Interview with “Silenced” Producer, Blayke Hoffman

Full transcript of Interview with “Silenced” Producer, Blayke Hoffman.

0:04KT: International human rights lawyer Jennifer Robinson takes audiences inside the courtroom and behind the global headlines to fight against the weaponization of defamation laws by alleged perpetrators to silence survivors and journalists. Silenced will be in Australian cinemas September 3rd, and we have the great opportunity to speak to producer Blayke Hoffman. Credentials, credits, credits, read up friends and lovers. Blayke, thank you so much for your time, and welcome to the For Your Reference podcast.

0:35Blayke: Aw, thanks so much for having me, KT. It's really good to be here

0:40KT: Through this podcast and interviewing filmmakers and producers and writers, you start to understand how much of a labor of love films are, and not just making films, I'm sure hopefully if we have time to get to the funding of it all. But there's a whole journey, and I guess for our friends and lovers just outlining Silenced premiered at Sundance and had the Australian premiere at the Sydney Film Festival for the opening, as well as most recently at the Melbourne International Film Festival. What a journey, Blayke. I just, I just wanna check in and see how you're feeling with the traveling with the film.

1:16Blayke: Yeah. Thanks for asking. Yeah, no, it's been a bit of a dream run with the film, uh, with Sundance, Sydney Film Festival, MIFF, and now we're about to open in cinemas on the 3rd of September nationally. Uh, yeah, I mean it started back in 2022 when I read Jennifer Robinson's, uh, book, How Many More Women, which highlighted this weaponization of the law that was happening that she was seeing in her work post-Me Too, with this moment where women felt empowered to come forward and share their experiences of gender-based violence. And what happened was this backlash, this legal backlash, if you like, of, um, defamation suits being used as a way to silence not just women, but also journalists who were reporting on these stories. So I read her book. I'd also been following the Depp v. Heard defamation case in the US that was happening that same year. Bruce Lehrmann, uh, the criminal trial of Bruce Lehrmann was also happening in Australia, and I was hearing a lot of what felt like really kind of antiquated tropes around, the women at the center of these cases and it felt like to me the issue was, um, being forgotten and that was the violence that was perpetrated against these women, against Amber and against Brittany. So when I read Jen's book, it really joined the dots on the, the legal component and I was like, "Right, we need to make a film about this." So I reached out to Selina Miles, who's the brilliant director of the film. We'd worked together previously on a film called Harley & Katya, and we started to work to develop the film and, and work out a way to weave these stories together, um, through our protagonist, which is Jennifer, Jennifer Robinson, and create the film that, audiences are experiencing at the moment.

3:00KT: 202- well, I was gonna say 2022 wasn't a great year in highlight for women, but I think every year unfortunately isn't a great year for women, even in recent, um I'm r— I'm happy to go here if you're happy to go here, but even in recent headlines for like from private schools to sporting institutions, it's not great for young girls and women, especially in this country, which is not great. Um, and I'm so glad you're flowing into the conversation we're having today. and it is important. It's very important. But also in your career and what you've been able to do, you didn't, quote-unquote, "have to." You didn't have to take that risk, even though I feel like a lot of us do feel like we need to. I guess for you and, and the way that the film was made with so much care, for you personally, what made you have to, like there was no other choice, you had to, needed to do this?

3:56Blayke: I think it's a really good question, and I think often, and I certainly, have felt this way at times in my life, where you hear or you see something and you feel, um, the injustice of it, but you don't quite have the language or the tools to, to speak up or to say something. And so with the power of the book and these women's testimony and the access to be able to, um, to be able to, uh, hear their stories firsthand, I felt like it was an opportunity to give the general public and audiences, those same tools and that same language so that the next time you're at the pub or out with your mates, you are able to, uh, have the language to be able to push back and reconsider the conversation. And I think, you know, filmmaking, we're im- we're incredibly privileged to be able to tell stories that can change the narrative and can shift the conversation. And so I really believe in the power of film to do that. So that's what made me, well, that's what put the fire in my belly to do this.

