Charles Pakana:

While passing on from person to person remains a crucial component of Aboriginal learning and information sharing, increasingly, digital storytelling has become fundamental to maintaining that cultural and lore connection. Joining me today on the program to talk about this is filmmaker, photographer, and artist, Yorta Yorta and Woiwurrung man, Mark Thomson. Mark, thanks for joining me today, brother. Really appreciate it.

Mark Thomson:

Thanks for having me.

Charles:

Mark, first of all, let’s get a bit of an understanding of your work. So for the past, say 15 years, which I believe has been the amount of time you’ve been in this particular game.

Mark:

Yeah. So a lot of my work so far has been what I would consider community-centered storytelling. So just short form content. It’s anywhere from five to 10 minutes of a story that a community person may want to tell, whether it’s at a gathering place, whether it’s more formal stuff for the Yoorrook Justice Commission, like we might be talking about. And it’s small footprint. I don’t have a big film crew rolling into town or anything. A, can’t afford it, but it makes it harder to get the story and coordinate people’s schedules. But yeah, that’s probably how I’d describe my work so far.

Charles:

What drove you into it?

Mark:

I’ve always loved film. I find that’s how I best take information in. I enjoy reading occasionally, but I’ve got so many books at home and I’m just resting drinks and stuff on them now, they’re blocking the doorway sort of thing. So I don’t really read them, but I find that’s a really easy way of me taking information in.

Charles:

Sure.

Mark:

And really enjoy a good story from an entertainment point of view, from information. I love documentaries. And I have family members who are in the industry, who’ve inspired me a little bit. And watching them go through their careers and think, “Oh, far out, maybe there’s a chance I could be a part of this.” But to be honest, growing up, Dad always had a video camera in and around and filmed a lot of our stories and just stuff from old 8mm tape with no audio just to capture stuff.

Charles:

So you got the love there.

Mark:

Yeah. And so I really think it’s from Dad.

Charles:

But what about your focus on First Nation stories and elders? And a lot of what we see on your website, there are a lot of elders there who are passing on their learnings, their thoughts, their recollections. What drove you there rather than mainstream documentary making?

Mark:

For me, there’s a real need to capture our stories in our way, in our voices. Our communities, we’ve had our culture passed down verbally for so long and through art, music, dance. And for me, there’s just natural desire to sit and yarn with elders and hear their stories, but capture it for the generations to come for their families. And it’s not always for public consumption.

It will be sometimes just for the families. And I want to record this for my granny so they hear our cultural stories and whatever it might be. So for me, it’s really about trying my best to work with community to say, “Look, we’ve got a chance just to capture it. And even if it just sits on a shelf in a spare room or something, that’s okay.”

Charles:

It’s still there.

Mark:

But at least you have it because my grandmother… I don’t know, there’s a power in seeing your elders’ voices if you don’t really get to spend that much time with them. So my grandmother was interviewed and part of the Lousy Little Sixpence documentary with her sister and that. And seeing her in that era, which I wasn’t born till the ’80s, but that was done in the ’70s and that. So to see her and hear her and have that as a record, it’s just a different connection for me. So I think that’s where it is for me, that interest comes from.

Charles:

One of the things that interests me is actually determining who you’re going to film, because it’s not just a matter of thumbing through the Whitepages, that’s showing my age, for example, and landing your finger on a name and then doing that. But a lot of what you seem to do in our pre-interview yarn was actually go out on country, have a word to people, and typically the person you may be there to interview might steer you in the direction of someone else. So share with us a little bit about how that works and how it’s played out in the past.

Mark:

Yeah, it’s exactly that. One of the lovely things about community is being so interconnected and that and just being able to have a yarn, and been really fortunate to grow up in community and with community and that. And you kind of are aware of stories that are around. And there’ve been times where gone out to interview a particular elder and the grandson will say, “Oh, listen, brother,” Nan’s already got a platform, for instance, “we might want to go and have a yarn with these ones over here.” And that’s exactly what happened on a couple of occasions. So it’s really about helping people understand what it is we’re trying to do, how we’re doing it, and just making it, dare I say, culturally safe to have that yarn.

