SILENT STORM
Directed by
Peter Butt
Produced by
Peter Butt and Rob McAuley
Written by
Peter Butt
Film Australia Executive Producer
Anna Grieve
A FILM AUSTRALIA NATIONAL INTEREST PROGRAM.
PRODUCED IN ASSOCIATION WITH SBS INDEPENDENT.
Film Australia © 2003
www.filmaust.com.au
SILENT STORM
Did fallout from nuclear testing contaminate
Australia's milk supply?
SYNOPSIS
In 2001 scientists in a Melbourne laboratory made a startling discovery. They found
thousands of jars of ashed human bone, which had been stored for up to 40 years. All
contained evidence of one of the most dangerous poisons on earth – Strontium 90, a
by-product of nuclear testing that can cause bone cancer and leukemia. All had been
collected during autopsies, without consent.
Silent Storm reveals the story behind this astonishing case of officially sanctioned
“body-snatching”.
Set against a backdrop of the Cold War, the saga follows celebrated scientist Hedley
Marston’s attempt to blow the whistle on radioactive fallout from the British atomic
tests in Australia. Cities and grazing land have been contaminated, he claims.
Strontium 90 was in the milk supply.
Marston’s findings were not only disputed, he was targeted as “a scientist of counterespionage interest”. Yet the government’s own bone surveys proved his assertion
right. Despite attempts to bury the information, debate continues to rage. Is there a
safe level of radioactive fallout? And what could the health consequences be for the
generations of people exposed to Strontium 90?
SILENT STORM
DIRECTOR’S NOTES
In late 2001, while holidaying in India, I read Roger Cross’s splendid book Fallout
about CSIRO scientist Hedley Marston’s top-secret fallout experiments during British
Atomic testing in Australia in 1956. In the aftermath of two of the tests, Marston had
measured worrying levels of radioactive iodine in the thyroids of sheep and cattle.
Marston’s attempt to alert the public about the presence of a dangerous isotope in the
fallout – Strontium 90, which causes leukemia and bone cancer – was largely
thwarted by both the physicists on the Australian Weapons Test Safety Committee
and the government.
The issue of Strontium 90 had a strange resonance. I recalled a newspaper report a
few months earlier concerning the secret testing in Australia of tens of thousands of
human bones for Strontium 90 in the 1950s.
I contacted Roger Cross and told him my suspicion that the stories could be linked.
He agreed that there could be a connection.
Back in Australia, I set about researching the Strontium 90 bone survey in the
archives. My suspicions were quickly realized. The Safety Committee scientists - with
whom Marston clashed over his claims of Strontium 90 - had instigated the bone
survey almost immediately on receiving his report. In the report Marston argued that
the proof would be found “in the bones of children”. Indeed, documents from the
Safety Committee revealed a pre-occupation with the bones of babies, stillborns and
infants.
I knew this was a documentary just waiting to be made. Film Australia Executive
Producer, Anna Grieve, enthusiastically agreed. In early 2002, with Roger Cross on
board as historical consultant, I set about researching the complete story. Interviews
with scientists who worked with Marston as well as hundreds of top-secret
documents, personal correspondence and Marston’s ASIO file helped flesh out the
story.
The most exciting find was a tape, unlabelled and possibly never played for 47 years.
It turned out to be a telephone conversation, which Marston secretly recorded with the
head of the Safety Committee, following his initial discovery of fallout in sheep and
cattle. The sound quality was poor, but the character of Marston came through especially his anger about government assurances that the tests were safe.
While many photographs of Marston were available from CSIRO archives and
relatives, precious little was found of Marston on motion picture film. A seven-second
shot of the scientist, side-on to camera with a sheep, was not enough on which to
base a 52-minute film.
With Hedley Marston dead for almost four decades, it was clear that the only way of
telling his story was to dramatise it. An actor would have to be found to play the
large and larger-than-life character. Importantly, he would have to look comfortable
both in the bush and in a city laboratory.
Luck quickly played a part. Soon after, I saw the film The Dish. Actor Bille Brown, as
the down-to-earth, suffer-no-fools Prime Minister, John Gorton, jumped off the screen.
He looked and sounded just like Hedley Marston!
