{"id":188,"date":"2017-11-26T19:30:03","date_gmt":"2017-11-26T09:30:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pilens.com.au\/modris\/?page_id=188"},"modified":"2017-11-28T11:22:40","modified_gmt":"2017-11-28T01:22:40","slug":"establishing-atv0-news-department","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/pilens.com.au\/modris\/national-film-and-sound-archive\/establishing-atv0-news-department\/","title":{"rendered":"Establishing ATV0 News Department"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is part of an interview Series for the National Film and Sound Archive Aural History Programme.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

My name is John Fife (JF<\/strong>) and I have with me Morrie Pilens (MP<\/strong>).<\/p>\n

JF:\u00a0 So you\u2019ve moved on from stringer,\u00a0 to correspondent for channel 7 in Sydney \u2013 that\u2019s all coming to an end now.<\/p>\n

MP:\u00a0 Now I\u2019m enjoying establishing a film section in the news department, choosing cameramen.<\/p>\n

JF:\u00a0 For channel 0.<\/p>\n

MP:\u00a0 Yes, choosing equipment for channel 0.\u00a0 Crumbs, we did well from the beginning.\u00a0 We used to run circles round the others!\u00a0 (Laughs).<\/p>\n

*JF:\u00a0\u00a0 In fact the first thing I think you shot for Bicknell? was Victory?\u00a0 Building channel 0<\/p>\n

MP:\u00a0 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!<\/p>\n

JF:\u00a0 Because Reg needed that for the transmitter.<\/p>\n

MP:\u00a0 Yeah, they knew the transmitter was there so the students decided fine, okay, we go and put a claim on it yeah.\u00a0 It was all a giggle you know, it was good fun.\u00a0 They had the pegs in, and the flags in and the mining picks.\u00a0 (Laughs).<\/p>\n

JF:\u00a0 And you filmed that?<\/p>\n

MP:\u00a0 Yeah I filmed that.<\/p>\n

JF:\u00a0 And so you came down and I guess \u2013 there\u2019s footage of them turning the first sods out at Nunawading.\u00a0 You were there?\u00a0 You filmed that?<\/p>\n

MP:\u00a0 Yeah, I filmed about ten thousand feet of film, black and white, and colour out of which they were going to make a documentary.\u00a0 But which was also used as a pattern during the thing \u2013 we had sound behind it with a test pattern and then now and then we had a little clip of what was going on.<\/p>\n

JF:\u00a0 On the building of the channel?<\/p>\n

MP:\u00a0 On the building of the channel.\u00a0 Once the transmitter was working you can do that. So we had *Stan Harder?<\/p>\n

JF:\u00a0 Where did Stan come from?<\/p>\n

MP:\u00a0 Oh I don\u2019t know.\u00a0 I think he was working for a processing company or something.\u00a0 We had Stan *Harder, we had two Steambex \u2013 one with sound, one with film.\u00a0 And we had little clips of film going on air.<\/p>\n

JF:\u00a0 We should just explain, this is the famous ability to edit film with two feet and then four feet.<\/p>\n

MP:\u00a0 Yeah, exactly, yeah.\u00a0 (laughter)<\/p>\n

JF:\u00a0 Two feet of one shot, four feet of the next.<\/p>\n

MP:\u00a0 Yeah.<\/p>\n

JF:\u00a0 So you\u2019re making this little film, before channel 0 is on air, of them building the channel.<\/p>\n

MP:\u00a0 Yes.\u00a0 It was called \u2018Third Coming Up\u201d\u00a0 I think I had a copy somewhere \u2013 black and white that was *out of sync.\u00a0 The rest of the film has all disappeared.\u00a0 I think Phil Gibbs?\u00a0 took it.\u00a0 Because they were cleaning out the storage at the back and chucking a lot of nitrate film out because it was dangerous\u2026<\/p>\n

JF:\u00a0 \u2026 Where\u2019s the nitrate film coming into all of this?<\/p>\n

MP:\u00a0 Oh,\u00a0 they were all the movie films.<\/p>\n

JF:\u00a0 Oh right, so you used to have nitrate films coming in to show\u2026<\/p>\n

*MP:\u00a0 Yeah.\u00a0 That was bloody dangerous.\u00a0 How we didn\u2019t blow up I\u2019ll never know.\u00a0 All those old colbay *films and what have you, nitrate stuff\u2026 they took all that to the tip and I think Phil Gibbs took all my footage.\u00a0 It\u2019s just disappeared.\u00a0 Because you never know what\u2019s happened, you don\u2019t know who\u2019s going to edit, you don\u2019t know what\u2019s going to happen at the end of it, you just do your end and wait for the next to happen.\u00a0 By the time it happens, all gone.<\/p>\n

