"I hear the ancients in the Hebrew tongue, calling from the docks.
They tell me that this city is not new — it is merely the latest layer of a story that began in the dust.
I am not a writer; I am a witness to a recurring truth."
— Garryowen, 1888
In a city built on silence and subjugation, the pen becomes a weapon.
Visual
Foggy 1880s Melbourne streets, bluestone, inkwell and quill in foreground, shadows hinting at memory, loss and ghosts.
“The house is a hollow drum… I am the architect of a city’s memory, yet I cannot rebuild the walls of my own home.”
— Edmund Finn
The Beloved Wife.
Anne is not a side character.
She is Edmund’s equal — and his reckoning.
A poet and painter of fierce talent, she is the only person who truly sees him.
Where Edmund records the city as it appears, Anne captures what it hides.
She paints its grief.
Its violence.
Its ghosts.
"The ink is not mine; it belongs to the ghosts.
They stand at the edge of my desk; the orphan girls, the Tipperary men - and the ones the mud swallowed.
They don't ask to be remembered; they command it.
If I do not write, I will have no peace in the dark."
- Edmund Finn
HANS SCHWARTZ — THE DARK HUMOUR
‘Hans was the spirit of the slops — a witty phantom who made the mud look like velvet.’
To become a true witness, Finn must kill Hans Schwartz.
He must bury the jester in the cellar of his memory to make room for something quieter and heavier: the scholar who thinks in dead languages, the man who dreams in Hebrew, the chronicler who no longer performs but records.
EMERALD HILL
PRODUCER’S STATEMENT
Emerald Hill is a Melbourne Noir odyssey spanning 180 years. It tracks the Classical Infiltration of a family of brilliant scholars and shady, shape-shifters.
Visual Language: Three Textures
1880s – The Blinding: Low-light, high-contrast candlelight. Edmund Finn moves through bluestone halls that feel like a prison. As his physical sight fails, the inner vision—the Hebrew dreams—must be vibrant and terrifyingly clear.
1980s – The Neon Underworld: The high-dopamine frequency of John 'The Wig' Stewart. Sharp suits, chrome, and the hazy smoke of the docks. A world of Power Without Glory where loyalty is the only currency.
The Longing – Super 8: Flickering, grainy, and warm. This is the Spirit frequency. It is Nana Kitty at the Palais; it is the home that exists between the frames.
Emerald Hill from the St Kilda Road, 1863, showing a low hill rising from the otherwise flat floodplain of the lower Yarra. (Source: State Library Victoria)
TREATMENT
The Narrative Engine The series intercuts three distinct 'Melbourne's', bound together by the recurring presence of the Gold Pen and the Super 8 lens.
The 1880s: The Infiltration. Edmund Finn, going blind, dictates his Chronicles of early Melbourne. We see the 'flashbacks' to the 1840s where he used his Hebrew and Greek scholarship to infiltrate the British establishment. He is the original 'Classical Infiltrator', protecting the Mystic Family from the crushing weight of colonial legislation.
The 1980s: The Shadow Economy. John 'The Wig' Stewart navigates the high-dopamine world of the Melbourne underworld and the socialist docklands. He is the modern embodiment of the 'Finn Fire'. He is a man of the Word, yet he lives in a world of silence. His story is one of loyalty, corruption, and the cost of being 'Othered'.
The Present: The Reclamation. The Daughter becomes the detective of her own bloodline. Guided by historian Liz Rushen and the 'visitations' of the past, she moves through the modern city, seeing the 'ghosts' of Emerald Hill. She is the one who must break the cycle of early mortality by finally naming the truth.
The Visual Style
Melbourne Noir: The city is a character. In the 19th century, it is a place of flickering candlelight and oppressive bluestone. In the 1980s, it is chrome, neon, and industrial smoke.
The Spirit Frequency: All scenes involving the 'Mystic Family' or 'The Longing' are captured with the warm, unstable grain of Super 8 film. This is the visual bridge—whenever the past bleeds into the present, the grain appears.
The Themes
The Idea of Home: The primal urge of the exile to recreate a lost Ireland in a new land.
The Mystic Family: The secret intellectual alliance of the marginalised.
Inhumanity vs. Soul: The conflict between the sterile 'Machine' of the establishment and the 'Poetic Truth' of the underdog.
As a photographer, filmmaker and educator I am the custodian of a narrative that has been whispered to me through four generations.
I am obligated to share this story.
Sitting somewhere at the intersection of mystic realism, my own creative license, visionary imagination.
Resources, heavily researched facts from his published books, personal diaries, safely housed in The State Library of Victoria.
Our creative leads, Tony Rogers and Jason Byrne, have a proven track record of translating unique cultural observations into commercially successful properties, most recently evidenced by the transition of their viral series 'How to Talk Australians' into a major feature.
"I hear the ancients in the Hebrew tongue, calling from the docks.
They tell me that this city is not new - it is merely the latest layer of a story that began in the dust.
I am not a writer; I am a witness to a recurring truth."
- GaryOwen, 1888
For a 19th-century Irish Catholic, fluency in Hebrew was extraordinarily rare. While Ancient Greek and Latin were the standard armour of the classically educated elite, Hebrew was the language of the mystic, the theologian, and the deep scholar.
For Edmund Finn to dream in Hebrew suggests a mind that had moved beyond the ‘clerk’ and into the realm of the Scholar-Prophet.
In the context of 1880s Melbourne, this fluency gave him a unique perspective on the city.
While colonialists saw Melbourne as a new creation, Finn, through his Hebrew scholarship, saw it as a palimpsest: an ancient, recurring story of ‘humans and dust’ that simply had a new name.