Charles:

We’re going to dive into that in a second. Yeah.

Mark:

And so really it’s about saying, “Look, it’s me.” Usually people are aware of, if they don’t know me, they’ll know my family connection. So there’s a bit of trust there and it’s always about trust, have a yarn. So for me, it’s really coming back to networking as much as possible and just making it clear that, look, it can be deleted in the end if they decide to change their mind kind of thing.

Charles:

Yeah, of course.

Mark:

There’s no pressure. I think that’s the lovely thing about having a small footprint, low budget kind of approach is like, “Look, you fellows can talk about whatever you want and let’s just make it and we’ll do our best to hold the story and be true to that story.”

Charles:

Let’s talk about the cultural safety because you dropped that one a few seconds ago on cultural sensitivity and even cultural appropriateness. A lot of what you’re going to hear and what you’ve heard over the years is going to be, “Oh, this I can’t share with the broader community, especially a non-Aboriginal community or even community outside that clan or that family or that nation.” How do you determine that and how then do you manage it? Because it must at times be a bit of a nightmare.

Mark:

Definitely. I think it can be challenging. When it comes back to it for me, it’s what is the community member comfortable with? What do they want to say? And it’s their story. And who am I to get in the way of that, is really how I look at it. I think there are some things that’s like, “Oh, that won’t fit well with the yarn or it won’t do them any favors if that were to come out,” but I’d let them know and say, “Look, Aunt, Uncle, whoever, here’s the edit, have a look at it. What do you think?”

I’ll bring attention to the parts that I think may be a bit risky to leave in or whatever and some people are comfortable with it. And there’s never really anything outside the box of truth. It’s just like, “Wow, this is what it is.” And that’s why I think I’m drawn to the documentary side of things. It’s scripted work I haven’t really worked in. I don’t know if I have a desire to, but it’s just that having a yarn with community and it’s just-

Charles:

Nothing beats it, does it really?

Mark:

Yeah, they’re authentic stories. And I know that gets thrown around a lot, but I like, “We don’t know where this yarn’s going.” I like that. And sitting there having a yarn and I’ll hear something and I’ll try and dive into that a little bit more. And whether it’s the individual’s story or they’re re-sharing their parents’ story or around their community more broadly, that’s the sort of stuff I really enjoy because it’s a learning for me as well. I learned so much more about broader communities outside of my own here around the state at least. And it’s just like, I had no idea that existed. And now they have that story for their families and their communities as well.

Charles:

Tell me a bit about your reactions or the reactions from the community when you go out there and you let community know, “Hey, look, we’re out here in the sticks, well off the beaten tracks of traditional media.” How do many of those people respond to the fact that, “Oh, we’ve got someone here who’s a modern day storyteller establishing essentially a new form of songlines for goodness sake”? What are some of those reactions that you might get out there?

Mark:

It’s usually, “Oh, what? Do you want to tell my story? I don’t know enough, or if I’ve got much to say.”

Charles:

Typical Blackfella way, isn’t it?

Mark:

It really is. It’s like, “No, you should be talking to someone. Oh, no, I don’t know.” And then you get them on film and then they’re just deadly, they won’t shut up. And it’s good, and won’t shut up in a good way obviously, but it’s just like, “Oh, no, see. Thanks, Unc.” And he’s, “Oh, I didn’t realize I had so much to say.” We just let them yarn. And when I say a small footprint, a longtime collaborator mate of mine, David Kello, who I’ve done a lot of work with, literally just the two of us and we have everything we need to go out. So we’ll still set up lights and mics and do the whole… and green screens if we need, but it’s really about they’ll see that as kind of like a interview set and they’ll go, “Oh, gee, this is a bit…” And it’s always fine.