A few days later, I met with Bille Brown in Sydney and he immediately agreed to play
the part.
In September 2002, and with the pre-sale support of SBS Independent, Silent Storm
commenced production as a Film Australia National Interest Program production.
Over the coming months we set about recreating the world of Hedley Marston.
Miraculously, his corrugated iron-clad field station at Robe, South Australia remained
in original condition. The façade of his Adelaide laboratories and office also remained,
but the interiors had been completely modernised. After a desperate search, suitable
period laboratories and offices were found at the University of Sydney.
A search was also carried out in Australia and Britain for the specialized radiation
instrumentation fundamental to Marston’s discovery. The hunt was unsuccessful, so
we had a replica built using a photograph as a guide.
The most sensitive scenes to portray involved the bone sampling carried out by the
Safety Committee. More than 6,000 of a total 20,000 samples of ashed bone
survived, but were not available to the media for filming. Dramatisation again was the
only option.
For the production, I wanted a ‘filmic look’. I worked with cinematographer Calvin
Gardiner and post-production house Engine on a lighting style and colour-grading
solution to make digital video look like 35mm film shot in the 1950s.
We also decided to use Super 8 home movie film to bring the audience closer to
Marston, who by all accounts was not averse to being the centre of attention. Indeed,
in real life he was painted by leading artists Dobell, Murch and Gruner, and feted by
industrialists, photographers and the crème of society.
While shooting the early scenes at Marston’s Robe Field Station, a local farmer, who
with his father helped Marston on his groundbreaking work with sheep, took me aside
and said that Bille Brown had not only captured the look and stature of Marston, but
the character.
I can’t help wonder what Hedley Marston would have made of all the fuss.
Peter Butt
Writer/director
BIOGRAPHIES
Peter Butt – Writer/director
Peter Butt has been an independent documentary filmmaker for over 20 years. His
first film No Such a Place chronicled the rise and fall of the Glen Davis shale-mining
town and was selected to screen with Peter Weir’s Gallipoli in more than 60 cinemas
around the country.
Peter then produced programs for ABC’s landmark A Big Country series, followed by
numerous one-hour films, including Out of Darkness (about Australia’s prehistory)
Life’s Labour’s Lost (about the future of work) and China – The Long March (retracing
Mao’s epic retreat).
In 1988 he produced and directed My Father, My Country (for Film Australia, National
Geographic and the BBC). The film followed a woman’s epic trek through 2000 kms of
Papua New Guinea retracing her father’s 1938 patrol, which made first contact with
isolated tribes. In another Film Australia production, Sheep’s Back, Peter explored the
fading influence of the bush on Australia’s national identity. He also directed When
the War came to Australia, a four-part series about the home front (Look Films for the
ABC).
In 1996–97, he was writer, director and editor of another four-part series The Liners
(Rob McAuley Productions for the ABC, Channel 4 in the UK and the Learning
Channel in the US). The high-rating series, which charted the influence of the ocean
liner on world history, received directing and editing nominations in the 1998 AFI
Awards.
In 1999, Butt (in association with Rob McAuley Productions) directed, wrote and
edited Lies, Spies & Olympics for Film Australia, and in the same year, he also
directed a four-part history series The Battleships. In 2001, Peter directed and wrote
Fortress Australia, again for Film Australia.
Rob McAuley - Producer
Rob McAuley began his filmmaking career in Melbourne in 1956 as a member of the
Olympic Games Official Film Unit. Since then he has worked as an editor,
cameraman, director, producer, executive producer and writer, producing film and
television documentaries in Australia for over 20 years.
Many of his programs have a nautical theme. Voyage to the Tip of the Earth takes the
viewer on a yacht trip from Sydney to Tahiti, Easter Island and South America. The
Logie-winning half-hour documentary King of the Channel follows Des Renford’s
crossing of the English Channel while Ken Warby’s record-breaking feats are the
subject of a one-hour television special, The Fastest Man in the World on Water.
Another production, Little America’s Cup 1976, won first prize at La Rochelle
International Film Festival.
In Marathon and 16 Thousand Miles to Mexico, McAuley turned his attention to the
road to follow car rallies from London across the globe, while Window on the World of
Classical Ballet ventures behind the scenes at the Australian Ballet Company.
