Every Australian Story has Four Corners ; )

Compare and contrast Australian Story with another documentary focused program, highlighting production techniques and scripting.

Australian Story has been very successful for ABC and continues to show their strengths in investigative journalism. Crikey have rumoured the commercial stations are pursuing copycat shows. The style of the show is personal history told seamlessly with very high production values. This week the show continued the tale of Phil Evans, a Brisbane music student who had his fingers removed from one hand during a home invasion. The program used a variety of materials, including interviews, news footage, footage of news crews gathering the footage, home video shot by Phil and his father Mark during the recovery in France (often direct to camera), concert footage, other overlay and enough of those kind of ambient sequences to make me think they'd done a full recreation of the assault in the first episode.

Another strong element was the soundtrack and, when I think about the importance of music to this story, I wonder whether they could've gone further. The music used was largely diagetic and I guess that's the documentary approach. Since watching the episode I've wondered whether using a musical theme, that makes the most of the emotive qualities of Phil's chosen instrument the saxophone, could have given the piece more resonance. Actually, the whole tone of the episode was quite restrained. They didn't dwell on the tears, perhaps they're not as important when they're joyous.

The scripting on Australian Story must be an interesting process. No doubt the producers have a clear idea of the narrative going in to interviews and probably have, in mind at least, the quotes they need to develop the story. One wonders how often they've had to book follow-up shoots to collect additional sound bites. I'd also be curious about how they set interviewees at ease. It's obvious the camera is set up a bit back from the interviewer and unobtrusive but, what body language does the interviewer use to generate the response? The seamless presentation of Australian Story hides some of the context in which it's produced but I guess that's part of creating a tight narrative. I admire the way they fade to black to draw attention where they've edited interviews.

There's a lot to compare between Australian Story and Four Corners. Both are ABC productions (although Four Corners screens a lot of material produced by Canadian, British and US counterparts), both get a lot of press for the information they contribute regarding current events, and both do a great job of making investigative journalism into good television. The contrast in the techniques they use to do this puts emphasis on their approaches. Where Australian Story takes soft approach and is sympathetic to those who appear, Four Corners uses the classic model of the investigative journalist uncovering the truth.

Four Corners this week presented a piece made by BBC Channel Four about the trade in sex slaves from the Ukraine to Turkey. Overall the camera work had lower production values because it would have been a lighter camera for the travelling required. Many scenes were shot handheld. They also used footage shot at night (although it didn't show much gain) and on hidden cameras, including one sequence where they managed two camera angles without arousing the suspicions of the interviewee.

Where the lighting in Australian Story interviews is bold to the point of drawing attention to itself, lighting in this doco was largely single source. The production gave an impression as gritty and depressing as the subject matter. This gave it a sense of honesty. Some sequences had washed out colour balance, in another you could see a reflection to indicate the camera was in a car with an extreme zoom. Footage showing purported smugglers and even sales of slaves were grainy by virtue of being surveillance footage.

There was little soundtrack music and, again, I guess it would be a bit improper for a documentary to use a device so strongly associated with drama and escapist entertainment. Perhaps it would be considered insensitive and crass but I thought bits where Viorel was pursuing the pimp Apa or meeting his wife Tania would've been heightened. The sequence with the other Tania was sad enough without music to need to manipulate the audience further.

The scripting contrasted to Australian Story through the use of a narrator. This female voice was never embodied on camera and it undermined something about the sincerity of the piece. The story required subtitles and this also put more distance it seemed. But I guess it was a Ukrainian story packaged by the BBC and shown on the ABC half a world away.

The greatest contrast between the two shows I think, is the sense in which the seamlessness of Australian Story is like sitting in on the conversation; while the gritty documentary on Four Corners was an unflinching investigation that put a very proper emphasis on the slavery rather than sex. Even so it has led me to think it's a bit exploitative.

The greatest similarity between both shows is worth stating too: they're both non-fiction narratives. Both programs create a story out of a sequence of events and, in a sense, they're rewriting the historical record. In Australian Story they tell the classic tale of overcoming an obstacle. If the narrative had been the pursuit of justice it would've changed the tone of the piece entirely because no one was actually convicted for the assault. It probably wouldn't make good television either.

It's a question of relativism I suppose but once I began question what shapes the scripting in these stories it left me feeling cynical and a lot less empathetic to the characters. I think some of this is because television can be an incredibly emotive medium and analysing the narrative structure reduces this effect. While revealing it's construction.