Must-Watch: WiseLines
Talk about thinking big. The new web series WiseLines not only tackles heavyweight topics such as happiness, friendship, love, fear and failure, it does so by interviewing some of Australia’s most familiar faces, including Ian Chappell, Noni Hazlehurst, Jenny Kee and Mike Carlton. There is nothing small-scale about this show – apart from its running time, that is. Each of the episodes lasts six minutes at most.
“The nature of today’s media cycle and social media is that we dip in and out of things very quickly,” says producer Anita Jacoby. “I wanted to make something that would provoke conversations around the dinner table.”
WiseLines is guaranteed to be a conversation-starter thanks to the surprising – and often surprisingly intimate – revelations that the interviewees share. They range from Ian Chappell’s memories of sticking by an imprisoned teammate to Jenny Kee talking about the happiness she gained from caring for her dying parents.
“All of them were very open,” Anita says. “Geoff Cousins was completely frank about when he was running Optus, how scared he was running this company with more than 2000 employees, but as CEO he was unable to show that fear. Fear is something we don’t often talk about, just like failure. Yet if you don’t deal with failure, don’t look at why you failed, you can never really move forward.”
WiseLines lands at a perfect time, with the pandemic forcing us to re-examine many of the truths we once took for granted.
“Part of the reality of this COVID period is that people have more time to reflect. With much of the world in turmoil, it is incumbent on us to have bigger conversations about who and what we are,” Anita says.
Few other producers could have assembled such an impressive group of interviewees. Having spent her career producing the likes of 60 Minutes, John Laws’ Foxtel show LAWS and Andrew Denton’s Enough Rope, Anita has both an impressive range of contacts and a proven ability to get people to open up.
Apart from being innately interested in people – she laughs that “at a dinner party, I’m generally the one asking a thousand questions” – Anita says that one of her strengths is knowing how to put guests at ease. “We filmed WiseLines in a very small studio so that we could create an intimate atmosphere,” she says.
Anita, who also ran ITV Studios Australia, now sits on a number of boards and mentors young journalists. “I feel like I’m putting something back into an industry that’s been very good to me,” she says. “I get enormous satisfaction seeing women leap ahead as a result of our conversations.”
She still finds time for passion projects, which include a book about her father’s life. “I’m about five drafts in,” she says. “I thought I knew everything about his life, but it turns out I knew very little.”
As for WiseLines – “wise lines being the lines on your face, the lines you say when you speak, the lines you write” – we may see more of the project after its initial nine-week online run ends. Given that each of the interviews ran for 90 minutes, Anita says that there is still plenty of material that deserves to see the light of day. “We don’t get to drill down in depth in these episodes, but they could make great podcasts or great books,” she says.
She has plenty of ideas for a potential second season, too. “There are so many people who have led considered lives – think of the likes of Stan Grant, of Eddie Woo. We can learn from people of any age.”
WiseLines, which can be seen on Facebook, is produced by One Stone Pictures in association with media executive, Anita Jacoby. One Stone Pictures is a creative production company, specialising in multi-platform content.
Words_ Ute Junker