person or book cover
Screen cap from promotional trailer
form y separately published work icon Tarflowers single work   film/TV   young adult   fantasy  
Note: See note below about relative authorial roles in this program.
Issue Details: First known date: 1985... 1985 Tarflowers
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

Kev and Big Dog do their rounds every day, collecting scraps from the neighbourhood garbage bins and then beautifying the suburb with murals. Four-year-old Mary likes to help, but Mary will soon have to go to school. Kev decorates the schoolyard with tarflower murals, to the horror of the school authorities. But just as they're about to punish Kev, the tarflowers burst into life, so everyone can see their magic.

According to Patricia Edgar,

The film was to be shot on videotape as the special effects would have been expensive to produce on film. [...] When I came to Sydney to check on the production, Tom was worried about the coverage the director was achieving. Every scene was filmed in a long take, with no close-ups; the director said it was a personal style, but it meant that, when the scenes came together, the film was about thirty minutes longer than it should have been. The only way to shorten it was to cut out scenes completely, and then the film didn't make sense. I had to sack the director and try to make sense of the footage we had. Anne Brooksbank was brought in to write a narration to unify the film. Geoff Bennett, who had done well with On Loan and was available at very short notice, became a consultant director.

Source: Patricia Edgar, Bloodbath: A Memoir of Australian Television, Melbourne: Melbourne UP, 2006, p.169.

Notes

  • Telemovie.
  • The promotional trailer for this film is available to watch via YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W5TpNC6du3g&feature=plcp (Sighted: 8/8/2012)

Affiliation Notes

  • Writing Disability in Australia

    Type of disability Intellectual disabilities (unspecified).
    Type of character Primary.
    Point of view Third person.

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

      1985 .
      person or book cover
      Screen cap from promotional trailer
      Extent: 50 min.p.
      Description: Colour
      Note/s:
      • See note above for the shifting directorial roles for the program.
      Series: form y separately published work icon Winners Network Ten (publisher), Australia : Network Ten Australian Children's Television Foundation , 1985 Z1676442 1985 series - publisher film/TV children's

      Australian Screen says of Winners that it is 'an anthology series of eight telemovies for children aged between eight and fifteen. No one story is typical. Through comedy, science fiction, historical drama, adventure, fantasy and social realism, many issues are raised. Each of the Winners stories is about children, their families and friends. Common themes across the stories are family relationships, friendship, individuality, and the facing of difficult situations with courage, ingenuity and independence.'

      Of the origins of the series, Patricia Edgar says in her memoir Bloodbath: A Memoir of Australian Television (Melbourne: Melbourne UP, 2006):

      The series was initially dubbed Masterpiece Theatre, an ironic salute to Phillips Adams' comment at the very first board meeting that we must use popular formats and not look like Masterpiece Theatre. It would eventually air under the title Winners, a title that I selected from a list of ideas during scripting.

      I approached a number of experienced producers around the country to induce them to work on a children's program. With guidance from John Morris, I identified twenty of Australia's top writers--including John Duigan, Tom Hegarty, Sonia Borg, Anne Brooksbank, Tony Morphett, Morris Gleitzman, Bob Ellis and Cliff Green--and invited them to a briefing at the Sebel Townhouse in Sydney in February 1983. The way to get their involvement was to make the project high profile and competitivel the media would be involved throughout the process.

      Writing is a solitary experience. These selected writers had never been together for a briefing before. The proposal was for each writer to develop two ideas for the sum of $500. If their idea was selected they would go on to the next stage and write a treatment and draft, otherwise we would give their idea back to them. Without exception, the idea appealed. The writers were not instructed on specific program ideas, but I made it clear I did not want bland adventure or syrupy formulaic family shows. I wanted the kind of drama children had not seen before--contemporary, challenging, dealing with important, relevant issue. I wanted stories that would add some meaning to children's lives. If these writers--the cream of the crop--could not deliver, nobody else in Australia could. (pp.155-56)

      Edgar said of the series that 'Winners had been a baptism of fire--introducing me to a diverse range of producers, directors, styles of production and problems--as well as a wonderfully exciting introduction to the creation of drama, from an idea on paper to a powerful experience to be shared on screen' (pp.169-70).

Last amended 24 Jan 2019 16:36:23
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