Hearing the real story

For creator Kirk Docker it was a matter of taking the bare bones of that concept and turning it into I Was Actually There.

The series hears from eye-witness to events like Port Arthur and the Boxing Day tsunami to the 1964 Beatles tour of Australia and the moment AFL player Nicky Winmar pulled up his jersey and pointed out the colour of his skin.

Aside from not wanting to "make something that's crappy" Docker decided to take away from You Can't Ask That the plan to sit ordinary people on a stool in front of the camera and hear their stories.

But hear their stories about what?

They'd had their answer from an episode of You Can't Ask That where the focus was on disaster survivors - the Granville train accident, Cyclone Tracey, the Bali Bombings and Port Arthur among others.

"You felt like you weren't quite doing these stories justice having one person talk about it amongst eight other people in an episode, it was eight different stories," Docker said.

"So you realise so much hit the cutting room floor. And you heard so many versions of these events that you felt like you'd never seen or read or heard in the news.

"So we realised there was something in that."

There are some well-known people in the six-episode series, but Docker also wanted to shine a light on those who were also there that day but perhaps weren't in the spotlight.

"The thing with a whole lot of these stories is you really haven't heard from many of these people," her said.

"[In news coverage] you definitely don't get to hear the second and third and fourth tier person. All those people as equally important to us. We want to hear the unusual take from the person you never speak to."

Some of the participants needed some gentle persuasion to appear. Usually all that took was showing them a few episodes of You Can't Ask That so they could see the sympathetic way stories were treated.

Others required no sweet talking at all.

"Some definitely felt like that these stories need to be told, they need to be remembered and not forgotten," Docker said.

"That's definitely true for some of the people at Port Arthur. They don't want this thing to be something that is some distant memory. It should be remembered, it should be discussed and talked about."

Though one thing they didn't want to talk about was the murderer's name. Throughout that episode that name is not mentioned once.

Which was okay with Docker. As well as the worldwide trend not to mention the names of mass shooters to avoid giving the attention they so craved, Docker felt it worked within the narrative.

"It made sense in storytelling anyway because no one knew who he was," Docker said.

"If you were there in the moment, that's not a piece of information that you would have."

The shows all feature the voices of the witnesses in constant stream, without being interrupted by questions from an interviewer - who then will be compelled to include a few noddies to camera.

Here, the focus is on the people and their stories. Part of that is implied in having people sitting on a stool in front of a simple backdrop and looking straight at the camera.

We're here to listen to your story, the approach says. That story is enough, it doesn't need a comfy chair, a fancy backdrop or going out to shoot on location.

But they're not really looking straight down the camera, they're looking at Docker.

A periscope-like device with mirrors is in front of the camera and Docker is at the other end of that periscope talking to them.

It's all part of making people feel at ease, which is simpler if you're talking to a human face rather than a camera lens.

"They come in, feel relaxed and I'm just there to have a conversation," he said.

"I just want them to explain to me your experience as though we're sitting next to each other at dinner party.

"It's trying to create an environment where is as less a heightened experience as possible so that they feel comfortable."