Ross misplaces his inner Grant
It's obviously not easy being Ross Kemp. At his panel session he admitted to "wetting himself" when Taliban gunmen attacked him during the filming of the forthcoming Ross Kemp in Afghanistan (I think we can all forgive him that one). And then, when he went on a training expedition with his fellow troops from the Royal Anglian Regiment and he er, needed a number two ... they filmed him in the act and put it up on YouTube (tragically, though, Monkey can't locate the footage). And then he told us about the time when he was filming some particularly nasty rightwing Polish hooligans and they had posted another contingent of their gang on a nearby rooftop. "It was quite hard to conduct an interview with these people when they had these mates on a nearby roof waving knives and axes and shouting 'let's kill them'," said Kemp. Still, at least he knows how tough it is for fact gatherers in the field. "My brother's a journalist and my wife's a journalist so I know something about it," he said.
Text mystery
Steve Hewlett made an interesting master of ceremonies at the BBC interview with film-maker Adam Curtis. Before the interview began, the former Carlton programmes supremo asked delegates at Sheffield's City Hall to all take out their mobile phones (which should have course been switched off), turn them on and type in "Peter Dale" on predictive text - as well as the word "Angus" for some reason. Peter Dale spelt out Peter Fake while Angus - Angus who? Macqueen? - spelt out Angu? on Monkey's rather old Nokia phone. Very mysterious.
How to get ahead
When Curtis got to speak, he offered some interesting tips to budding film-makers on how to get to the top. At the summit of his list was lying. "When I pitched The Power of Nightmares I told Alan Yentob I was going to make a very traditional series about politics," he said of his groundbreaking 2004 series about the terrorist threat which was anything but traditional. "Television is full of really stupid people at the top," he added later in what Monkey did not take to be a reference to Yentob. "They are making really stupid decisions and you fight your way out of it and just lie." Perhaps not the best of advice in these fakery-obsessed times, but there you go.
Smug, us?
At a session called Question Time on Saturday, Wall to Wall boss Alex Graham proved to be in fighting form, railing against the coverage of TV fakery and taking particular exception to the way the press has, in his view, equated a fib about a Blue Peter cat or the snappy editing of The Queen doc on BBC1 with phone-in scams that have fleeced the public of £35m (these were Will Wyatt's figures, by the way). "One of the weirdest things has been taking ethical lessons from Fleet Street," he told moderator Mark Lawson. " And I am sorry to say that your paper the Guardian has been one of the more egregious and smug in this whole debate". How very very dare he, Monkey thought.
Camera shy
Still, none of the folk on the panel - Graham, film makers Brian Hill and Molly Dineen, Channel 4's head of documentaries Angus Macqueen, former BBC executive Will Wyatt and BBC2 (and acting BBC1) controller Roly Keating said they would be prepared to be followed around their jobs by a documentary crew. "No, absolutely no - I don't understand why anybody would go on television, although I am very glad they do," said Graham. Wyatt thought the answers reflected something quite worrying. "Everyone saying no doesn't reflect very well on what the documentary community does," he said with some oomph. And it was a reflection which also drew much applause.
What do you think you are?
Alex Graham also proved to be very touchy when asked whether his ratings-busting BBC1 geanealogy show Who Do You Think You Are? could be classified as a documentary. He didn't think it should, but said he baulked at what he called the "nauseating" notion that "there is this thing called documentary and everything else is a bit shit". Molly Dineen then cut through the froideur and mild gasps by gently suggesting that he might be a bit more careful about what he says as "this is a documentary festival".
Coming soon (possibly): Rolf Harris draws the news
Funniest session of the festival so far has to be indie filmaker Lee Kern on "How to be a TV whore". Prompted by Newsnight head honcho Peter Barron, he went undercover and pitched some absurd ideas to TV execs in a hilarious little film called Monkey Tennis (which was also shown in Edinburgh this year). And while this particular simian may be slightly offended by the use of its name and trademark (thanks Alan Partridge), some of the ideas were quite brilliantly awful. Watching ITV entertainment boss Duncan Gray lying on a sofa at ITV's Grays Inn Rd HQ mulling over ideas such as Urban Safari (people earn 5 points for spotting vomiting at a city nightspot, ten points for drug dealing etc) had to be seen to be believed. "This is way off tone," said Duncan who reminded the pitchers that his channel was the premiere commercial broadcaster in the country before adding a straight-faced: "There is something a little bit misanthropic about taking pictures of people vomiting". As for the idea "Rolf Harris Draws the News" he was almost stunned into silence. "That's ... really ... I mean ..." were all the words he could muster.
Card sharp
Kern also dazzled the assembled throng with his views of the industry after his film was shown. Monkey particularly liked the commissioners' Top Trumps in which Channel 5 programmes head Jay Hunt's special skills were "Nazis and Sharks". You also may want to remember some of his choice maxims should you ever be pitching ideas like his in future. "Only the poor knock at the door ... If you are a friend of the dollar there is no need to holler" were some followed by perhaps the best: "If you're not Shoreditch House then you're a louse". How tragically true that last one now seems to be.
Now then, Louis
Later on Saturday, documentary maker Louis Theroux proved am amiable interviewee (host: Andrew Billen) following the screening of his latest doc, Louis Theroux Behind Bars, in which he visits the notorious Californian prison and occasional gig venue San Quentin. He let slip to the audience that he and the producer of the great When Louis Met Jimmy (Saville) still visit the former Mr Fixit about every year in a hope that he will "tell them where the bodies are buried". So does he bring a camera, Monkey asked Louis after the talk? "We do but it is more of a personal thing, something for ourselves and I haven't done it for a couple of years." Right, so would you release another Jimmy Film? "I don't know ... the thing about the bodies was a joke." Monkey has to say that the great Louis doesn't look enormously comfortable when he is being asked the questions.
When Louis Met Heather? Alas, no
Still, Louis was prepared to spill the beans on other areas of his work. Apparently he has written to Heather Mills asking to make a film about her and she has politely rebuffed him. And he was on the verge of abandoning his film about the Hamiltons just before the bombshell of the false claims about their sexual assault hit the couple as he was filming. It may not surprise you to learn that the Hamiltons tried to renegotiate their fee once they realised they had become hot property again. Oh yes, and he does sometimes redo interviews but "not in any questionable way".
Keating's plea to Dineen
Molly Dineen dropped another bombshell in her appearance on the BBC Question Time. She said that she finds the BBC too complicated - or in her words: "I can't work my way through the BBC ... I am out of it. I don't know who you go to [to work for it]." So is that why they have missed out on so much of her recent work? "We'd love to have you back," Roly Keating told her, perhaps more in hope than expectation.