4:57KT: Yeah, and even reading through the press notes, it, it, the team that you had and the team that you built in order to make this, you can feel it on the Well, I could feel it on the other end, watching the film, and it's so important to have, you know, the, they talk about the male lens and, you know, the, the male gaze as well, and how important it is not just to get these stories, but making sure we're not being exploitative in a way or seeing, look at how much someone is bleeding metaphorically, symbolically. We can understand, like that film She Said, um, with Harvey Weinstein. I actually reference that a lot because it doesn't show it, but you understand it in a way, and this film absolutely did this. The role of producer is very fun because it feels like an anything and everything. Um, so whenever we get to talk to producers, it's always, you know, an extra, you know, fun sort of conversation, well, uh, given the subject matter, an interesting sort of conversation. So in this, um, in this case, you've read the book, you got it optioned, you've got everything. How does it then get made? Is it through trickles? Is it through big planning? Are you a big planning spreadsheet organizing sort of a Like, how do you get from screen all the way back to optioning the book?

6:09Blayke: Uh, thanks for the question. I hope I'm not gonna bore, bore the audience with the answer, but, um, yeah, thanks for asking. It's, uh, the f- we go through a process of, of financing, and so that requires, uh, bringing on partners to realize the production budget for the film. Um, in Australia we're really lucky because we have the producer offset, which is very helpful for filmmakers in, in getting their films made. we also have screen agencies like Screen Australia and at a federal level and, state funding agencies as well, so Screen New South Wales in our case. we, uh, also have a distributor, uh, Sharmill Films. Uh, we had, commitment from the ABC early on as well, and then we had, uh, partnerships with Minderoo Pictures, Shark Island Foundation, uh, a post-production reinvestment from our partners at Sound Firm. So it's a complicated, uh, process of putting together this finance plan, which is an Excel document that you spend a long time laboring over and, tweaking and refining and, uh, hustling, I would say, to make it, to make it all work. so yeah, it's a tricky part of the process, but obviously a really important one because without it there is no film.

7:26KT: No, and it, it, it do- obviously we get different questions. It's not necessarily what's the creative process of the spreadsheet. Yeah. It very much is the machine in order to get it done. And I guess Machine in a different kind of way, you know, documentaries are so much fun, especially during Sydney Film Festival. That's my favorite sort of films to watch. Um— Oh, it's great and it's, it's one thing to read or, like, listen, but to experience experiences and t- that's how you learn about different topics and issues around the world. The use of storytelling, the use of, quote-unquote, character or subject, even Jennifer specifically having that through line in a way that it feels almost too perfect the way it was written and the way it was in the film. But to have that tie-in, to have that anchorage of her grandmother and what she has been through, and also the need, we, you know, we, we've been talking about the need to do something instead of just sitting on the bylines, which Jennifer also talked about in the documentary. Like, what am I doing? Like, it- for everything that's going on, what's in my power? What can I wield? So I wanna talk a little bit about the use of storytelling and 'cause we know it's very powerful, but I guess from your point of view really bringing this together into the film, um, how was it being able to bring 'Cause storytelling can kind of feel a bit abstract, right? It's But it's, it's actually people's lives, and how was that being able to channel storytelling in Silenced?

8:59Blayke: Mm. Yes. Good question. I mean, i- it, I think we, we all, or I know that issues don't make f- make films. there can be an issue at the heart of it, but what audiences are going to engage with is storytelling. And, um, we were dealing with something that was also, you know, the law is very complex. It can be very heavy and difficult to understand and technical. And so for us it was all, it was all about character and all about the women at the center of these cases. Jennifer is our protagonist and our through line through the story. But when we got into it, what we discovered that these, first person testimonies from Brittany and from Amber and from Catalina and from Nicola Stocker, that was where the power of this, this story, really lay. And we had, uh, we had Selina, our director, and Michael Latham, our DOP, who's, you know, incredible, created a methodology for filming, which was all about having a really small footprint. So rather than bringing in, you know, multiple cameras and lighting and lots of infrastructure, it was a single camera, um, natural lighting in all the interviews, and making it feel very safe and, um, different to their women's experience that they'd had when they were on the stand or, um, being scrutinized in the media. So, um, that was very much a part of the, the methodology. Um, but I think just, you know, it's always been our process, even with documentaries, story, story, story, and always, um, throughout the process coming back to, you know, the whiteboard and, and beating out the story. and so that, those principles of storytelling very much inform the structural aspect of the film.

