ROZZI BAZZANI
OTHER WRITING
Before Hector one of my favourite projects was collaborating on the book for Gershwin The Musical a full stage musical based on the life of George and Ira Gershwin which was performed as part of Mebourne Summer Music.
We had the State Orchestra, the David Ashton Smith Singer and a wonderful cast led by John Waters as George Gershwin all on stage at Hamer Hall to a sold out audience.
Apart from writing the book I was also delighted to perform the part of Eva Gautier.
A little more detail here at Austage.
https://www.ausstage.edu.au/pages/event/106928
Halls of Fame
As a member of the publications committee of the RHSV I proposed a series of articles about public halls throughout Victoria. The idea was to make sure that the history of these wonderful and important community centres was not lost.
Given my own work as a performer had taken me to many different halls over the years I knew that there was a "secret history" behind then. With the Hall in Bradshaw Street Essendon my personal connection with the building (performing there many times) ensured that I had to tell the story myself.
TV Cops Take the Running
I am always interested in invitations to write and talk about Hector and Crawford Produtions.
My paper on Crawfords contribution to TV at the Powerhouse Museums celebration was published by Murdoch University in the Australian Cultural History Journal
Here is the extract
Academic OneFile
Title: TV cops take the running
Author(s): Rozzi Bazzani .
Source: ACH: The Journal of the History of Culture in Australia.
Document Type: Viewpoint essay
Article Preview :
Hector made us see that Australians could be part of a fictional world. He broke that down in TV, which flowed into film. Then people couldn't wait to see our films. I think Hector had more to do with launching the Australian Film industry than anybody else. Gil Brealy (1) Hector Crawford is a towering figure in Australian television. The Melbourne-born musician-turned-producer made an impact on the first fifty years of television and without his presence the history of Australian television would have been very different. The story of how Crawford television drama, against all odds, found its way on to the small screen and showed up a languishing Australian cinema is a fascinating one to tell as we look back over fifty years of television. It helps us to understand why Australian television drama did not develop as it had in America or Britain, and why, in contrast to those countries, television drama here led to the development of a film industry, rather than the other way round. Crawford was convinced of the coming importance of television while still a radio producer, and was eager to produce programs for television because it was, in his view, the most powerful medium for the communication of ideas. (2) He believed television had a special image-building role to play for Australia; it could 'make a vital contribution to the development of a specifically Australian consciousness and a sense of national identity'. (3) Firing off letters to politicians before TV transmission commenced, Crawford signaled his intentions: 'You will be aware of the fact that omission to protect the Motion Picture production industry in this country has resulted in our being unable to establish this industry here, except on the most minor and intermittent footing. That this story should be repeated in the television field would be a tragedy'. (4) Knowing it was only wartime restrictions that had delivered Australian-produced radio (5), Crawford was adamant that television should not be hijacked by British and American interests as early radio had been, or backed into a corner like the nearly extinct film industry, where an Australian voice was barely audible. Television was important because it carried the hope for Australia to finally see and hear itself dramatised onscreen. (6) Crawford Productions ('Crawfords') emerged in the context of both the 'withering away' of Australian feature production soon after the Second World War, and developing government policy in relation to the establishment of a television industry for Australia. (7) In such a context, Crawfords rather than a reborn film industry emerged as a vehicle for cultural nationalist traditions. As television ownership lay mostly in the hands of influential print owners, whose interest in the medium lay in finding the easiest, most cost efficient and 'entertaining' way to sell their advertising time (8), Crawford's contrary view that TV should also enlighten a mass audience about itself was given no credence. Investment in television for them was the same as it had been in radio, something designed to deliver...
Source Citation (MLA 8 th Edition)
Bazzani, Rozzi. "TV cops take the running." ACH: The Journal of the History of Culture in Australia, no. 26, 2007, p. 113+. Academic OneFile, Accessed 28 Sept. 2017.
