Script editing pioneer Harold Lander dies aged 91

29 July, 2015

One of the pioneers of the Australian script editing industry, Harold Lander, has died aged 91.

Lander worked on TV dramas such as ‘Homicide’ and ‘Hunter’ as well as movies including ‘Storm Boy’ and ‘Breaker Morant’ and he won two AWGIES for radio writing as well as the Hector Crawford Award for his overall contribution to the profession.

He was an early and active member of the Australian Writers’ Guild and his daughter, Sara Allsopp Lander, says her father “always had lots of fond memories of the AWG”.

“He always had a lot of funny stories about you guys in the 70s,” she says. “Also, winning two AWGIES and the Hector Crawford Award were certainly career highlights for him.”

Born in 1923, Lander was raised in England and worked there as Manager of the Theatre Royal in Lincoln. On moving to Australia, he wrote for Crawfords Australia on such ground-breaking dramas as ‘Homicide’ and ‘Hunter’, telling TV Times in 1968:  "The rule in ‘Hunter’ is never to allow characters to hang about talking when action will tell the story better.

"Often, a ‘Hunter’ writer has been able to replace a page of explanatory dialogue with several seconds of meaningful camera directions. That's the kind of pace we seek in the show.”

Lander refined his skills at ABC Drama, picking up two AWGIES for Radio writing in the early 1970s and working to develop what became known as the Australian Film, Television and Radio School.

In the late 1970s, Lander took up the position of Chief Script Editor of the South Australian Film Corporation (SAFC), during what is considered a golden period of Australian film-making. He worked on more than 20 films and television series including ‘Storm Boy’, ‘Breaker Morant’, ‘The Fortunes of Richard Mahoney’ and ‘Blue Fin’.  Sara says her father explained his role as that of a “script doctor”, able to identify crucial flaws in the story and suggesting ways to fix them.

Lander was presented with the Hector Crawford Award for his contribution to script editing via a body of work, at the 1992 AWGIES ceremony.