They’re comfortable and then it’s just locked-in eye contact with me and we’ll have a yarn and that’s the approach. It’s like, “Look, Aunt, Unc, just forget about all the lights and that. We’re just having…” Some are really comfortable. Don’t get me wrong. Not everyone’s that way, but some are really happy to sit down, “Yeah. No, I did two interviews this week.” So they’re really comfortable in that space, but a lot of them, it’s usually like even with my own mum, Mum’s like, “No, I don’t want to be on camera, but just record the voice, eh? The audio.”

And I say, “Yeah, whatever.” And then, “Maybe we should get on camera.” So there’s always back and forth, “But I don’t know if my story’s good enough.” And that was part of the stuff I saw with Yoorrook as well. It’s just the amount of elders who were like, “Oh, I don’t know if I want to put my story out there.” And then it was more about, “Where’s the information being kept?” So that was a different part of it, but it’s just about, “No, we’re just having a yarn.” And reassuring them, “If you don’t like it, there’s always the delete button. We can always just erase and have a cup of coffee, cup of tea and we’re gone.”

Charles:

Yoorrook was by no means the major part of your life, but it was definitely an impactful part of your life. Tell us a bit about your entry into Yoorrook, the role there and some of the personal learnings, whether it’s about community, culture or filmmaking that you took away from that experience.

Mark:

Yeah. So there were two streams of work for me with Yoorrook. So initially, I was employed as the director for communications, engagement and partnerships, and work with a really wonderful group of people. Had its trying times, which was well-documented in the media, but being able to work with commissioners and with so many different staff members trying to figure, “What is this truth-telling thing?” Trying to figure that out, “What does that mean?” It’s been done in other countries, never been done here before. It’s a Royal Commission. It’s straight out of COVID, kind of still dealing with the COVID social distancing laws and things.

So really the idea for me was like, “Look, if you go down the traditional route, there’s always going to be documentation, but who’s going to access it? Who’s going to be able to go through and read 600 pages on their lunch break or something? How do we make information accessible for community?” Because we need to provide for all aspects of community, from all literacy levels, from all tech blockers, I might say, because I know everyone has access to everything all the time and some just have a mobile phone.

Charles:

So essentially making sure that the findings, the reports and all the evidence is available to every single person regardless of where they are.

Mark:

Yeah, that was the idea. That was the intent. So for me and our team, we were like, “How do we do this?” Video’s one, audio’s another, podcast. So from a video recording, we could take still photographs, have a traveling exhibition. We could take the audio stems, make a podcast series, we could have the interview itself. And from that, over and above all of that, we’ve got the transcript. So there’s your formal evidence and that can go to the lawyers and do all that sort of stuff.

But for us it was really about what is a community member wanting to say, and how do we get all of that information into this formal process? And so for me, that was the start of it. And it was everything from hiring every person. We worked with an agency at the beginning, myself and the agency, and they were really great. And some individuals there were really dedicated to the whole mission of Yoorrook and what we’d set out to achieve.

There were changes of leadership and that, but everyone was on board with like, “Yeah, we need to get out and get community information.” But having such a small operating unit, as far as staff goes, didn’t have that many people. So trying to do this massive work across the state, dealing with the politics of, “Well, which communities do we go to first? Oh, it’s COVID. Oh, we have to have formal hearings, we have to do this, we have to do that.”

And so the commissioners were under the pump trying to work that out, and of course changes of CEOs along the way. So the one consistent was like, “Well, look, communities out there, they’ve got stories to tell. Regardless of what’s happening with our office setup in politics, we need to just get out there and collect their stories.” So that became a bit of a challenge because we didn’t have the staff to do it.

Charles:

So given that under Gellung Warl, the new treaty process, there’s going to be a continuation of truth telling. What would you like to see specifically with place-based truth-telling rather than theme-based truth-telling? What would you like to see continue on over the next several years because there’s a lot more truth out there to be told across Victoria?

