Best of INPUT - Sydney, Australia

Jo Raknes from NRK talks to participants of the Best of INPUT event in Sydney, Australia via Skype

A Best of INPUT event was run as part of the Australian Director’s Guild annual conference in Sydney in September 2008.
INPUT screenings ran showing 18 programmes from previous INPUT Conferences to an eager audience.

The sessions provided a unique platform where 18 programmes were screened then discussed with the director, commissioning editors, producers and audience through a facilitator.
The debates are characteristically open and frank (definitely not for the fainthearted) and they focus on the craft, politics and aesthetics of programme making. Programme makers from around the world was present at the conference via Skype and local session producers include Tim Slade, Graeme Isaac (NC Australia), Julia Overton (NC Australia) and Poppy Stockwell.
Programme makers were brought to the screenings via teleconferencing using Skype, with a telephone number as back-up. Despite some instability in several of the calls, the Skype discussions were extremely successful – very intimate and relaxed – and the discussion was really good. Using Skype also seemed to be working for the programme makers who participated in this way. This was the first such INPUT event in Australia and there is no question that video conferencing will be a standard feature of future Australian INPUT events.