Series Creator Adrian M Sherlock talks about the Damon Dark experience.
"DAMON DARK was created around 1986.
In 1985, I finally got to see a series which had haunted my imagination since early childhood, Gerry Anderson's UFO.
But they failed to screen the episode which stuck in my brain, the eerie TIMELASH!
Shortly after, I started to get bored with all the outer space and SFX stuff in Science Fiction and in my mind, I concieved
of a series about a pair of government Agents who dressed like plainclothes investigators and looked into UFO reports and
other strange stuff, like ghosts, telepaths and time travelers, in our ordinary, every day world.
I needed a name for my hero and I got this from journalist David Dark, who died shortly thereafter. (I got an email from
Melissa Dark a few years ago, who said David Dark was her uncle and a much loved and missed family member. As a fan of his
journalism, I was proud to name a character after David.)
I thought it polite to change the name slightly and I took Damon from the U.S writer Damon Knight, famed for the Twilight
Zone classic "To Serve Man".
Thus Damon Dark was born!
I named Department Six after The Prisoner, Number Six!
The idea was developed on scraps of paper for a while and eventually became a falied attempt in 1992 to make a feature
on 16 MM. My lack of experience caught me out and I overexposed the film. My long suffering cameraman was alienated by this
experience. Not my finest hour!
Damon Dark finally got a shaky but watchable debut in an 8 minute silent film shot on Super 8, with my friend Wayne Monk
as a Terminator-like robot. Hardly auspicious, but a step forward!
Finally, I got in touch with Helen Webber of SHADO-USECC fan club and then wrote to Ed Bishop, the star of UFO himself.
Ed very kindly and generously agreed to visit Australia and appear in a Damon Dark video. Sadly, this project fell through
after a misunderstanding with my partner on the project and Ed withdrew. Looking back, he was very kind hearted and generous
to offer his support, but I was probably too inexperienced to really do justice to his efforts. But I will always be
grateful for the interest and support he showed me.
It could have been interesting to have Ed involved, though, as he had some amusing and interesting suggestions about
how to portray the character which may or may not be Straker, many years later. He thought it might be fun to have him reduced
to washing dishes in a restaurant to make a living...a pity we never made that!
Next chapter of Damon Dark was when I met a wonderful, talented and good-hearted lady named Susan Anderson on the set
of the film AMY, and she and I decided to make our own short film and see if we could sell copies. It was a bold undertaking,
a bit ill advised perhaps, but still...the quality of the episode TIMEJUMP (Working title: TIMESLIP) was quite high, in terms
of production, featuring some spooky lighting and brilliant, wonderful horror make up! Editing was the biggest let down and
this was a problem I encountered continuously, there was no digital computer editing around in those days (1997!) unless you
had big bucks to throw around. Now I can recut the film for nothing on my home PC and polish it to perfection.
TIMEJUMP starts with Damon and Agent Candy Ryan (Susan) already well aware of an alien menace and the alien menace aware
of them and trying to kill them. In fact, at the start, they discover their own murdered bodies, and the zombie who killed
them (The giant Rob Philips, a fantastic guy!) and realise they've time slipped into the future by just half a day!
I've lost touch with Susan, but she was a nice lady and I am grateful to her for helping me get Damon Dark off the drawing
board at last.
Next up, I got involved, through a friend, with ERA TV, Eastern Regional Access Television, a branch of Channel 31. They
were based just up the road from the parents of my then-new girlfriend, Jennifer Douglas, so it was obviously destiny!
Alan Rimmer, the lovely sweet chap who was the head of ERA TV, was very encouraging to me about the idea of screening
a series of DAMON DARK on Channel 31. I foolishly thought the mainstream TV people might see what I was doing and offer to
develop my series into something professional, or give me a job, or any damn thing. But it never happened, of course!
I roped an old acquaintence into the project, Karl Siemon, a terrific guy and a very talented film maker, and we became
great mates. Karl directed MADDOX, the three part serial as it became, and we were lucky enough to cast the talented and charming
Niobe Dean as Agent Veruca Stone. Niobe has gone on to act in the film Star Wars: Broken Allegiance and was already a model.
(Please see Niobe Dean's website and the Broken Allegiance Web Page for more information about Niobe, an actress who deserves
a lot of big breaks!)