Mark:

Absolutely. Look, just to go back to that previous point, the second part of Yoorrook was when I stepped down as director, I said, “Well, I’m going out to get these stories regardless because we lost so many elders along the way.” Not just elders, we’re losing community members all the time. We go to more funerals than birthday parties and celebrations, it’s like most communities.

But I was like, “Well, I want to do my best to go out there and collect these stories.” What I found was each community had a community member, an elder, younger person, whatever, who had a good yarn to tell, was important, was relevant to that place. So going into this new kind of structure, I think what’s really great about technology these days is that most people, we have a decent recorder just in our pocket all the time.

Charles:

Absolutely. Yeah.

Mark:

Whether it’s filming, whether it’s just recording audio, I know that I’ve recorded audio plenty of times with just my phone. We have opportunities to just get a yarn. Not everyone has to have whatever latest cameras and this, that, and the other. And it’s really easy to get caught up in that sort of stuff, but it’s pointless having that and no story or not being able to get the yarn or forgetting to put a memory card in or something else.

Charles:

We’ve all done it.

Mark:

Which is what happened, or you forget to press record. So for me, that’s what it is. I think there’s just a lot of opportunity and it’s so important. And it’s not for Instagram, it’s not for Facebook, it’s not for chances of getting it up on NITV, shorts or whatever. This is about, we need to collect our stories in our way. We’ve had plenty of people in the past, we talk about the linguists and everything back in the day recording our elders’ stories and that, and we’re grateful that we have that.

Because apart from my family and that being able to hold onto their culture, I’ve been able to hear the voices of elders who passed 20, 30 years before I was born speaking Yorta Yorta, for instance, and hearing, “Oh, that’s how they would pronounce that word,” or “that sentence.” So that’s the kind of thing I’m thinking about. It’s not this instant kind of, “Oh, I wonder how many people are going to engage with this content online.”

This is about, “No, let’s just get our stories. What community want to do with it later, they can do.” For me, it’s about saying, “Look, we need to just capture these yarns because we’re going to funerals all the time.” I’m sick of it, I’m sure everyone else is. I’ve been to so many funerals where it’s like, “Oh, man, wish we had recorded their story,” or “wish we’d had a yarn with them,” or whatever it might be.

Charles:

Yeah. We hear that too much, don’t we?

Mark:

Yeah. And some families really lucky to have family members who have been in the spotlight a little bit or whatever and have their stories and their yarns well-documented, and that’s okay, but a lot more don’t. And that’s what it is for me. It’s the fear of, “What if this person goes and no one’s asked them about this aspect? Or even just what’s on your mind? What do you want to talk about?”

Charles:

So let’s say you’re going to wave the magic wand and we’re not pitching you for a job here, but we’re going to make you-

Mark:

No, go ahead. I need to work.

Charles:

… head of truth telling for Gellung Warl. What are some of the initiatives that you want to see happen within that truth telling component of Gellung Warl going forward to start really capturing place-based truths across Victoria?

Mark:

That’s a tough question. The thing that stands out to me is that there are so many ways that truth-telling can be captured. Anything from audio, visual, written. Artworks, for instance, I know that that was one that Yoorrook looked at. But it’s like, “Okay.” And there’s a whole different layer of complexities. But for me, it’s about, “Well, what does the community themselves, if it is place-based, what do they see as truth-telling?” It’s not up to me or for a government department or another formal body to determine what that means for them.

Truth-telling could mean just, we’re going to sit here amongst this grass over here because this is what this traditionally means for our people, or whatever it might be. I think that’s important to consider. When something is captured properly, we can take audio stems from that, turn it into a podcast like this. We can have short form content formed from it. We can create ways of sharing the information because it’s all good to capture it, but if no one sees it in the end, then it’s like, “Oh, okay. Well, at least we have it somewhere at the very least, but we should be able to share it somehow.”

