What is most important in returnable formats?: a reliable structure or the freedom to surprise?
What is fundamental to returnable formats?
That was a question posed to an SBS documentary panel at the Australian International Documentary Conference in Melbourne this morning.
Bethan Arwel-Lewis, editor-in-chief of Factual for SBS Australia, said: “For me it’s about that affordable, predictable emotion that I’m going to experience when I want my hit of something. I often go back to similar series because I want that hit of comfort or surprise. But I think the most important thing is that I don’t think the content of the series is predictable. You have to be surprised in every episode, but the emotion is something I can rely on.”
Producer Jo Siddiqui (The hospital: in the deep, the secret DNA of us, Miriam Margolyes impossibly Australian), said: “I agree with that, but you also need something that has a really solid structure so that you know you can get back to that lean. Having a great cast certainly helps and finding a way to have a slightly different point of view to the same kind of shows that take place in that world.
But producer David McDonald (Shaun Micallef’s Origin Odyssey, Portrait Artist of the Year, Gogglebox, Lego Masters), suggested: ‘I think in a way you need the structure around it, because then you as an audience know what you’re getting into, what to expect.
“But I think you need the freedom in that to be surprising. I think as soon as you say ‘Format’ you think, ‘Well, is it going to be the same every episode?’ And that is ‘Format / Boring / Predictable’, you could say. So I think it’s great to have that structure, but then push against it in a way, hopefully to present something different. Something new.
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