JF:\u00a0 So you\u2019re on the ground floor of the building channel 0.\u00a0 How many people did they have initially there?<\/p>\n

MP:\u00a0 Well, we started out in Swanston st on the top floor, in Ansett House.\u00a0 I would say there would be *the chief engineer, Pascale Hoos?\u00a0 Reg\u2019s right hand man, some typists\u2026 \u00a0half a dozen people.\u00a0 Then it just sort of gradually grew.<\/p>\n

We hired some technicians to unpack the equipment, and then of course the dirty was done to channel 0 by the government \u2013 giving them the wrong bloody frequency.\u00a0 You can receive it in Cairns but you can\u2019t receive it in Melbourne!<\/p>\n

That really stuffed it otherwise we could have been right on top of it \u2013 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!<\/p>\n

JF:\u00a0 Yeah?<\/p>\n

MP:\u00a0 Yeah!\u00a0 Beautiful music!<\/p>\n

Laughter<\/p>\n

JF:\u00a0 So maybe they should have stopped at being a radio station!<\/p>\n

*MP:\u00a0 Ho ho.\u00a0 I think it had something to do with opening fox?<\/p>\n

JF:\u00a0 So they had this sort of test pattern on air with a bit of music to promote\u2026 for how long, ahead of going on air?<\/p>\n

MP:\u00a0 Oooh.\u00a0 12 months?\u00a0 I don\u2019t really know.<\/p>\n

JF:\u00a0 But the nucleus of the staff are based in Swanston near the old Ansett terminal?<\/p>\n

MP:\u00a0 In the old Ansett building on Swanston St, opposite the library.<\/p>\n

JF:\u00a0 Oh, up that far.<\/p>\n

MP:\u00a0 Yeah, it was a nice building that.\u00a0 The old building.\u00a0 That\u2019s been pulled down \u2013 something else is there now.<\/p>\n

JF:\u00a0 Oh, okay.\u00a0 So not up as far as the old Franklin St.<\/p>\n

MP:\u00a0 No, not quite that far.\u00a0 Franklin St was aircraft\u2026<\/p>\n

JF:\u00a0 Right.\u00a0 So did Reg come in and take a bit of a hand?\u00a0 Did you see him a lot?<\/p>\n

MP:\u00a0 Yeah, oh yeah, I did see Reg quite often.\u00a0 I filmed him standing in one of the buildings in the background \u2013 I made a bloody mess of the first lot because I didn\u2019t realise there was a red brick fence behind!\u00a0 And it was bleeding into the fence so we had to do it another way.\u00a0 Chuckles.<\/p>\n

JF:\u00a0 What, you had to refilm another day?<\/p>\n

MP:\u00a0 Yes, he didn\u2019t mind.<\/p>\n

JF:\u00a0 What kind of guy was he?<\/p>\n

MP:\u00a0 He was good.\u00a0 I got on with him very well.\u00a0 He used to crack jokes with me.<\/p>\n

JF:\u00a0 Was he serious about running a tv station?<\/p>\n

MP:\u00a0 Oh yeah.\u00a0 Oh yeah.\u00a0 Everybody else was serious.\u00a0 From the beginning, you know where the tunnel is?<\/p>\n

JF:\u00a0 Mmm.<\/p>\n

MP:\u00a0 We used to have Christmas parties there.\u00a0 And everybody knew how to run his station better than him!\u00a0 The first two years he came there, mixing with the people and after that he said \u2018Oh, bugger this.\u2019\u00a0 Everybody was buttonholing him really.<\/p>\n

JF:\u00a0 Was it a funny thing to have an airline person trying to run a tv station?\u00a0 Did he really know what he was doing?\u00a0 Or did he have good people around him?<\/p>\n

MP:\u00a0 Well he had some good people around him, he had good administration around it.\u00a0 I think it was *just a matter of opportunity.\u00a0 It was either him or\u2026. Glen Raymond\u2019s? husband, conductor of music??\u00a0 The famous…<\/p>\n

JF:\u00a0 Crawford?<\/p>\n

MP:\u00a0 Yeah!\u00a0 Crawford.\u00a0 Crawford was the other candidate for television station.<\/p>\n

JF:\u00a0 Either him or Reg?<\/p>\n

MP:\u00a0 Yeah.\u00a0 Crawford was torpedoed because he was conducting bloody orchestras and he couldn\u2019t *even read music!\u00a0 It was a bit of a cat fight when they were doing the investigating of \u2026. ?\u00a0 devices.\u00a0 All the dirty linen came out.\u00a0 Crawford didn\u2019t do too well.<\/p>\n