So whether it’s traveling exhibitions, whether it’s museum kind of focus, not my thing personally, but there’s all of these different options. And with the way that media is for Blackfellas now, there’s a lot more options, I think, to get our stories out there, whether it’s NITV, Victorian Aboriginal News, there’s different platforms that it’s all shareable content.

Charles:

It’s interesting you’re bringing that up because I do want to ask you about what you’ve seen over the past one and a half, two decades about the preparedness of traditional media to take on First Nations content. And I know you’re talking about your focus is not on developing content that could be shared with NITV or anywhere else. But have you seen a change in attitudes to First Nations content developed by people such as yourself?

Mark:

Yeah, absolutely. I think one of the encouraging things for me that made me think, “Maybe there’s a chance I can get out there and do this somehow,” was exactly that. Looking at NITV being developed and then seeing our mob reflected on screen, it’s like, “Oh, that’s pretty cool. There’s a chance that we could do this.”

And then all the different production companies that came out with these Deadly productions and my cousin Tony who’s responsible for The Sapphires, seeing what he did, got another cousin Jason Briggs, who had dabbled as well in community documenting, seeing family members out there going, “Fuck it. Well, why can’t we tell our own stories and we just do it our way type of thing? And we’ll work our way through, but let’s just do something.”

And for me, that’s the sort of stuff I’m like, “Oh, okay, yeah, it’s people out there actually already doing this. And so why not have a crack?” And then I always loved film and the confidence has never always really been there. I guess it’s still pretty low, but it’s like, “Oh, maybe we’ll just do it and worst-case scenario, it’s just going to sit on the hard drive somewhere, but at least I’ve had a crack at it.”

Charles:

That hasn’t been the case. Let me tell you.

Mark:

So for me, it’s so important to have these platforms these days. And you look at things like Black Comedy came out and then there’s ABC Indigenous streams and there’s all of these mainstream kind of platforms now.

Charles:

Been a solid change, hasn’t it?

Mark:

And it’s just encouraging to see because in the ’80s, it was all that typecast stuff that we’d see. And film Blackfellas for me was the one. It was like, “Oh, my God, what is this film?” And it was incredible to see this cast of Aboriginal people doing this feature film, and it was mind-blowing for me because up until that point, I had never really seen anything like that. And so Dougy Dooligan and all them fellas do what they needed to do and it was like, “Fuck, that was amazing for us, for me as a young father coming up, seeing something like that.”

Because it was all just American film and that I consumed and entertainment and that was all good. But that for me, it was like, “Oh, this is pretty cool. There’s our own voices on screen and yeah, I’ve got family who sound and look like that and this is what our experience was like too.” So that’s the sort of stuff I really like as far as that scripted stuff. But then Lousy Little Sixpence for me, seeing Nan and Aunty Marge and that on the green, it was pretty solid to have all of that done so we, as a younger generation coming through, could understand what it was that they were trying to talk about.

Charles:

Let’s look back over the years that you’ve been doing this without prioritizing, but what are some of the standout interviews and yarns that you’ve had, whether you’ve produced them and made them public or not?

Mark:

Oh, that’s a tough one. Of all the uncles and aunties and cousins and that I’ve been able to interview-

Charles:

That’s why I’m saying you don’t have to prioritize them. It’s okay.

Mark:

No, look, some that stand out, Aunty Sandra Onus and Aunty Christina Frankland for me really stand out because I wasn’t as aware of that story as what I think I should have been. What they did for community, how they went about it, short piece that we did, they talk openly about the challenges from both sides, from community and from the broader community to whitefellas. So that was something that was just like, “Oh, man, really up against it. This is all pre-Mabo stuff. And why don’t we as a nation know about this?”

And it really gave context to the Fighting Gunditjmara that’s so prevalent. It’s like [inaudible 00:20:11] said, “Oh, that’s why he called it Fighting Gunditjmara, ain’t it?” And they’re like, “Yeah. No, that’s us.” So that’s the sort of stuff for me. It was like, “Oh, cool.” But then Uncle Colin Walker for me, so deadly. My mother’s story, which was never published, just did for our own family and that and did the full edit and whatever and just kept it for us is always one that will be close to home for me.

