David Batty has spent more than 45 years making films, documentaries and TV about Aboriginal communities in remote Australia, most notably Bush Mechanics and Black As. Photo: Supplied.
For more than 45 years David Batty has been working with Aboriginal communities in remote Australia, making films, documentaries and television shows, most notably the hilarious, wildly popular Bush Mechanics and Black As.
His epic adventures led publisher Harper Collins to approach him about writing a book. The result, Batty’s Bush Bible: How to do Australia, launched in Bermagui on 27 November.
David and his brother Philip grew up in Wollongong where their parents, being keen bush walkers and canoeists, instilled a love of the bush, outdoor adventure, and the natural world.
In the 1970s Philip took a position as an art teacher in Papunya, an Aboriginal community some 350 kilometres west of Alice Springs.
“In those days it was just unheard of for people ‘down south’ to be involved with Aboriginal people,” David says.
In Alice Springs, Philip met Freda Thornton and John Macumba. Together they established the Central Australian Aboriginal Media Association (CAAMA) in 1980, Australia’s first Aboriginal media organisation.
CAAMA started a radio network. It broadcast across Central Australia in Aboriginal languages and nurtured Aboriginal musicians.
As a young single dad, David needed a new direction in life and headed to Alice Springs in 1981.
It wasn’t long before David got a job with the Alice Springs Education Centre loaning out audiovisual gear, including VHS video recorders. That allowed people from bush schools and communities to capture school sports days and general goings on in their communities. This was way before satellite television had arrived.
David had some background in audiovisual media after attending part of a course at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology. As a single dad without anyone to look after his son, he was unable to finish it.
“Going to a place like Alice Springs, it was easy for me to just say I was an AV technician,” David says.
David Batty made Manyu Wana, a series of 10 Sesame Street-like TV shows made in Waripiri language. Photo: Supplied.
As a result of the new VHS video gear being loaned out, he ended up with heaps of material but as VHS video was new on the scene there was no means for the schools to watch it.
The centre got a grant for an edit suite and David did a week’s course at Sydney’s Film and TV school to learn how to use it.
He created The Look Show from everyone’s videos with a young Aboriginal woman as presenter. It was distributed via industrial video cassettes and was a huge success.
“It was like Australia’s funniest home videos,” David says. “Without satellite television, there was nothing else but The Look Show.”
As the only one in town with access to video equipment, he was in big demand to make films for local Aboriginal organisations and community groups.
As CAAMA Radio grew, video was the next logical step. David moved to CAAMA to establish a video production unit with four Aboriginal trainees.
CAAMA was then awarded a Remote Commercial Television Service licence. At that point, David established his own production company, Desert Pictures.
Every film, documentary and TV show that David Batty has made has been at the invitation of the Aboriginal community. Photo: Supplied.
He was soon inundated with film work throughout Central Australia.
To counter the arrival of commercial TV, the Yuendumu community asked him to create something like Sesame Street in Waripiri language. This was the beginning of his magical partnership with Francis Jupurrurla Kelly.
Over four years, he made 10 Sesame Street-like TV shows called Manyu Wana. Again, it was universally loved.
Years later, the Yuendumu community asked David to make a film about young men and cars.
“I did a recce and teamed up with Francis Kelly, came up with the idea of the Bush Mechanics, and pitched it to the ABC and the Australian Film Commission,” David says.
David had a rough script, and a “crummy camera”. He used the sound booth he had made for Manyu Wana with a microphone and a fridge’s cardboard box packaging.
Bush Mechanics screened on 11 September 2001. The ABC immediately commissioned four more.
Between making many more films and documentaries, David received an email from four young men in Arnhem Land who wanted to make a TV show like Bush Mechanics.
The first episode of Black As screened on ABC iview on a Thursday. By Monday it had 23 million views, making it one of the most popular shows ever on the ABC.
David can talk for hours about his wild experiences in remote Australia with his Aboriginal mates.
His new book, with its irreverent humour, will teach people “how to do things safely without wrecking the place and how to keep their car going when it breaks down”.
“Get a laugh out of some of my yarns, get informed and get out bush.”
Batty’s Bush Bible: How to do Australia is available via Amazon or a range of online bookstores.
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