.
JF: Oh, okay. So not up as far as the old Franklin St.
MP: No, not quite that far. Franklin St was aircraft…
JF: Right. So did Reg come in and take a bit of a hand? Did you see him a lot?
MP: Yeah, oh yeah, I did see Reg quite often. I filmed him standing in one of the buildings in the background – I made a bloody mess of the first lot because I didn’t realise there was a red brick fence behind! And it was bleeding into the fence so we had to do it another way. Chuckles.
JF: What, you had to refilm another day?
MP: Yes, he didn’t mind.
JF: What kind of guy was he?
MP: He was good. I got on with him very well. He used to crack jokes with me.
JF: Was he serious about running a tv station?
MP: Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Everybody else was serious. From the beginning, you know where the tunnel is?
JF: Mmm.
MP: We used to have Christmas parties there. And everybody knew how to run his station better than him! The first two years he came there, mixing with the people and after that he said ‘Oh, bugger this.’ Everybody was buttonholing him really.
JF: Was it a funny thing to have an airline person trying to run a tv station? Did he really know what he was doing? Or did he have good people around him?
MP: Well he had some good people around him, he had good administration around it. I think it was *just a matter of opportunity. It was either him or…. Glen Raymond’s? husband, conductor of music?? The famous…
JF: Crawford?
MP: Yeah! Crawford. Crawford was the other candidate for television station.
JF: Either him or Reg?
MP: Yeah. Crawford was torpedoed because he was conducting bloody orchestras and he couldn’t *even read music! It was a bit of a cat fight when they were doing the investigating of …. ? devices. All the dirty linen came out. Crawford didn’t do too well.
JF: This was obviously before you got there and…
MP: It only cost them three million dollars, that station!
JF: What, for the license?
MP: No, to build the whole bloody thing!
JF: Yeah?
MP: Yeah. Three million quid. Sorry, three million quid.
JF: And Reg had a big block of land as well.
MP; Yeah. Oh, there was a lot of land down there.
*JF: What was Reg’s vision? I mean, Deera Stora? said he wanted Nunawading to become the Hollywood of Australia.
MP: Oh, I don’t know. That’s a bit above my political status. But they could have done it, because the studio was equipped for it. You know, studio B was specially built for film. That’s where they filmed all *the rushes and the ……? Woman? Film. That was all filmed inside. They just hired it out on holiday to other companies.
JF: In fact, in Melbourne it was the only television station wasn’t it? It was built AS a television station.
MP: Yes. The television station and film studio. Plenty of room, plenty of space. And then Ables? came in – and between Ables? and Lowey? they wanted to build a shopping town. And then of course Nunawading people said we’ve already got a shopping town. They sort of liquidated it. Because it was good to sell little bit at a time and borrow money to buy something else. And that’s what killed it.
And look at the bloody place now – three hundred million dollars they going to get for it!
JF: That land?
MP: No, channel 10. Canadians have got it, trying to sell it.
JF: So you’re basically on the ground floor. Who did you hire then? What kind of equipment did your news cameramen have?
MP: Well, what I bought was um – I was quite good myself at using a Bell and Howell. Which I preferred to the Bolex because Bolex was a bit fiddly.
So, I had three Bell and Howells which are silent cameras, I had one hundred foot cinemois with a 400 foot magazine, and I had a Pro 600 which is a big camera.
JF: Why did you buy all different ones?
MP: Because sound cameras – they the ones that I thought the best as well. The rest of them came *in *later. That was the ones that were available. Holycon ? cameras were the best sound cameras I bought.
JF: So you’re saying you bought some new cameras as well?
*MP: Yeah, Bell and Howells we had to have. Little BR 70? Look.
JF: Right. There’s one here on the wall behind us. So you’re still sort of placed with a mute camera.
MP: There always was in news, because that’s what we were shooting. We were shooting mute footage. The sound camera was just coming in and it was still clumsy, and too slow, and too hard to manipulate. Until you found some bloody fool like me that strapped an amplifier around my neck, and carried a Pro 600 in as a portable camera, you know.
But that stage you need two people to operate it. Because that was very early in the sound camera. But with the Bell and Hell, you’re always there. You don’t need any power, you don’t need any batteries, you don’t need anything. All you need is skill. And to know how to expose it. And a hundred feet of film, that’s all you need for a story.
JF: So Bell and Howell, this one here has three lenses
MP: Yeah. ABC had those from the beginning too. Wind up. Spring wind up.
JF: Did much go wrong with them?
MP: No, no. I haven’t had any bloody problems at all. Oh, well I did because some stupid twit, lent it behind my back (this was very late in the piece) to a helicopter ambulance, to film pick ups. And of course, that was just – forget it, you know. You have to keep them clean, you can’t just let water or sand or anything accumulate on it.
But the cameramen that I hired, I set up a system. I said ‘Right, we using one film stock, which is *plassicks? And we’re using Bell and Howell cameras. And this is exactly what you do. And once you have done that, and you have done that correctly, I don’t care how arty farty you go there, but this is your basic how to shoot news film!’ And it worked alright from the beginning. Of course, you know guys coming in and wanting this or that, and they become artists and try all those other things, but once you educate them on the basics…
*I had good crew, I had Barry Woodhouse, Geoff Schofield, Peter Purviss (ex head of news at ABC).
JF: Woodhouse? He’d come from where?
*MP: He’d come from 7. Then I had a Yank – Frank Few? I made a mistake with him, because I( never liked him? Or worked with him?) at the ABC but he was a good talker, very good at film.
JF: He in fact had a Disney background?
MP: No! No no no was all bullshit. Um, he was in Signal Corps with Yank army, then got himself a job from America, ABC hired him on his Disney background. His Disney background before. And I got along *with him alright. His claim to fame was “The Dancing Orpheus’? which he filmed a lyrebird in the forest up in… and um, I think he had enough of ABC and thought he was going to do bigger and better things.
*So he quit ABC the silly bugger, and went to Bilcock and Hocking? A commercial movie house with a studio in st Kilda. Of course he didn’t last there very long because you’ve got to produce some work! So he was sniffing round for a job and I said to news head “Yeah, I’ll give him a job.’
And the news head said ‘Now wait a minute Morrie, just think about your own position’
I said ‘What about my bloody own position? I can handle him’.
And he said ‘You’ve just got to watch yourself. You can’t just go in to tv, are you sure you really want him?’
I said ‘of course I want him, no problems.’
*So we hired Frank Few, and he wasn’t a problem. He was underdog. He would go out on a job and it would take half a day. Because that’s what they used to do at the ABC, take half a day to do a job. We had to fit in about three or four jobs a day.
JF: So you’ve got your film unit set up. There’s you, three or four other cameramen, and you’re putting together a news bulletin. How did the other people in the town look upon channel 0 then? Were you a serious contender?
MP: Oh shit yeah. Crumbs yeah. Going in circles a lot of the time. Because of me. Because I was trying to get in, shoot first, ask questions then depart in a hurry. And they would go in and they shoot, and they would like to participate and be a big deal. You know what I’m trying to say. My guys were in and out. We were basically running circles around some stories and others. We had quite a few stories that we left to everybody else? Except that we didn’t have any viewers! Because of the frequency. If it wasn’t for the frequency we would have killed everybody else.
JF: So who was running the newsroom? This was before Geoff Smith, I guess?
MP: Crumbs, 10 news editors before Geoff Smith. First news editor was Herald Reporter and Chief staff….
JF: It’ll come to us a bit later.