This is 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: Were cameramen paid well?
MP: Ummm, basically from beginning, yes. But later on, no. Basically if you were a film cameraman you were paid pretty well above any award rates. I had a good – I organised a pretty good return for me. And as I was hiring the cameramen who were coming in, they always got well above the award rates. And then something happened and everybody got in because the journalists all of a sudden got taken over, and the hiring somehow – I don’t know what happened. Because I was never there!
It was well paid, making good money, getting good penalties. But never get filthy rich.
JF: But no regrets.
MP: Oh crumbs no. no regrets whatsoever. As far as I was concerned I was making good money.
JF: And as a career?
MP: As a career I wouldn’t have anything else. I was lucky.
JF: In what way?
MP: That I got a job like that. That I could fit in. That I could do things the way I wanted to, create things that I felt like I was doing something. It’s a challenge to get there first and on time, it’s a challenge to get rid of your film, and it’s gratifying to sit down and say ‘Oh yeah, bloody good shot that.’
JF: And you’re also in a privileged position, in that you’re in the front row of history.
MP: From the beginning we were in a very privileged position. Members’ dining rooms were opened for us, we always were invited to functions and tables are provided for a cameraman. And then they just got too big. Some of the guys who thought they were arty farty started to dress like hobos, so everybody else suffered from it.
JF: When I’m thinking privileged, I mean there are times when you are right on the edge of seeing history being made.
MP: Yeah but you don’t know that history is being made! You are just recording what’s happening. You don’t have any conception of ‘Ohhh, this is going to set the world on fire! This is going to build a monument!’ You don’t, until it’s finished.
And about a week later you say ‘Oh, that was a big story.’ But while you’re there, it’s only what’s happening.
JF: I know there was one that affected you and brought changes about
MP: Yes
JF: And that was the children’s home burning down.
*MP: Yes. I was stringing for ABC. Eric Tyler (?) who was the news editor then, hired me for the day. And he said ‘Alright, just drive around and see what’s going on.’
I said ‘Yeah, but look… ‘
He said ‘Just drive around and see what you can find. Don’t worry about it. We just need you.’
And there was couple of lives lost in the Dandenongs, and there was fire here and fire there, and I was driving around in my little van listening to the police radio, and something about shed fire, Templestowe. And I’m just in Heidelberg, and I can see a little pile of smoke going up.
So I think ‘I’ll just go and have a look.’ It was something. So I arrived there and there is a shed right on the corner of Foote St and Manningham Rd, and the shed’s on fire. I roll off a couple of feet. So I go around the front and then there’s oh, half a dozen baskets – with children in them. Every basket’s got at least two children in it, you know.
And I think ‘Oh, this is funny.’ So I just BRRRRRRr roll that off. And there’s a little kid comes up to me and says ‘Hey, mister, are you from television?’
I say ‘Yes.’
He says ‘Oh, many babies died inside. We go help.’ Many babies died inside.
JF: in the shed?
MP: In the shed. The shed was a child minding centre, where people dropped their kids off in the cars, or they got picked up by a van in the city and brought down there, and kept there, and taken back to wherever. This was an unlicenced – well, there was no licenced minding centres then.
So I got a couple of shots of the kids in the bassinets, the boy – he got whisked off very quickly. There was a bloke at the back that people were sitting on because he was just about screaming his head off, and I think I shot 200 feet of film.
By this time it’s starting to get around about 4 30 or 5 o’clock. I have no communication with channel 2, because I haven’t got a radio in my car. So I go across the road and knock at the door. I showed them a little piece of paper and said ‘I’m from the ABC, can I use your radio telephone?’
And the woman said ‘Oh, yes yes.’ So I ring up the ABC. This time I didn’t bloody worry about ringing radio – it was too big.
JF: ‘Cos this is the days normally when radio had to know the story first?
*MP: Yeah. I ring up the newsroom and Peter Brindisi? was the journalist on… (aggressive voice) ‘I haven’t got any bloody time to talk to you the whole place is burning down..’
I said ‘Peter, just listen. Six kids have just been burnt to death at a child minding centre.’
‘What, what what? Go back, find out their names.’
I said ‘Peter, you want their names you come and find their names. I’m taking the film to be processed.’ And I hung up. And went straight to Cinevex. Of course they are waiting for me. Broomph. Petukiwww.. The story that run for years. Legislation, the whole bit, you know. It happens.
JF: You fluked it?
MP: Yeah, fluked. I’ve been having regular flukes, every five years. One way or another, every five years. Flukes. One and only Button charge of Victoria Police – with the wharfies. I have Foote St, I had Jews and Arabs having whacko into each other.