A new documentary produced by Gillian Guthrie and Rob Simms of ITEM Media.  Beyond Fear is the story of how communities cope with the mental health consequences of fear and terror.  The advent of random terrorist attacks, a relatively new phenomenon in the western world, has revealed how psychologically vulnerable and unprepared the west is to handle the consequences of terrorism.  In countries where terror has a longer history, the psychological damage is immense.

In August 2004 psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, therapists, and academics gathered in Austin, Texas.  They hailed from the USA, Israel, Iran, the Gaza Strip, Chile, Italy, Spain, Australia, France, Germany and Canada.  They represented hospitals, clergy, community centres, disaster response groups, educational institutions, a diverse array of therapies, government agencies and academia.

Beyond Fear is based on that event but it speaks in two voices: that of the trauma specialists as they brainstormed how best to manage the psychology of fear and terror; and the voice of those ordinary people who have suffered directly or indirectly the horror or a terrorist attack, whose lives have been changed forever. 

Beyond Fear was commissioned by Pam Ryan, Managing Director of Issues Deliberation Australia/America.  ITEM Media had already made a documentary previously for IDA and was an obvious choice for this one.  The purpose of the documentary is predominantly educational, although it will probably air on PBS in the USA.  "It was a difficult film to pull together.  It needed to appeal on several different levels, painting a vast canvas across countries and cultures, offering insights into personal experiences, research methods, treatments and therapies, at the same time resisting political influence in a politically-charged environment", said Gillian.

The film will be used to help people exposed to terrorism learn how to deal with it.  As Gillian says, "There's been a lot of re-building in the physical sense, for these people, but not much in the mental sense.  They have to live with their experiences for life".

IDA have also entered Beyond Fear in to the Sundance Film Festival.

Beyond Fear took one year to produce (around other production commitments).  Gillian spent a month researching, then she and Rob travelled for five weeks shooting.  As well a shooting the conference in Texas, they spent time at the Pentagon, New York, Israel and the Gaza Strip.  They shot interviews with survivors of terrorism attacks and the emergency workers involved.  They had planned to go to Bali, but couldn't fit it in to the schedule.  They shot the documentary on DVCAM, Rob editing on Final Cut Pro.

There is quite a bit of archival footage involved in the programme.  Most was sourced from the ABC news archives and some from APTN.

Hullabaloo was lucky enough to be involved in the audio post.  Firstly we recorded Gillian's narration.  Then Dan spent two days with Gillian, creating the final mix.  The archival news footage had audio of varying quality, some requiring noise reduction, but most just needed to be flattened out.

We created a master stereo track for Rob to re-sync with his pictures in Final Cut and create a master.

Congratulations to Gillian and Rob on another great documentary.