Are television dramas set in rural Australia, good or bad for the image of the bush? I’ve just finished watching “A Place to Call Home” (recorded on digital TV). Quality in every respect. Excellent story and cinematography, interesting characters and top actors. The icing on the cake? It’s 100% Australian. Set in the 1950s, it […]
Fiona Lake Blog
A Place to Call Home
September 8th, 2014Objective journalism and the ABC
December 29th, 2013You can give identical film footage, photographs or facts to two different film producers or print editors/journalists and end up with two entirely different stories. Judicious editing, with specific sounds or music added, can produce polar opposite outcomes (both well away from the truth, if desired). Australian taxpayers fund the ABC so we have a […]
The Farm Fixer; BBC television series, now on SBS Television
June 10th, 2013British television is sprinkled with television programmes that feature rural landscapes. Better still, they have more programmes that feature farming. The latest BBC farm-featuring documentary to appear in Australia is “The Farm Fixer”; screening on SBS HD, 6pm. The 8 part ‘reality’ series is set in Northern Ireland, and features Nick Hewer offering diversification advice to struggling farmers. […]
Steele Rudd – Arthur Hoey Davis
March 13th, 2013I believe Arthur Hoey Davis (pen name “Steele Rudd”) is by far and away Australia’s best ever writer, due to the originality and relevance of his stories and characters, combined with his great writing ability. Only heard of ‘his’ Dad & Dave jokes? (Actually written [very badly] by others…much to Steele Rudd’s dismay). Do your […]
Cattle station work featured on ‘Big Australia’ – 7Mate TV channel
November 26th, 2012The most recent episode of 7Mate’s ‘Big Australia’ TV series featured life on a northern Australian cattle station. Over the one hour programme, 3,000 head were mustered out of Green Holes paddock on the Acton Land & Cattle Company’s ‘Millungera’ Station, in Queensland’s Gulf Country. Brothers Graeme and Evan Acton are well known in the […]
Farmer & grazier advertising industry stereotypes
November 21st, 2012The Weekly Times newspaper is running a Poll gauging opinion on whether the latest dairy farmer bogan-stereotype Devondale ads should be ditched. Unfortunately over the years farmers of all kinds have been portrayed by the Australian advertising industry as straw-chewing hicksvilleans. It’s invariably a reflection of the lack of education (on the practical front), intelligence […]
McLeod’s Daughters ‘Drover’s Run’ accommodation open to the public
August 8th, 2012The popularity of the ‘McLeod’s Daughters’ telemovie in 1996 resulted in the long-running and highly successful television series produced by Channel 9. Written by Sydney resident Posie Graeme-Evans, filming the ‘McLeod’s Daughters’ television series commenced in 2001 and continued until 2008 – 223 episodes over 8 series. McLeod’s Daughters has now been screened in 41 […]
‘I’m farming and I grow it’ YouTube video
July 1st, 2012The creators of the ‘I’m farming and I grow it’ YouTube video, the three Peterson brothers, were interviewed on Fox News two days ago. They’re modest as well as talented. Not even a week after ‘I’m farming and I grow it’ was put on YouTube, and more than 2.3 million people have viewed it. […]
The Peterson Farm Brothers – ‘I’m farming & I grow it’
June 28th, 2012If anyone needs proof of the large numbers of rural people, worldwide, who have taken to social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and blogging – then the run-away viral success of this online video is it. Greg Peterson and his younger brothers Nathan and Kendal feature in their YouTube video they’ve called ‘I’m […]
‘The World’s Toughest Trucker’ TV show
June 12th, 2012An Aussie roadtrain driver was amongst the 8 truck drivers competing in ‘The world’s toughest trucker’ TV show. Australia features in the first and second episodes of the 8-show series. And while a lot of film crews will venture inland a couple of hour’s drive from a coastal city and call it ‘the outback’, ‘The […]