Like a lot of people, I donated to the Indiegogo campaign to
fund Medicine’s Dark Secrets, because I thought it was a cool idea and I wanted
to see it made. I have no idea if I was supposed to get a freebie or not, but
that wasn’t why I donated – I wanted to support an interesting project.
I was sad to see that the project had run into difficulties that
caused it to be delayed.
But much more so, I’m sad and upset to see the abuse being given
out to Big Baby Productions, and I’m really not prepared to sit by and let it
go unchallenged.
For anyone who doesn’t know, I was asked to come in and do
some work on the documentary earlier this year. There was a very good reason
for this. As I understand it, Lesley-Anne Morrison wrote a script for MDS,
based on a combination of Lindsey Fitzharris’ research and her own independent
research, which was necessary to provide enough material for the documentary. However, when it came to filming, Lindsey was not prepared to film
anything relating to research which was not her own. Why she chose to do so, I don’t
know. I’m not here to criticise her in any way and she may well have had good
reasons for doing so. Perhaps she simply felt that she was not prepared to read
anything she had not personally verified. I honestly don’t know.
Regardless, Lindsey cut large swathes of the script. I can
verify that, because I’ve seen the original script and I’ve seen the footage.
Initially, I believe she had intended to write the script herself, but ultimately
had not had time, which was why it had fallen to Lesley-Anne in the first place.
Whatever the reason, this meant that large portions of the
script were not filmed. There were huge gaps in the story, and the narrative
that Lesley-Anne had carefully constructed no longer worked. After trying to
reconstruct it for some time, she eventually approached me and asked if I would
be interested in coming in as a fresh pair of eyes, to look at the footage that
had actually been shot and construct a new narrative. I agreed and began
looking at it in January. We had reached the stage where we had a new structure
but one of the first things I identified was the need to add a narrator –
because the story simply did not flow without one. I began watching, cataloguing
and making notes on every piece of footage, while the video editor made up
rough cuts and selected the best footage from the raw materials.
And then, I got sick. And that set us back for about a
month, while I recovered. Sorry about that. My bad.
That delay meant we were going to miss getting a rough cut
together for a deadline we needed to hit for the chance to pitch the
documentary to networks, so we had to change tack. We focused on getting a
couple of trailers ready for the deadline instead. So we started work on that.
Then I heard that Lindsey had been in touch and wanted to buy the rights to the
footage and the whole project. So we stopped, obviously. There was no point in
trying to put together a documentary we weren’t going to make.
Gregg and Lesley-Anne at Big Baby have put years of work
into this project. It was Gregg’s idea, after coming across Lindsey’s blog. So
far, they’ve earned, to my knowledge, nothing for all that work. They’ve put their
own money into it and they’ve used funding to pay other people (not including
me, I should clarify, as I agreed to work on a contingency basis – i.e. I’d get
paid if and when they did) and cover expenses. So they were prepared to sell
the rights and footage at a fair price. What Lindsey was prepared to offer was
nothing like what they felt was a fair price for their hundreds of hours of
work. She obviously felt it was what she was prepared to pay, but the two
figures were miles apart and there was no realistic room for negotiation. So
the deal didn’t go through. These things happen.
We were ready to start working again, when I then heard that
Lindsey had decided she wanted to pull out completely and retracted permission
to use her footage. That meant we’d have to look at a completely different
format, without any of the material she appeared in. That was when Lesley-Anne
and Gregg came up with the idea of a web series using the excellent footage
they have of a variety of fascinating experts talking about the early
anatomists and the people who died. And it will be a great series, which
anyone interested in the topic will enjoy, I guarantee it. You will see things
you’ve never seen before.
But that’s not the main reason I’m writing this. The main
reason is this: Big Baby seem to have been turned into some sort of cartoon
villains and are getting some ridiculous abuse from people who simply don’t know
the story and have jumped to conclusions. Gregg and
Lesley-Anne have been and are still working their asses off (to the neglect of
other projects) to make MDS happen and are trying to field complaints and abuse
while they’re at it due to a situation they did not ask for.
There are no bad guys here, just a project partnership that didn’t
work out. Lindsey couldn’t write the script; Lesley-Anne did; Lindsey wouldn’t film
the parts she hadn’t researched; the footage was full of narrative holes and
that directly led us to here.
In an ideal world, the documentary would be finished now, we’d
all be watching it and toasting how cool it is. It’s not an ideal world. Stuff doesn’t
always work out the way you expect. But what I can guarantee you is that
neither Gregg nor Lesley-Anne are liars, thieves or any of the other nasty,
uninformed things I’ve read them being called. They’re a couple of extremely
committed, hard-working, honest professionals doing their damnedest to make the
best documentary they can. I absolutely stand
by both of them, both as professionals and people.
Here’s to seeing MDS online as soon as possible. You’re
going to love it.
Cheers!
Justin