Dad’s from Belfast, Northern Ireland, so Scottish and Irish on that side. So we had the chance to go back to Scotland and Ireland a few years ago as a family as well, and similar stories over there with colonization and stuff from both both sides-

Charles:

Yeah, very much.

Mark:

… from Ireland and Scotland. So being able to have a yarn with Dad, and it wasn’t so much into that, it was more the family history, but you can’t talk about that family history without the British-

Charles:

Influence.

Mark:

Influence. Yeah, on that too. So it was really interesting to do that. So those two in particular, so mum and dad’s and that. But yeah, the elder story with Uncle Colin and definitely the Gunditjmara, Aunty Sandra and Aunty Tina was amazing to be a part of. And the way they told that story, and so generous with their time, just powerhouses still. So hats off to the community down there and to those aunts.

Charles:

We’ll close it off with some advice because there’s not many of us out there who are going around and capturing these stories. So what advice would you give to First Nations people across Australia about just having the courage to pick up an iPhone or pick up a camera or a microphone and start recording the stories?

Mark:

The experience I can share would be just get started, just do it. You don’t need the most megapixels on the camera. Don’t get caught up in the YouTube reviews of, “Okay, hey guys, we’ve got this new camera coming out and we’re going to do an unboxing.” That’s all good if you can afford it, but our phones are good enough to record a story and it’s just to get started. We don’t always film with the latest gear. My longtime collaborator, Dave and I, between the two of us, we’ve got equipment that’s never the newest stuff. I’ve never recorded a story with the latest gear.

So it’s not about the gear, it’s about the story. Just have a yarn. If there’s anything you’re going to do on YouTube, other than watching camera reviews, watch things that contribute to your learning, I would say. So I’ve learnt some stuff just around lighting. Watch some of the cinematography greats if you really care about the framing of things, but it’s really about the story. Everyone will tell you, it comes back to that. There’s a lot of learning for me to do, obviously. I think being prepared to put in the hard work and get the job done regardless, this isn’t a 9:00 to 5:00. This is whenever community is ready sort of thing. It might take weeks to set up a story.

Charles:

I can vouch for that. Yeah.

Mark:

It can take months. So patience is a big thing, and always make it about them. It’s never about me. We’re just vehicles who might have some gear to be able to record it. So I think that’s the thing that stands out for me. It’s not about the gear, it’s about the people you’re showcasing, it’s about the yarn. That’s my learning anyways. I’ve got other people out there that I’ve worked alongside with who do it for a living proper and they’re like, “It’s a tough road. It’s a tough gig because it doesn’t always pay well,” and all the rest of it.

And so there has to be that natural drive and passion, I think, and holding down a job on the side always helps if you’ve got a family to feed or yourself to feed. That’s what I would say. Don’t get caught up in the gear and the lack of, “Oh, I can’t do it because I don’t have the latest whatever. I don’t have this and that.”

Charles:

It’s all about the story.

Mark:

It’s about the yarn. It’s about that story. So one of my favorite documentaries that I’ve ever seen, just terribly filmed, it’s done on tape. The guy wasn’t a cinematographer, he was just a hobbyist who had a camcorder, but the story was amazing. And it’s one of my favorites, one of Louis Theroux’s favorites as well. It’s in his top five.

Charles:

Wow.

Mark:

So Exit Through the Gift Shop for me was something, I was like, “Oh, man, maybe I could do something like this.” Visually, it’s terrible. It’s the story.

Charles:

If you want to find out a bit more about Mark Thomson’s work, then get onto his website, which is www.markthomson, without a P, by the way, marktompson.au. No .com, marktompson.au. Mark, thanks so much indeed for sharing time and sharing your experiences and stories with us.

Mark:

Thanks for having me. It’s been good. Appreciate it.