STRANGER THAN FICTION
Ayoung man is the star of his high school football team. He’s smart, he’s good looking and he is dating the beautiful blonde head cheerleader. They are envied everywhere they go and appear to have the world at their feet.
Then the teen is accused of sexually assaulting a four-year-old boy and he is arrested, charged and sent to jail for a minimum of 25 years, without parole. It sounds like the plot of the latest Netflix drama, but it’s the very real story of Greg Kelley as told in the hit five-part documentary Outcry (watch it on Stan) which had online forums buzzing after its release earlier this year.
With slick production values, great real-life stories and a cast of stranger-than-fiction characters, it’s not hard to see why documentaries are experiencing a golden age. In a world where we have never had as many options to watch television on demand, movie-length and long-form documentaries have risen to the top and are often lauded as much as a new-release film or scripted drama series.
This year we have had Tiger King (Netflix) which took a deep dive into the bizarre world of big cat zookeeper Joe Exotic and his conservationist nemesis Carole Baskin which was watched in 65 million households worldwide in the first four weeks of release. It is one of Netflix’s biggest successes, spawning a TikTok dance craze and the promise of a movie starring Nicolas Cage as
Exotic.
The Last Dance (Netflix) took a candid look into the world of basketball legend Michael Jordan., while HBO’s I’ll Be Gone In The Dark (Foxtel) is about a woman’s obsessive hunt for the Golden State Killer. Scriptwriter Dan Bennett, who has worked on Home And Away and co-hosts popular television podcast TV Bingebox, says documentaries have come a long way from the “stuffy, boring shows” only a few admitted to watching.
“They were once seen as something you would watch for education,” Bennett says. “But they are definitely more than that now, they are a viable form of entertainment, and in terms of how they’re produced, they’re slick with narratives that keep you guessing.
“They show you that often real-life people are much better TV talent. You only have to look at Tiger King for the cast of larger-than-life characters, I could sit in a writer’s room for the rest of my career and not come up with those characters or storylines.”
Bernadine Lim is head of documentaries at Screen Australia and says docos are the strongest they have ever been – both overseas and in Australia. Three of the top 10 highestgrossing Australian films at the box office last year were documentaries: the climate change film, 2040 (Google Play); Mystify: Michael Hutchence (Google Play); and the Adam Goodes doco, The Australian Dream (Google Play). The number of Australian documentaries released in Australian cinemas has also grown in the past few years from seven in 2015 to 24 last year.
“There has always been a hardcore base of documentary lovers but docos are enjoying a much broader appeal now,” Lim says. “One reason is there are so many different forms documentaries take these days which appeal to different audiences. The Michael Hutchence doco Mystify and Amy Winehouse documentary Amy (Netflix) for instance, were made through the clever crafting of archival material already there, not a frame was filmed. Others are more movielike in their production values, with beautiful cinematography and original scores. “And the other reason for the popularity is the access, and streaming services have been game changers here. This, and to some extent the growing popularity of podcasts, have created an appetite for listening to real stories.”
Bennett adds the authenticity you get with a documentary is an element you simply cannot recreate in scripted shows or movies. “Look at docos like the Last Dance – to have people like Michael Jordan willing to open up their lives and have their story told is compelling,” he says.
“You wouldn’t have seen that on commercial television a decade ago. And it doesn’t have to be superstars either, if a story is told well, we can become intrigued by complete strangers. “A great example is the doco Secret Love (Netflix) which looked at the story of two elderly women who came out to their family and friends in the 80s. It was a beautiful story and a lot of people were talking about it.” Then there are the stories you couldn’t make up – the ones that are compelling and intriguing, simply because they are so absurd. A classic example is Three Identical Strangers (Google Play) which tells the story of triplets adopted to three separate families as infants who accidentally discover each other in their late teens. As if this wasn’t unusual enough, a mind-blowing twist midway through the documentary reveals the real reason they were adopted to three different families.
Network director of news and public affairs at Seven, Craig McPherson, says the best way free-to-air commercial networks can stand out from the big streaming service providers is by telling uniquely Australian stories. To that end they have produced true crime documentary specials this year: Murder In The Outback (7Plus) about the killing of British tourist Peter Falconio which had a national audience of more than two million for the premiere episode and The Lindy Tapes (7Plus) which took a behind-thescenes look at the Lindy Chamberlain case and drew more than 1.3 million viewers nationally.
“Often it’s about picking the right story to tell,” McPherson says. “Sometimes the ones that resonate have that iconic big-name appeal with viewers, like the Lindy Chamberlain case.”