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Navigating a career

Sea Patrol's Kristian Schmid tells TV Tonight how fortunate he is to have barely been out of work since his career set sail in 1987.

krisschmidActing duties on Sea Patrol are far more varied than most television dramas says Kristian Schmid, not simply because his day at the office finds himself aboard an Australian navy boat but because the filming limitations require the actors to have a greater grasp of episodic storylines.

Producers McElroy All Media have access to their ‘HMAS Hammersley’ for a limited window each year, meaning exterior shots have to be filmed for all 13 episodes at once.

“I think we’re the only television show in Australia that works this way,” says Schmid, who plays Robert J. ‘RO’ Dixon.

“We film all 13 episodes together. So on the first day of shooting we might film something from Episode 13, Episode 7 and Episode 1, which is one of the challenges of the show. It takes a lot of planning from the directors and the actors to gauge where you are at any one time.

“Most of us have a chart that sort of lets us know where we are emotionally. So much happens in the series that you have to keep on top of that. It’s probably one of the hardest challenges,” he said.

“Just physically carrying around 13 scripts a day is challenging as well!”

For the third series the cast had just under 3 months in Mission Beach, 2 hours south of Cairns with the majority of the time spent at sea. From here production shifts to the Gold Coast for studio work and some use of local beaches. Schmid says the Mission Beach waters are the most pristine he’s ever seen.

“The colours are absolutely phenomenal and it gives you an opportunity to film where you’re not going to have a boat or an island in the background. It takes about 20 minutes to get out to sea where all you see is ocean, which is what they want.”

The show has arguably become so successful for Nine, including with international sales to the Hallmark Channel, that it no longer receives the government funding it enjoyed from the Film Finance Corporation (now Screen Australia) for the first 2 series.

With mini-series funding came a requirement to incorporate on-going story arcs.

“The FFC had a start-up fund but only if it’s a mini-series. They won’t give it to series, so that’s why we were stuck doing 13 episodes. But that formula seemed to work because they’re followed it through with this series because we weren’t getting FFC funding this year,” he said.

“They decided to keep that story arc in, but they don’t have to be as stringent with it. I think there are a couple of episodes where that arc isn’t as important and then it comes back in other episodes very, very strong. So the audience can watch it from episode to episode and they should be able to pick up the arc as they go.”

Schmid clearly loves acting which he has been doing almost non-stop since 1987 when he first appeared on Neighbours. A few years ago he took time out to revisit his old haunt as part of the show’s 20th Anniversary Party and found it affected him in unexpected ways.

“I actually found it very, very strange,” he remembers. “It was great to catch up with some old friends but one of the girls I was working with, an Assistant Director at the time, brought out this photo. And pretty much everyone in the photo had passed away and I hadn’t really dealt with any of that.

“It brought up a lot of emotion because I grew up with these people. And when people like Anne Haddy passed, or our cameraman Joe passed away, and a couple of other people, it was like losing family members because during those formative years you grew strong bonds with them,” he said.

At the time he was working on the TEN soap Alan Fletcher was actually the show’s official photographer and Dr. Karl Kennedy hadn’t even been hit the screens.

“I think the only person that is still there when I was on the show is Stefan Dennis. Ian Smith was there obviously. Tom Oliver was a crossover. I think I did about a week or two weeks with Tom,” he said.

“Just goes to show how long I’ve been out of the show!”

Sea Patrol airs 8:30pm Mondays on Nine.

14 Responses

  1. One glaring point I would like to make out can be attached to any of these locally made Aussie shows.
    If these actors are all veteran, long term artists, trained at the most prestigious drama schools in the nation then why are they so awfully, terribly, bad.
    How can the casting directors possibly be doing their jobs when this is the kind of acting talent they come up with?

  2. Kristian served me at Myer in Sydney (main city store, music counter) in November 2000. I said something like, “I know you probably hate being asked this, but are you Kristian Schmid?” and he was extremely gracious and down to earth. I asked how things were going for him and he said he’d been for a few auditions lately and was feeling positive about his options and that the Myer job was just to fill in time between acting jobs. I wished him the best of luck, he thanked me and said that he appreciated it and I took my purchase and walked away very impressed.

    Great interview, David!

  3. ‘We seek asylum!’ squeeks one poor, hapless Asian stereotype as he is intercepted by the navy’s finest NIDA graduates and charged forewith with crap acting in Australian waters. Man, Nine’s ‘dramas’ are so clumsily naive, chucklesome and unsophisticated- Underbelly (cough!), McCloud’s Daughters (cough! cough!), that Gold Coast ‘crime classic’ from last year with Frank Holden that nobody remembers (had me in stitches!) and now a new series of Sea Patrol (say it ain’t so!)

    There is simply no accounting for the appalling taste of those lucky few (and few they are relative to the whole population) with Oztam people meters. Bert should knock together a ’20 to 1: Worst Channel Nine Programs’ (in itself a twenty part series)- Sea Patrol would be right up there.

  4. @ Mike K, @ BOQ, @ Ryan, @ Scott and especially @ David Knox;
    Profuse apologies for the tone of my correction.
    David does do a great job with this web site and I am a daily reader. I am also an avid Sea Patrol viewer. The quality of the show and the care that the production staff go to are rare in Australian Drama.
    While it may not be everyone’s cup of tea, it does a very good job of entertaining it’s audience both here and overseas.Once again sorry for the rather harsh words.

  5. It’s one thing to make a correction, there’s no need to be patronising.
    Anyway, as someone who has tried to sit through Snore Patrol several times, I can’t even remember what was supposed to be happening, much less any of their names.
    That’s not to say Kristian (and indeed most of the cast) doesn’t do a great job with what he has.

  6. @ Dirk…that was a bit rude. The article is more about the actor than the shows premise and storyline anyway, it was about behind the scenes and the complications and work the actors and crew put into it.

  7. An error is an error is an error. For the life of me I can’t remember where I sourced that Navigator reference from now to go back and check where it emanated from because I didn’t just dream it up. I’m comfortable it doesn’t undermine the crux of the story on a seasoned, jobbing actor. Most people spell his name SchmidT and I reckon that would peeve Kristian more. He was gracious to chat with me and hopefully people appreciate the rest of the article.

  8. Who cares what Dirk says…. thats not the focus of the story lol David does a fine job most of the time 🙂
    All i know is that I have loved Kristian ever since neighbours and its fantastic he is still as spunky as ever!

  9. Dirk, man, you woke up on the wrongside of the bed. It’s not that big a deal. How does this mistake make the story less authentic? Chill out.

    David, interesting article mate – I really enjoy these ‘insider’ articles about how the filiming works in practice.

  10. Dear David. As this article has your name on it I can only conclude that you wrote it. If that is not the case then please pass this comment onto the necessary person. Kristian Schmid actually plays the part of RO as you correctly point out, but RO is short for Radio Operator. If you have actually watched the show, as I’m sure you have, you will notice that the part of the Navigator is actually played by another featured actor who’s character is called Nav. See the pattern? Perhaps some research and a simple question to the interviewee, in this case Kristian, would lend some authenticity to your stories. Good luck for your journalistic future.

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