JF:\u00a0 This was obviously before you got there and\u2026<\/p>\n

MP:\u00a0 It only cost them three million dollars, that station!<\/p>\n

JF:\u00a0 What, for the license?<\/p>\n

MP:\u00a0 No, to build the whole bloody thing!<\/p>\n

JF:\u00a0 Yeah?<\/p>\n

MP:\u00a0 Yeah.\u00a0 Three million quid.\u00a0 Sorry, three million quid.<\/p>\n

JF:\u00a0 And Reg had a big block of land as well.<\/p>\n

MP;\u00a0 Yeah.\u00a0 Oh, there was a lot of land down there.<\/p>\n

*JF:\u00a0 What was Reg\u2019s vision?\u00a0 I mean, Deera Stora?\u00a0 said he wanted Nunawading to become the Hollywood of Australia.<\/p>\n

MP:\u00a0 Oh, I don\u2019t know.\u00a0 That\u2019s a bit above my political status.\u00a0 But they could have done it, because the studio was equipped for it.\u00a0 You know, studio B was specially built for film.\u00a0 That\u2019s where they filmed all *the rushes and the \u2026\u2026? Woman?\u00a0 Film.\u00a0 That was all filmed inside.\u00a0 They just hired it out on holiday to other companies.<\/p>\n

JF:\u00a0 In fact, in Melbourne it was the only television station wasn\u2019t it?\u00a0 It was built AS a television station.<\/p>\n

MP:\u00a0 Yes.\u00a0 The television station and film studio.\u00a0 Plenty of room, plenty of space.\u00a0 And then Ables?\u00a0 came in \u2013 and between Ables?\u00a0 and Lowey?\u00a0 they\u00a0 wanted to build a shopping town.\u00a0 And then of course Nunawading people said we\u2019ve already got a shopping town.\u00a0 They sort of liquidated it.\u00a0 Because it was good to sell little bit at a time and borrow money to buy something else.\u00a0 And that\u2019s what killed it.<\/p>\n

And look at the bloody place now \u2013 three hundred million dollars they going to get for it!<\/p>\n

JF:\u00a0 That land?<\/p>\n

MP:\u00a0 No, channel 10.\u00a0 Canadians have got it, trying to sell it.<\/p>\n

JF:\u00a0 So you\u2019re basically on the ground floor.\u00a0 Who did you hire then?\u00a0 What kind of equipment did your news cameramen have?<\/p>\n

MP:\u00a0 Well, what I bought was um \u2013 I was quite good myself at using a Bell and Howell.\u00a0 Which I preferred to the Bolex because Bolex was a bit fiddly.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

JF:\u00a0 Why did you buy all different ones?<\/p>\n

MP:\u00a0 Because sound cameras \u2013 they the ones that I thought the best as well.\u00a0 The rest of them came *in *later.\u00a0 That was the ones that were available.\u00a0 Holycon ?\u00a0 cameras were the best sound cameras I bought.<\/p>\n

JF:\u00a0 So you\u2019re saying you bought some new cameras as well?<\/p>\n

*MP:\u00a0 Yeah, Bell and Howells we had to have.\u00a0 Little BR 70?\u00a0 Look.<\/p>\n

JF:\u00a0 Right.\u00a0 There\u2019s one here on the wall behind us.\u00a0 So you\u2019re still sort of placed with a mute camera.<\/p>\n

MP:\u00a0 There always was in news, because that\u2019s what we were shooting.\u00a0 We were shooting mute footage.\u00a0 The sound camera was just coming in and it was still clumsy, and too slow, and too hard to manipulate.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

But that stage you need two people to operate it.\u00a0 Because that was very early in the sound camera.\u00a0 But with the Bell and Hell, you\u2019re always there.\u00a0 You don\u2019t need any power, you don\u2019t need any batteries, you don\u2019t need anything.\u00a0 All you need is skill.\u00a0 And to know how to expose it.\u00a0 And a hundred feet of film, that\u2019s all you need for a story.<\/p>\n

JF:\u00a0 So Bell and Howell, this one here has three lenses<\/p>\n

MP:\u00a0 Yeah. ABC had those from the beginning too.\u00a0 Wind up.\u00a0 Spring wind up.<\/p>\n

JF:\u00a0 Did much go wrong with them?<\/p>\n

MP:\u00a0 No, no.\u00a0 I haven\u2019t had any bloody problems at all.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 And of course, that was just \u2013 forget it, you know.\u00a0 You have to keep them clean, you can\u2019t just let water or sand or anything accumulate on it.<\/p>\n