I've coincidentally acted in two other films with her since, notably COPOUT, by Gawain MacLachlan of FILMNET fame. (See
Fimnet for COPOUT details).
Andrew Dunn (who was a prison guard in the movie CHOPPER) played the part of Maddox and I think he made a good job of
it, overall, a convincing media tycoon who develpos from merely corrupt and bitter to completely insane, and possessed of
pscyhokinetic powers and ready even to betray his alien benefactors in his final bid to dominate everything and become a God! He
was a nice guy, good old Andrew, but I think he was a little troubled by the rather disorganised approach which Karl and I
were taking. But we knew what we were doing....sorta!
Steve MacPhail was a fanatastic guy and a knockout actor and I was utterly blown away by his performance as The Coordinator
of the secret service. He just turned up, knocked us all dead with a stunning performance and left. What a guy! I'd love to
work with Steve again, a top bloke in anyone's book! Where are you Steve, I miss you, Man!
The next big thing was that I managed to cobble the Maddox thing together as a rough cut (very, VERY rough cut!) and,
foolishly, I screened it at Aussiecon Three, the 57th World Science Fiction Convention, which just happened to be on in Melbourne
that year (again, it was destiny!). Boy was that asking for trouble! Aussiecon attracts dedicated SF fans from around the
world, but we're talking lit fans, (a tough crowd with no mercy for a lack of careful editing in the script department!),
and here am I presenting a no-budget SF thriller with the bloopers left in! Sheesh!
What's worse, Michael J Strascynski is there, as guest of honor, the creator of big budget U.S series Babylon 5. Now
this guy is talking to the crowd right before my Damon Dark debut, and he's cracking so many jokes that it's like a warm up
man for the crowd before a comedy.
So they show my dramatic SF thriller, Damon Dark, and the crowd roars with laughter at every cheap bit, stupid line or
mistake which needed to be cut.
It was pure AGONY to sit through that, utterly humiliating, but again, it's destiny, so...I was meant to experience this.
It did teach me a valuable lesson about film making. Editing is worth every penny and you need to make damn sure you
are tough on your film and cut anything which is a bit crappy or pathetic, coz the audience will be even more ruthless than
you! As my late, great friend Trevor Billingham BEM once said to me, "you never forget pain".
Next up, Damon Dark was screened on Channel 31 for five weeks, on Thursday nights at 11 PM, after the music, and made
it into the TV Guides and all! (I felt like I had arrived, achieved my dream! It was bliss!)
The episodes were Timeslip, Maddox part one, two and three and It's After Me.
It's After Me was a quickie I filmed at my girlfriend's place, in which Maddox's alien ally turns up at Damon's Mother's
house to kill him...but its a shape changer, a "Chameleon Assassin", and it's turned into a copy of Damon. In the end,
it turns into his Mother and he has to stabe her, without knowing if its the alien or really his Mother! Jennifer Douglas's
Mother Faye, played the part and she was bloody BRILLIANT! A perfect performance!
All this TV exposure on Channel 31 led to a lot of colorful responses.
At one point I had a call from the head of the Australian cinematographer's society who said he'd seen the series and
thought it could be turned into quite a saleable product with a bit of spit and polish.
I also heard from a guy who reckoned he the Damon Dark fan club or something and he has the quote "I assume you're not
ordering a pizza" on his screensaver.
I was also interviewed on RMIT student radio for the program Wookie Radio. This guy had taped the series too!
I even heard a director from the SF series Time Trax loved Damon Dark!
A friend from the theatre broke my heart by telling me it was a great comedy! But the ladies at my friend's Cafe were
seriously unsettled by the scene where I stab an alien who looks like my Mother. They thought I was psycho or something and
wanted to REALLY kill my Mother and I'm like, "it's only a show, y'know!" (sheesh! I happen to really like my Mother!)
Next came the attempt to cross the line into professional territory once and for all. Jennifer Douglas decided to co-produce
the next Damon Dark film with me, but kind of took charge in the end and, for various reasons, I was really left out
of the loop. She made no bones of the fact that she felt the first five Damon Dark films were largely terrible (I could not
convince her that it was really the editing) and she set about producing the next film in as flashy as way as possible.
To her credit, she was a former event organiser and she managed to attract several exellent sponsors who provided impressive
production values.
