Cameron Lamb: Embracing The Beauty Of Words With Alexander

By Dov Kornits

“This is my second lockdown,” Australian-born producer Cameron Lamb tells FilmInk on the line from Paris. “I had a lockdown in New York earlier in the year, and I actually had COVID quite badly myself. I was in lockdown there for, gosh, it must’ve been actually about four months. Now I’m in the French lockdown…so I’m getting used to the various lockdowns! But I’m doing very well as well.”

COVID has now famously prompted major career shifts and life changes for many around the world, both voluntary and forced, and Cameron Lamb is also currently diversifying in a big, and exciting way. Though born in Australia, Lamb has forged a successful filmmaking career for himself overseas, helping to shepherd a number of fascinating films to the screen, including 2007’s Careless (with Colin Hanks and Tony Shalhoub), 2010’s Daydream Nation (with Kat Dennings and Andie MacDowell), 2013’s Syrup (with Amber Heard), 2014’s Kumiko, The Treasure Hunter (a delightfully unconventional riff on The Coen Brothers’ Fargo), 2017’s provocative coming of age drama Super Dark Times, and 2017’s Wim Wenders-directed Submergence, starring Alicia Vikander and James McAvoy. Cameron Lamb is now shifting his focus with Alexander, a new app which features high quality non-fiction narrative storytelling, read by big-name film performers, and accompanied by thematically linked short films. “My mission is very, very focused on bringing great stories – important stories – to as many people as possible,” says Lamb.

How did you end up overseas?

“It was a dream of mine for as long as I can remember. Since the age of ten, I have wanted to be in the storytelling world. I actually started working at Channel 9 Adelaide while I was still in high school. I worked every weekend in the newsroom as a sound assistant and a camera assistant. I’d run around for news stories with a mixer and the Sennheiser. I really had a taste for it. Then I studied marketing and advertising in Queensland, but I always wanted to get back into production. While I was at uni in Brisbane, I was able to secure a role working for Channel 9 Brisbane in their Gold Coast studio. So, it was university during the day, and then I was working for Channel 9’s Gold Coast News. I had a wonderful situation in the early 2000s, when, after university, I was able to move to Los Angeles and start working with a couple of producers and learn the trade.

“I started spending time between Sydney and LA around 2002, and by 2004, I made a firm move to LA. I go back to Sydney as often as I can, because my family’s all there. I’m Australian, but I’m firmly based in Los Angeles now. I’d had a good ten years there, and produced two movies [Careless, Daydream Nation]. And then there was a movie called Syrup with Amber Heard which took me to New York. I’d never actually been able to explore New York, and I thought that I might just stay there for a bit once we’d finished, and use New York as a base. And then, for the last five years or so, I’ve been between the US and Europe.”

How do you see Australia cinematically, as compared to the US and the rest of the world?

“I’ve always looked at cinema through a very different lens to Hollywood, despite being based there. I’ve always gone for more international fare, if you will. My last picture, Submergence, was based on a very serious book, and I brought Wim Wenders on to direct it. And then I made it in an American way. I packaged it with Alicia Vikander and James McAvoy, and put it together like one would with an international picture, by using foreign sales, and so forth. But I’m not that influenced by territories and market size. For me, it’s about a beautiful story that I’m attached to and have to tell. A lot of the films that I’ve been involved with have been based on books. I’ve always been excited about the story, and have had a thirst and desire that it must be made. So, wherever that takes you around the world is where I go for that story. Now we have streaming, of course, and everything has also obviously been exceptionally sped up with COVID. We’ve got to that place that would have taken a lot longer to get to without the lockdowns. These streaming sites are now really looking for audiences worldwide. Countries like Australia now really have a great opportunity to access a world arena.”

Which brings us to Alexander. What was the seed? How did it evolve?