But the cameramen that I hired, I set up a system.\u00a0 I said \u2018Right, we using one film stock, which is *plassicks?\u00a0 And we\u2019re using Bell and Howell cameras.\u00a0 And this is exactly what you do.\u00a0 And once you have done that, and you have done that correctly, I don\u2019t care how arty farty you go there, but this is your basic how to shoot news film!\u2019\u00a0 And it worked alright from the beginning.\u00a0 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\u2026<\/p>\n

*I had good crew, I had Barry Woodhouse, Geoff Schofield, Peter Purviss (ex head of news at ABC).<\/p>\n

JF:\u00a0 Woodhouse?\u00a0 He\u2019d come from where?<\/p>\n

*MP:\u00a0 He\u2019d come from 7.\u00a0 Then I had a Yank \u2013 Frank Few?\u00a0 I made a mistake with him, because I( never liked him?\u00a0 Or worked with him?) at the ABC but he was a good talker, very good at film.<\/p>\n

JF:\u00a0 He in fact had a Disney background?<\/p>\n

MP:\u00a0 No!\u00a0 No no no was all bullshit.\u00a0 Um, he was in Signal Corps with Yank army, then got himself a job from America, ABC hired him on his Disney background.\u00a0 His Disney background before.\u00a0 And I got along *with him alright.\u00a0 His claim to fame was \u201cThe Dancing Orpheus\u2019?\u00a0 which he filmed a lyrebird in the forest up in\u2026 and um, I think he had enough of ABC and thought he was going to do bigger and better things.<\/p>\n

*So he quit ABC the silly bugger, and went to Bilcock and Hocking?\u00a0 A commercial movie house with a studio in st Kilda.\u00a0 Of course he didn\u2019t last there very long because you\u2019ve got to produce some work!\u00a0 So he was sniffing round for a job and I said to news head \u201cYeah, I\u2019ll give him a job.\u2019<\/p>\n

And the news head said \u2018Now wait a minute Morrie, just think about your own position\u2019<\/p>\n

I said \u2018What about my bloody own position?\u00a0 I can handle him\u2019.<\/p>\n

And he said \u2018You\u2019ve just got to watch yourself.\u00a0 You can\u2019t just go in to tv, are you sure you really want him?\u2019<\/p>\n

I said \u2018of course I want him, no problems.\u2019<\/p>\n

*So we hired Frank Few, and he wasn\u2019t a problem.\u00a0 He was underdog.\u00a0 He would go out on a job and it would take half a day.\u00a0 Because that\u2019s what they used to do at the ABC, take half a day to do a job.\u00a0 We had to fit in about three or four jobs a day.<\/p>\n

JF: \u00a0So you\u2019ve got your film unit set up.\u00a0 There\u2019s you, three or four other cameramen, and you\u2019re putting together a news bulletin.\u00a0 How did the other people in the town look upon channel 0 then?\u00a0 Were you a serious contender?<\/p>\n

MP:\u00a0 Oh shit yeah.\u00a0 Crumbs yeah. \u00a0Going in circles a lot of the time.\u00a0 Because of me.\u00a0 Because I was trying to get in, shoot first, ask questions then depart in a hurry.\u00a0 And they would go in and they shoot, and they would like to participate and be a big deal.\u00a0 You know what I\u2019m trying to say.\u00a0 My guys were in and out.\u00a0 We were basically running circles around some stories and others.\u00a0 We had quite a few stories that we left to everybody else?\u00a0 Except that we didn\u2019t have any viewers!\u00a0 Because of the frequency.\u00a0 If it wasn\u2019t for the frequency we would have killed everybody else.<\/p>\n

JF:\u00a0 So who was running the newsroom?\u00a0 This was before Geoff Smith, I guess?<\/p>\n

MP:\u00a0 Crumbs, 10 news editors before Geoff Smith.\u00a0 First news editor was Herald Reporter and Chief staff\u2026.<\/p>\n

JF:\u00a0 It\u2019ll come to us a bit later.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is part of an interview Series for the National Film and Sound Archive Aural History Programme.\u00a0 My name is John Fife (JF) and I have with me Morrie Pilens (MP). JF:\u00a0 So you\u2019ve moved on from stringer,\u00a0 to correspondent for channel 7 in Sydney \u2013 that\u2019s all coming to an end now. MP:\u00a0 Now … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Establishing ATV0 News Department”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":167,"menu_order":4,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-188","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/pilens.com.au\/modris\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/188","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/pilens.com.au\/modris\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/pilens.com.au\/modris\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/pilens.com.au\/modris\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/pilens.com.au\/modris\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=188"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/pilens.com.au\/modris\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/188\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":321,"href":"http:\/\/pilens.com.au\/modris\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/188\/revisions\/321"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/pilens.com.au\/modris\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/167"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/pilens.com.au\/modris\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=188"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}