10:48KT: I wa— I wanna talk about safety for a little bit. we, How— How to Have Sex was a film that came out a couple of years ago, and in the interview, after doing research in the interview, um, the filmmaker actually shared their own experiences of sexual assault, which I wasn't necessarily prepared for, and I double-checked with PR and everything that it was okay to share. And it was one of those things of making sure that you're honoring the truth that is ready to be told. I obviously try to have an environment where we can be very open, and then I get surprised that people wanna be open and, and wanna share that much. But it's also making sure it doesn't become a soundbite. And the safety, at least in our small scale of the podcast, I also understand as a woman how important that is. And you also talked about reducing the crews for the interviews, especially for Brittany, and so much she experienced, to then be able to share again. You know it's that constant share and share again. Um, how important was safety for you to make sure that it was ensured throughout?

11:54Blayke: It was a priority and it's, it really informed every decision that we made, uh, from, you know, we started at the beginning of the process. all of the crew, everyone who worked on the film, um, went through a process of trauma-informed training, um, with the Dart Center for Journalism. And so that sort of set the foundations for us. And what we really wanted to do was to, uh, give, uh, the women Brittany, Amber, Catalina, uh, agency, in their stories and, really focusing on whilst retelling their stories and sharing those traumatic experiences, also, the fact that they had survived those experiences and they had gotten through those terrible times and there was strength in that. So hopefully our ambition was to make it an experience that was empowering for all of the, the women involved and that was, that was very much the focus. And then we had a, you know, quite sort of, uh, very, not quite, very rigorous, uh, legal process, uh, with counsel in different jurisdictions and, uh, even the way that we handled interview rushes. There was a, very specific methodology around that to ensure, to ensure safety for everyone involved because these women had been, involved in litigation previously and we didn't want to expose them to that again or ourselves, as well. We wanted to protect everyone involved in the making of the film. We obviously had a head start because Jennifer and her colleague, Keina Yoshida had done the wonderful work of writing the book and they are both in their own right, you know, legal, superpowers. So yeah, we, we had a great team and, and everyone understood the sensitivity and also the fact that it, everything on this project just took more time. Like it wasn't, it, it wasn't a standard production. Everything took more time. So as well as being good at your job, you also needed to turn up and understand that things would take longer and bring that sort of patience and care and sensitivity, uh, to all aspects of it. And I feel like, I feel really proud of our team, everyone involved that they really, that they really showed up and, and did the work and, you know, brought their best selves. It was a, it was a pretty life-changing experience I'd say

14:20KT: It, it is a bit cheesy, but I think it's just we need to care. Like, in this digital we're all so busy, we're trying to eat our hi- high powered— I know super food in between meetings. Like, we just need to care a bit more. and it's so nice to hear the behind the scenes of how the film was made, and you also talk about you not necessarily being, um, with all the legal jargon is also very It makes it accessible for audiences, as well. And I thought it was done in a very good way of being able to 'Cause it's one thing to be very technically or, like, legally focused, but to be able to have that resonate in a way of like, "That doesn't sound right, but it's the law." But then it's also understanding who's also in power. So I kinda like the there's so much rage, and I think we should be. I, I think, uh, uh, to, to not have rage about what's going on to young women and girls all around the world, which is the pattern that's connected, is there a temptation to tie everything into a bow when making a film like Silenced?

15:23Blayke: I don't think so. I mean, I think we wanted people to, uh, come away from the, the film and feel emotional. And whether that's, you know, there's lots of different emotions that I still feel when I watch that film coming out of it. Um, and I think it can be easy, um, to feel overwhelmed, especially with everything that's going on, in the media in the, in the last few weeks. but I think what I hope is that people will have a conversation. And those structural changes that we're talking about within the law, none of those happen if the culture isn't pushing for them. And so the more that we can talk about it, and the more that we can have these conversations, the more I feel optimistic about the law reform piece, which is happening. There are really great people out there working on it and pushing for it. But without the cultural piece, I just don't think it happens.

16:21KT: 'Cause culture shifts society.

16:24Blayke: Correct. Yeah. Um— And we have, we have to be able to keep having the conversation.

