Signis

Interview of Peter Thomas

Peter Thomas is Vice-President of SIGNIS. Before 2002 he was also very active in the Board of Unda. As a producer he was always aware of the audience. Since 2003 he is one of the people responsible for the Producers’ Group of SIGNIS.

SIGNIS Media: Peter, I understand that you founded Albert Street Productions?

Hazaribag Jesuits: "It always seemed to me that if these productions were designed to help people then we were faithful to the message of the Gospel"

Peter Thomas: In 1985, after having worked in both television and radio in the secular sphere, I found myself working for Catholic Communications an agency of the Archdiocese of Melbourne producing TV and radio that was propaganda for the church and therefore relegated on the program schedules to timeslots reserved by stations for this kind of material. It was a very worthwhile experience but always not enough as we were severely restricted in content, and whether true or not, perceived by stations to be worthy only for those timeslots reserved for church programs.

A young Jesuit, Michael Kelly working in my office at that time, encouraged me to look for a solution that would enable us to take “Christ into the marketplace.” We formed a separate legal entity, Albert Street Productions and for some years worked within the Diocesan offices producing television and radio productions for both Catholic Communications and Albert Street Productions. At the same time we invited the late Fr Joe Dunn in Dublin who was producing programs for the Irish public service broadcaster, RTE, to come to Australia and co-produce a series of programs that he could broadcast in Ireland and that Albert Street could sell to an Australian broadcaster. With Joe we produced a series of programs on Aboriginal Spirituality and the following year a series in South East Asia on refugee camps. These programs sold to broadcasters in Australia and indeed throughout the world.

SM: Is Albert Street Productions a Catholic Production House?

PT: Albert Street has a charter that insures that it produces material that promotes gospel values. Other than that Albert Street is free to and does receive commissions from a range of organizations including commercial work. Quite recently I completed a series of commercials for a telephone counseling service and last year we did a documentary on the making of a comedy movie for one of the commercial TV networks. These ‘secular’ productions have the benefit of financing the ‘gospel’ charter but additionally bring us into a wider contact with the industry at large.

SM: Are Albert Street documentaries purely religious?

"All God’s Beggars is about Asylum Seekers in Australia, a major social issue that has divided the nation"

PT: Of the hundreds of documentaries produced over the years most would be about social issues; mental health, street-kids, suicide, drugs, indigenous issues. I rarely differentiated between these and what some people classify as ‘religious’. It always seemed to me that if these productions were designed to help people then we were faithful to the message of the gospel. On the other hand we have made documentaries on interfaith issues, meditation, priests, nuns, ecumenism, missions, etc.

SM: Who is your audience?

PT: Generally when the program is made for public service free-to-air television the audience is large and diverse. Probably in recent years the production that has had a most enduring impact has been The Teacher . Made in 2000 it has been shown in Australia three times and was picked up by Discovery in the United States and sold to at least another dozen other markets around the world. The Teacher featured the Dalai Lama together with the Jesuit ascetical theologian, William Johnston. My greatest thrill was to see The Teacher screen at a cinema as a support for the 1997 Martin Scorsese film, Kundun . We make for cable and satellite broadcast some medium to low budget productions, often commissioned by organizations rather than broadcasters.

SM: In 2004, rumor has it that you semi-retired. What does this mean?

PT: In June 2004 I stood down as the Chief Executive Officer for Albert Street Productions in order to concentrate on the creative aspects of filmmaking, a task that was becoming increasingly more difficult whilst managing a company. The complexity of structuring or brokering deals and securing finance and trying to produce, write and direct, was too difficult, so I relinquished the role. I’m also getting older! A bonus is that it gave me more time for SIGNIS, giving me the freedom to allow my nomination as Vice President to proceed. I also dabble in radio and do TV production work for an ecumenical agency.

SM: What have you done lately?

PT: In 2004 I finished Hazaribag Jesuits , a story about young Jesuits leaving Australia in the 1950’s and their subsequent inculturation into Indian life over the next 50 years.

In the last 18 months I have produced a series of studio talk shows for a major commercial TV network, a Christmas and Easter special for an ecumenical agency for commercial TV and three documentaries for a national cable and satellite station.

The first documentary, All God’s Beggars is about Asylum Seekers in Australia, a major social issue that has divided the nation that has had tremendous support from the churches. Late last year I completed Eileen , a documentary-drama about Eileen O’Connor, the founder of the Brown Nurses. It was great to reacquaint myself with drama script plotting, actors, period-costumes and all the other bits and pieces that constitute the production of drama. Right now I’m in post-production on a documentary about nuns, An Unfolding Reality . It’s an attempt to demythologize the stereotype.

SM: Is there another way you reach audiences apart from broadcast?

Oh yes! For years Albert Street has distributed its product on video and DVD. I assume in the future it will have opportunities to take it on-line and perhaps with modified versions through cell phones. Interested buyers can go to http://www.albertstreet.tv

SM: The future?

PT: It’s a tougher world out there today and there are many more filmmakers in the marketplace than ever before. The commercial constraints are daunting and generally budgets for documentaries have been declining. Whilst I applaud the churches involvement in operating TV stations I’m reasonably optimistic that opportunities will remain for producers to offer broad religious material for mainstream television.

SIGNIS