Mike Seager, who had done the music for the Channel 31 series, (at last...someone I am still in touch with! Woohoo!)
did the music again and it was brilliant as always.
Most importantly, Jennifer managed to get the help of Chris Langman and James Kalish to direct the episode.
Although my confidence was at a low ebb after the negative responses I'd copped about the way Maddox was recieved
at Aussiecon three, I knocked out a script which served to set up Damon Dark, the beginning of the story, how Damon first
learns of the aliens and becomes a UFO Hunter, after investigating a supposed ghost sighting and discovering it is a visit
from his yet to be born son from 20 years into the future...when Earth belongs to the aliens!!!
This story, which I now call DARK DESTINY, was the Pilot, the beginning of the story. (Timeslip and Maddox start with
the alien versus humans battke already underway in our time and the future undecided).
Chris Langman is a seasoned director on such series as BLUE HEELERS and James was one of his students. Between them,
they shot Damon Dark, the Pilot with great skill and flair. I felt the horror and suspense side of things could have been
better, but overall, it works a treat, a great beginning to the story.
Sadly, I did not get to play Damon. Jennifer made the decision to hire another actor, for various reasons. This was sad
for me, but I liked the actor.
Bruce Hughes was cast as Damon Dark, and despite a British accent, he is every inch the same character and played the
part very well. Bruce is an experienced actor, but not famous in Australia, but has appeared in things like OCEAN GIRL.
I thought Bruce Hughes was a really nice guy, a dedicated professional and he really wanted to take the part seriously
and do a good job.
I was very impressed when I met Bruce that he took me and my creation seriously and wanted to understand the character.
I explained that I saw Damon as a witty guy with a sense of humor, who uses throwaway remarks and humor as a defense mechanism,
but underneath, he is taking his situation very seriously. He seemed to really tune into this, though some of his witty lines
were cut in the script editing phase. But he caught the character essence very well indeed!
I think when I see him in the role, Damon Dark could have been like the new revived Dr.Who which the BBC are now making.
Bruce was a true professional. He worked under difficult circumstances and there were a lot of things he probably had to put
up with, and to his credit, he hung in there and made a go of it. His Damon Dark is a credit to the character and it makes
me proud.
Fiona Harris, now starring in comedy TV Series SkitHOUSE, played Verushka and Randall Berger was the new, American Coordinator.
Katrina Mathers, an indie film maker of considerable distinction, played Helen and Matt Norman of the Actor's Cafe, appeared
as the alien possessed heavy Harrison.
What precisely happened next is very little. A pity because the basic idea, while simple, has the potential to be as
big as anything on the box.
However, since Damon Dark is my creation, even though all these good people have lost touch and gone on to their
own things, I am still carrying on with it in my own way, trying to promote the basic premise and bring it to the attention
of the world.
I have my own video facilities now and have recut all the Damon Dark material I have, which is great practise if nothing
else. I have also made a little Damon Dark episode called The Time Bubble, which features a boy I tutored, Stephan Koutsonas,
who appears in a time warp scene with me.
Damon Dark has yet to become a professional mainstream film or anything, but it was perhaps the first ever fully fledged
drama series for Channel 31 in Melbourne and the first full-blooded Adult SF Series produced for Australian TV. The final
chapter of Maddox was rated MA and the announcer warned that it contained medium level violence and adult themes. I was proud
to achieve SF for Adults, and on Channel 31! A bit of TV History there, and I feel, a genuine claim to fame.
Damon Dark was featured in articles in The Big Issue (I was on the front cover!) and the SF magazine FRONTIER.
George Ivanoff, who played Jason Tanner in Maddox, wrote in FRONTIER magazine, "Adrian Sherlock has certainly made his
mark on Australian Science Fiction."
It was a long and difficult road, I can tell you, but it was and is an honor!"
Adrian Sherlock would like to thank Susan Leigh Anderson, Niobe Dean, Karl Siemon, Bruce Hughes, Andrew Dunn,
Steve MacPhaill, Fiona Harris, Matt Norman, Steve Newman, Randall Berger, Ian Dart, Rob Phillips, Jennifer Douglas and
Mike Seager for their participation in Damon Dark. Thanks also to MRPPP for our fantastic opening titles sequence, accompanied
by Mike Seager's stirring, exciting music theme, and a big thank you to anyone whose name has been overlooked!