16:29KT: But I think that's the point. It's not necessarily finding a way to sugarcoat it. It's we need to have this conversation. And I also love that Silenced doesn't necessarily coddle you. It's like this is the situation. Mm. And even in your own little worlds, what can you do with that as well? I guess as a producer, how do you know, kind of in the same sort of vein, how do you know that the film is done, like the documentary is done? I believe at the time Amber Heard had reached out to Jennifer Robinson at the time of writing the book, so it's like waiting for ebbs and flows. So for Silenced, did you know when you wanted it to have a sort of conclusion to wrap up production?

17:08Blayke: Yeah. I think we had a fairly, um. I mean, the, Jennifer Robinson had acted for Amber Heard in the, the much lesser known, um, UK defamation trial that took place in the UK where Depp had sued The Sun, um, newspaper for calling him a wife beater, and had lost. And, um, Justice Nicol had found that 12 of the 14 cases of violence against Amber had occurred. Mm. So Jen, uh, had the relationship with Amber. She'd acted for her in the UK. She'd written about Brittany and Catalina and Nicola in the book. Um, so those stories were there. we, uh, we were f- fairly, um, structured in the way that we approached, um, the schedule and filming and, uh, so I feel like we all had a very good sense going into it of- the story that we were telling and how we were telling it. So I think that enabled us, to, you know, to, to know when the, the, the film was, was finished and done.

18:10KT: Well, I, I wanna thank you so much for your time and wrap up with our final question. It's also really cool to open a Sydney Film Festival for a film like this specifically and get people to lock in. But I wanna—

18:21Blayke: I know, I just have to say, you know, quick props to, um, the Sydney Film Festival team and Nashen and, um, Darren and the whole team because it was a bold move, I would say, opening that film. There was a lot of controversy, I think, going into it, particularly with the legal threats that we'd had coming off the back of Sundance. So it was a very bold and brave move. Um, and also really—

18:46KT: That's what it takes.

18:46Blayke: Yeah, exactly. To be bold. So props to props to the team at Sydney Film Festival.

18:51KT: To be bold is to be human, which apparently isn't easy for everyone.

18:55Blayke: Mm. I don't know It can be hard, but, you know, like it can be hard to speak truth to power, I think, sometimes. It's—

19:01KT: Yeah

19:01Blayke: hopefully this, this film gives people the tools to be able to do that a bit more in their everyday lives, so.

19:07KT: Yeah. Well, I, I am all for it. I, I am rallying right beside you. But I do wanna finish off with our, um, final question, and thank you for your time. Um, we finish off our reviews with a recommendation, so what would you pair with Silenced as a double feature? It can be a documentary, a TV series, a short film. Some people have been saying books and podcasts, so y— I, I guess you can go wherever you like.

19:30Blayke: Are we talking about the same issue?

19:32KT: Silenced.

19:33Blayke: Or just—

19:33KT: Well, some, sometimes people do same theme, sometimes people do completely opposite tonally. Yeah. It's up to you. Yeah. So if you're doing a double feature, what, what do we recommend?

19:42Blayke: Yeah. Look, I don't wanna, I don't wanna, you know, create a, a double feature that's too bleak, but I, I really love Marie Kreutzer's, uh, feature drama Gentle Monster. It also played at Sydney Film Festival. it also explores a very, um, difficult subject, which is, child pornography, and it's about a, um, woman that discovers that her husband is involved with child pornography, and they have a young son together. And I think the way that Marie, deals with that particular subject and shines a light on something that is actually, um, disturbingly quite prevalent is done in a very, very interesting and, um, sophisticated way. So that's something I definitely recommend. And, um, I know it, it, it can be uncomfortable, but I, again, it's, it's about telling stories that sort of open us up to often sort of the dark sides of, of, of, of humans, but important.

20:40KT: Yeah, absolutely. And non-gendered, but I'm a sad film indie gal, so I am at Sydney Film Festival with my little tote bag. I'll definitely take a long walk afterwards, but I love the idea of a double feature as like a double punch to society. Blayke, thank you so much. I took so much of your time, but thank you so much for your time.

20:58Blayke: Thanks so much, KT. Really great to meet you, and, um, yeah, thanks for your time.

21:03KT: Thank you.