A Swag of Stories

I have been feeling unusually unmotivated since I got back from holidays a few weeks ago but after a meeting with producer Steve Thomas yesterday my brain has started popping and crackling again. I have to say I am relieved... when your brain doesn't come back from holidays - I think it was floating in a waterhole somewhere in northern NSW - it is a bit of a worry.

Steve has asked me to attend the World Congress of Science and Factual Producers (WCSFP) in Melbourne December 1 – 4. We will be taking a swag of projects (actually they call it a slate in the film industry, but swag is so much more visually pleasing) to pitch to international executive producers from National Geographic, Discovery Channel and such like. I have a few projects ready to go: one about the struggle of Tasmanian Aboriginal Land and Sea Council chairperson - the fiesty 30 year old Fiona Newson - trying to overturn the Relics Act in Tasmania so that her people can gain recoginition for cultural connection to country; a 5 part series about the creative community surrounding the Tip Shop; and a few others. I am going to reframe the Tip shop story in the carbon debate and whip up a teaser for it (a short film that just introduces the characters and flavour of the story). Over the last two weeks I have been shooting some great footage for a teaser of the tip shop workers deconstructing an 1800's cordial warehouse in inner city Hobart. All the materials from the warehouse will be reused in a new sustainability centre being built in Mt Nelson. Yesterday I interviewed site manager Sally Thompson. Her face was covered in black dust but her clear blue eyes sparkled in delight.

They are such a happy, optimistic crew, that Tip shop crew, and I am hoping the documentary series will help spread the delight they find in salvaging materials, and equally the delight this brings to their many quirky, creative customers. It has been fascinating researching this documentary series. I am a die-hard opshopper and tip shopper from way back and my husband regularly has to drag me away from the Hobart Tip shop on a Sunday. But researching my film idea has really enlightened me about what a remarkable role the tip shop plays in so many people's lives. There is the mosaic artist teaching African refugees, the metalwork teacher inspiring disadvantaged students to built "hot-rod" bicycles, the fabric artist who collect blankets from the Tip shop and takes them all the way to Central Australia to work with Aboriginal women to rediscover their natural dyes, the eccentric owner builder with his "hundred dollar home sandwich" - a low cost housing technique based on materials sourced from the Tip Shop, and finally the high end architect specialising in sustainability who is working with the Tip shop to start a new and vigorous industry of deconstructing (rather than demoliting) buildings so that bulding materials can be fully reused to build "sustainable" green star rated buildings. I love these stories because they are all positive, inspiring, quirky, and totally Tasmanian. Let's just hope the broadcasters like them too!