From 1981 to 1990, McAuley was a producer at Film Australia, where he worked on a
wide variety of projects including the official Bicentennial film Spirit of the Tall Ships
and The Human Face of Indonesia. During this period he also produced The
Entombed Warriors and Out of Time Out of Place for the Ten Network.
McAuley’s six-part series, The Sea and Australia, which explores the influence of the
sea on this country, was released in schools throughout Australia. From 1995 to
1998, he researched and produced the acclaimed four-part series The Liners for
ABC-TV in Australia, Channel 4 in the UK and the Learning Channel in
the USA.
In 1999, McAuley produced Lies, Spies & Olympics (for Film Australia's National
Interest Program), as well as a four-part documentary series The Battleships, and in
2001 produced Fortress Australia, again for Film Australia.
CREDITS
Featuring BILLE BROWN as
HEDLEY MARSTON
Director/Writer/Editor/Co-Producer
PETER BUTT
Producer
ROB McAULEY
Cinematography
CALVIN GARDINER ACS
PETER BUTT
Sound Design & Mix
JULIAN ELLINGWORTH
JULES SOUND
Transcripts
CLEVER TYPES
Vet
LEW SCHINKEL
Narrator
PAULA ARUNDELL
Scientists and Technicians
JANE RADFORD
ANDREW MITCHELL
SHANNON BURKE
RUTH NICHOLLS
ANDREW O’TOOLE
Music
GUY GROSS
Portrait Photographer
NICHOLAS MATTHEWS
Historical Consultant
ROGER CROSS
Farmer
VICTOR DAWSON
Wardrobe & Makeup
BEVERLY FREEMAN
Security Officers
GERALD MANOUGE
BEVERLEY FREEMAN
Camera Assistants
NICHOLAS MATTHEWS
TONY GARDINER
VELINDA WARDELL
PETER GARDINER
Additional Photography
SAM SIMPSON
Production Assistant
RUTH NICHOLLS
Post Production
ENGINE
Online Editor
JOHN AGAPITOS
3D Artist
NICK KALOTERAKIS - ENGINE
THE PRODUCERS WISH TO THANK
Andrew O’Toole, Arpansa, CSIRO, Bill
Marston, Dee Shaw, Geoff Pinkerton,
Glenmore Meats, Ian O’Toole, John Spooner,
Ken Parkinson, Maylene & Peter Cordia, Mick
Quinlan Watson, Nesla Boundy, Nick
Richardson, Paul Monagle, Richard Boland,
Robe National Trust, Roseworthy College,
Shirley Allen, University Of Adelaide, University
Of Sydney, Vivian Wilson, Yvonne Cossart,
Prince Henry Hospital Museum, Wakefield
Regional Council
ARCHIVAL SOURCES
ABC Footage Sales
Bechtel Nevada
British Pathé
CSIRO Publishing
Film Australia
Imperial War Museum
Pugwash
Screensound Australia
The Advertiser
US Dept Of Agriculture
US Dept Of Defense
US National Archives
Australian Academy Of Science
Australian Dept Of Defence
Australian Wool Innovation Ltd
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
National Archives Of Australia
University Of Adelaide, Barr Smith Library
US National Library Of Medicine
Production Assistant
SALLY CREAGH
Production Accountant
LISA CALDER
Executive Producer’s Assistant
REBECCA WEBB
GENEVIEVE DERWENT
No animal was harmed during the making of
this film.
Excerpt from Australian Journal of Biological
Sciences, No11 p382-398 (HR Marston, 1958)
with permission of CSIRO PUBLISHING
Produced in association with
SBS
Excerpt from THE NEWS (Adelaide) 9 October
1956 © Reproduced with the permission of
News Ltd
Commissioning Editor
NED LANDER
Footage from Trinity & Beyond courtesy of
vce.com
Producers
PETER BUTT & ROB McAULEY
FILM AUSTRALIA PRODUCTION UNIT
Executive Producer
ANNA GRIEVE
Business Affairs Manager
SALLY REGAN
Production Liaison
ISABEL PEREZ
A NATIONAL INTEREST PROGRAM
FILM AUSTRALIA Ltd
© MMIII
www.filmaust.com.au