“My career has always been about seeking out great stories, and I’ve always focused on stories that are more grounded in reality. Non-fiction is really what I’ve zoned in on. We worked on Submergence all around the world, and I had a hard time finding one outlet where I could go consistently and read stories that I really wanted to sink my teeth into. I’m always looking for wonderful stories in unusual parts of the world about people that we may not be aware of, or who may not have a spotlight on them. So, at that moment, I really felt that I needed to go about bringing together extraordinary authors and journalists from all around the world, and letting them write these wonderful stories that I felt weren’t being delivered like they used to be in the 1990s or the early 2000s. I then wanted to deliver them in one specific digital platform, so no matter where you are in the world, there’s no barrier. Anyone can access that story. Stories should be accessible to all, wherever you are in the world. And quality premium stories should be accessible to all and affordable for all. There shouldn’t be boundaries and stories shouldn’t just be delivered by English speaking authors, journalists, writers, et cetera. We should have a platform that’s accessible to the world for voices from all backgrounds…international voices that tell epic, beautiful, great stories that are narrative non-fiction driven. Obviously, my background is as a movie producer, so we’ve got wonderful actors to read these pieces and help bring them to life in a very beautiful and engaging and poetic fashion. We’ve got the likes of Vanessa Kirby, Helena Bonham Carter, Richard E. Grant, David Tennant, Bill Nighy…the list goes on. It’s really helped elevate the stories.”

This is what you want to see out there, and you are helping to create it…

“I want to help move the needle in a positive direction. The world has had an unusual year due to COVID, and we’ve had all sorts of stories happening in the world. Having a single platform where you’re going to consistently get real material that is not shy of putting forth important topics, but that is also somewhat healthy and positive, is really important. That’s what I’m focused on. The written word is beautiful and we should have stories that aren’t just delivered in an outlet because they’re clickbait. That dilutes the value and the importance of every single word. One of the greatest moments and the most important moments when you’re making a movie is working with the writer and developing that written word. There’s a need for non-fiction narrative journalism.”

In terms of the curation, have you got a strategy when it comes to bringing in people? The digital space is a pretty hungry beast, so you need to feed it. Have you got thoughts on that in terms of a pipeline?

“Absolutely. We need a really strong, robust pipeline, and we’ve got extraordinary, award winning writers already on board, who are penning for our first and second quarters next year. We also want to be as international as possible with our voices. We have editorial hubs set up around the world. We have one in Spain, another in the UK, one in the States and one in the Mediterranean. We want to find beautiful writers on the ground in their locale, and then bring those people forward. We’re working with a number of translators so we can bring them to the English language audience.”

How does the app work?

“We deliver one story every two weeks, and we also have a film component to every story, which is a thirty-second to three-minute piece, by the most extraordinary visionary filmmakers. It helps the visual and emotional tone, and works as an entry point with these stories. You can then either listen to the stories or read them, which is effectively an hour’s listen if you’re going to listen. We are about quality first and foremost. These are very polished, beautiful pieces, but they’re accessible to a wide audience. Effectively, it costs not much more than a cup of coffee per month to access our entire library, and the story that’s delivered every two weeks. We don’t have the distribution expenses that a magazine or other media platforms have. We’re able to put a lot of our dollars into the quality and the people that we’re working with, and then deliver it at a price point that we can access a significant number of people around the world. We’re able to deliver a pure premium non-toxic experience on the mobile, which I think is extraordinary.”

I gather that your biggest competitors would be things like Amazon’s Audible?

“Yeah. But I don’t know that anyone’s actually doing audio like we are in that hour-long narrative non-fiction format. We’re not doing a podcast. Again, this is where my lens is a little bit different to what others out there in the space may be doing, because I do come at it from a creative producer’s lens, if you will. I want to bring in emotion to each story. We have the most extraordinary piece called ‘Last Christmas’, written by Syrian in exile Odai al Zoubi. He left Syria to study in the UK and then the war broke out and he was never able to go home. He’s had every Christmas on his own since, and it’s the most sensationally moving piece. Bill Nighy reads that, and the emotion that he’s brought into it is wonderful. There’s an emotional throughline that just really takes you there. It’s a different experience and one that I think is important for the world.”

So, is this going to be your focus moving forward, rather than filmmaking?

“There are a number of pictures that I’m working on at the moment. But what excites me every day when I wake up and jump out of bed is to tell great stories, and important stories. And this is a way for me to do the extraordinary stories that can make a difference in the world every two weeks. And it doesn’t have that five-year, ten-year life cycle that a movie does.”

Do you have any kind of sentimentality or desire to come back to Australia and tell Australian stories?

“In a heartbeat. Our editorial team is in the process of talking with a number of different authors in Australia to contribute to Alexander. I’d love nothing more than to deliver four to six stories a year from Australia. Australia has such rich, diverse, wonderful pieces that need to be shared with the world. I’ll throw my heart into that, and all my energy. Absolutely.”

Download Alexander now on the iTunes App Store. For more on Cameron Lamb, head to Cameron Lamb Productions.