Hi, I'm Rachel Perkins and I'm going Back to School with Student Edge.
Hi, I'm Simon Miraudo and today we're going Back to School with Rachel Perkins.
Hi Rachel.
Hi Simon.
Thanks for chatting with us today.
Yeah, no worries.
Tell us, what were you like as a teenager?
Look, probably quite difficult.
I wanted to sort-of be out in the world rather than at school, I think.
I look back on that with some regret, actually.
Because I missed out on a really good education.
But at that time, I was searching for something else.
I have Indigenous heritage and I was sort-of looking for Indigenous culture and Indigenous
knowledge, and it wasn't really on offer at my school.
So, after I finished college, I just headed back to Alice Springs, which is where my father
came from and sort-of found it there.
But in my later life I really regret, actually, that I didn't pursue what was on offer, you
know?
What was on offer from all those teachers, more.
Were there subjects that you did kind-of respond to or did you feel overall, 'This school isn't
speaking to me.
This is not what I want right now'?
Oh look, photography, I was interested in and look the last year I was at school they
introduced an Indigenous Aboriginal studies class, but it was a very archaeological-based
course, and I thought, 'Well look, I can go on to university, I can do anthropology, I
could do archaeology,' but actually, it's a very distant way of looking at Aboriginal
knowledge and Aboriginal culture.
I wanted to learn it from my own people.
So, that's why I went back to Alice Springs.
But I did very well in Indigenous studies, because that was a passion of mine.
So, when did filmmaking become a driving force for you?
Well, I fell into filmmaking.
I was very lucky.
So, I think it's great if you can get into a career early, that you love.
So, I left college in Canberra, where I'd done the bulk of my education, and went up
to Alice Springs to apply for this traineeship.
I applied for something that was like a TV presenter job, which I didn't want to do,
but I wanted the airfare to get to Alice.
But they gave me another job in the newly-established TV unit.
That was a wonderful thing.
So, at 18, I'd sort-of found, I was in this traineeship, I was making programs very quickly,
shooting stuff, recording sound and doing a bit of editing.
It was just a great entree into a career and I've been just doing that ever since, non-stop.
Haven't stopped, really.
Do you look back on that as like, this is the way to get into filmmaking?
You've actually just got to put your feet on the ground and just do the work, build
a folio?
Is that kind of the best route in?
It's one of the routes.
I mean, I think with filmmaking it's very competitive obviously, because it's such an
exciting industry and a lot of people want to be in it.
But the great thing is now, is that the technology is much more in everybody's hands.
Like, you can access cameras much more cheaply, you can edit it at home.
Most people, not all people have access to that technology.
It's much more democratised now.
So yes, making a film.
There's no real excuse why you can't make a film.
And you will be judged by the quality of your storytelling and your filmmaking, and of course
there's much more opportunity now around Australia for you to do film courses.
Film is studied in school and obviously you can access that material, so, other people
that I know, like Ivan Sen, wanted to study film, he made shorts, he went on to university,
did a BA there, and then went on to film school.
I think it's always important to get...
I mean, for me, I went to film school as well because I wanted to know the language and
the history of cinema, so I could talk about film to the crews and other people.
I needed the language and the theory behind it.
So, it's always good to know the context and the canon of work that's behind filmmaking
and the language and the theory around it, but then you can throw that away, and once
you know it, bend the rules and do whatever you want, and I think that's the great thing
about filmmaking, it's always really re-inventing itself.
Now your parents were both activists.
Were they on board with this as a career path?
Yeah, absolutely, they encouraged me.
My father said to me - who's Charles Perkins - he said to me, "Look, you know, you get
an opportunity, that's fine.
But it's what you make of that opportunity.
It's what you do with it."
So, I was very conscious that through this traineeship, I'd been given an opportunity and
I was going to really do the best I could.
I've strived to pursue excellence in everything I do.
And I've found that success builds success.
But that takes hard work and it takes sacrifice.
And when everyone else is at the pub going out, you're still reading that book or researching
that film or editing that film or getting organised or making the sandwiches to feed
the crew...
Oh really?
Everyone else is having a good time, and you're there doing the hard work.
Hard work pays off but it only comes with hard work, so the opportunity you might get,
you really have to apply yourself.
Well, you've put Indigenous storytelling at the forefront of your work.
Do you feel that representation matters significantly?
And have things improved in the years that you've been working?
They certainly have.
Twenty years ago, there just weren't Indigenous people on television.
The only place you'd see them was maybe running across a football field.
Now we're slowly, we've seen a change; we're seeing that the ABC and SBS, that's part of their
core content, that they create.
And we're seeing even in the commercial channels, Indigenous people getting mainstream roles.
I think we've got a long way to go.
If you look at how Australia compares to, say, England and America, you see much more
diversity.
Obviously we've still got a long way to go in terms of the LGBT community being represented.
We have a particular reluctance for casting Asian people of colour on our screens.
So, we've got a lot of work to do; we're behind the rest of the world in terms of representation.
But, that said, we know that we've got to get better at it.
Just wrapping up, you mentioned this earlier, but when you do look back on your teenage years you have
some regrets, you've said.
What would you do differently if you could?
Well, I think I would have taken up the opportunity that education offered me, rather than deliberately
avoiding learning anything much.
I would have loved to read the classics, I would have loved to understand more about Australian
history and religious history; political history.
I would've just liked to know and digest more of the knowledge that's on offer in the education
system.
But look, I was a little bit of a rebel and I had to do that to go and do something else. I had to get out of Canberra, leave that,
and that enabled me to become a filmmaker, or I might have gone on to university and
done something quite differently.
But that was the path.
I don't really regret it.
I just feel the loss of it now in my later life.
I think maybe I might return to education and perhaps return to university - or not
return - go to university in this later stage of my life.
Just to enjoy all the richness that is there and the human history of knowledge that's available
and that universities offer.
Sounds great.
Look, a rebellious streak is not always a bad thing.
I mean do you feel like you still maintain that to this day?
I don't think it's a rebellious streak, I think it's probably just an ambition and an
aspiration to push outside of boundaries I think.
I think I got that very much from my father to not accept the status quo, to want
something more, to push for more.
To live life.
He was a kidney transplant survivor and so he realised the value of life and he engendered
in us a real appreciation of life.
You've got a very limited time on the planet.
It's up to you how you're going to live your life.
Live it to the fullest and make the choices that will give you a fulfilling and challenging
and therefore interesting life.
Rachel, thanks so much for your time today.
Pleasure.
Hey everyone.
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