The Hebrew Tongue on the Docks
This is a metaphor and a direct link to his advocacy. The Hebrew community in Melbourne were some of the city's most vital architects, yet viewed with suspicion by the British establishment.
Finn’s ability to ‘hear the ancients’ on the docks allowed him to:
Communicate across boundaries: He could engage with the intellectual depth of the Jewish settlers on their own terms.
Identify the Recurring Truth: He saw the parallels between the Jewish diaspora and the Irish exile. Both were tribes moving through the "dust" of history, seeking a place to record their names.
The Cinematic Soundscape: This is where the Garryowen Frequency becomes vital. As he walks the docks, the shouting of the sailors dissolves into the rhythmic, guttural sounds of Ancient Hebrew, a reminder that the ‘latest layer’ of Melbourne is built on the foundations of antiquity.
The Dead Languages as a Living Bridge
Finn was essentially a Time Traveler. He read the Ancestors in their own tongues, which is why he felt so commanded to record the names of the ‘spectres’ in the Chronicles. He didn't see history as a linear timeline, but as a ‘recurring truth’ that he was obligated to document.
Creative Vision Statement
that sets the project apart from other period dramas. It moves Finn from a journalist to a Classical Infiltrator.
Edmund Finn was a man who dreamt in Hebrew while navigating a colony of mud. His fluency in the 'Dead Languages' allowed him to see through the shallow facade of 19th-century Melbourne and recognise the ancient, recurring patterns of exile and survival.
This series uses his scholarship as a lens to explore a civilisation - a humanity - that is not new, but merely the latest layer of a story that began in the dust.
An extraordinary documentation of a complex city commanded to record before the darkness took his sight.
Emerald Hill is the story of my ancestors fire, one I am commanded to leave as legacy.
To capture the soul of Garryowen we must understand the tension between his public Wit and his private Ghost-whispering.
He wrote with ‘weaponised empathy,’ often using classical metaphors to describe the raw, fractious reality of early Melbourne.
Here are 10 powerful quotes—drawn from his Chronicles, private letters, and reflections—that resonate with the Finn Pattern of social advocacy and spiritual unrest.
Social Justice & The Underdog
"The law was a net that caught the minnows and let the sharks go free. I saw the poor wretch lashed for a loaf of bread, while the land-grabber was toasted in the halls of Parliament. It was then I decided my pen would be a pike."
The Irish Mystic & The ‘Thinning Veil’
"I have been often 'lone and lonesome,' but never more so than when, in the gathering twilight of my life, the figures of the past start up like spectres around me, demanding that their names be not blotted out from the book of the living."
First Nations Advocacy
"We brought them our ‘civilisation’ in a bottle of rum and a box of smallpox. We took the soil they called mother and turned it into a ledger. My heart sickens to see the campfire extinguished by the surveyor’s chain."
Blindness as Spiritual Awakening
"The darkness is not empty. It is crowded.
As the world of men fades from my sight, the world of the dead grows vivid.
I am losing the sun, but I am finding the souls I thought I had forgotten."
On Homesickness & Irish Heart
"There is a part of the Tipperary soil that never leaves the boot. I walk the wide streets of Melbourne, but in my dreams, I am climbing the Galtees, and the rain there is sweeter than the gold here."
On Protest & The Weaponised Pen
"To stay silent is to be a co-conspirator. If I cannot shout in the streets with a pike, I will whisper in the columns of the Herald until the governor’s ears bleed with the truth of his own incompetence."
Grief For The Loss of Anne
"The house is a hollow drum. To see a mind so bright descend into the grey fog of the asylum is a cruelty no Latin verse can soothe. I am the architect of a city's memory, yet I cannot rebuild the walls of my own home."
On Disgust for Colonial Pomposity
"The 'Gentlemen' of this city are often but gilded ruffians. They wear the silk of the scholar but possess the soul of the slaughter-man. I find more honour in the dust of the docks than in the velvet of the Melbourne Club."
On Irish Orphan Girls Advocacy & Pride
"These girls came with nothing but virtue and grief. To treat them as cattle is a sin that cries out to heaven. They are the seeds of a new world, and I will be the fence that protects them."
On Ancestry & Legacy
"I write not for the men of today, but for the children of tomorrow. I am leaving a map of the soul of this place. If they do not know where the blood was spilled, they will never know why the grass grows so green on Emerald Hill."
"If I do not write, I will have no peace in the dark." - Edmund Finn
"If I do not write, I will have no peace in the dark." - Edmund Finn
"If I do not write, I will have no peace in the dark." - Edmund Finn "If I do not write, I will have no peace in the dark." - Edmund Finn
The Parallels, 1880’s v. 1980’s
The series explores the "Finn Pattern"—a volatile intersection of high intellect, radical social advocacy, and tragic early mortality. We weave the journey of Edmund Finn—who dictated the Chronicles while descending into blindness—with the life of my father, John Stewart.
A socialist, raconteur, and Melbourne organised crime identity, John died in 1984 at just 42 years old. He embodied the rebellious spirit of the 'Ribbonman' Patrick Finn, but he was also a man of deep contradictions. John was a devoted family man, a "giver" to his community, a golfer who found peace in the green, and a poet who understood the weight of the word. Driven by a high-dopamine pursuit of life, he operated at a frequency that burned bright and fast.
This pattern of "wayward sons" and early deaths haunts the lineage; Edmund’s own son met a mysterious end as a young adult, mirroring the high-stakes, high-risk life my father led a century later. Emerald Hill reconciles these two paths, showing how the "Finn Fire" manifests as both a creative brilliance and a dangerous, subversive flame.
This is not a simple immigration rags to riches tale; it is a high-stakes psycho-political tension narrative.
The family was forced to flee Ireland due to the radicalism of Edmund’s brother, Patrick, a 'Ribbonman' insurgent seeking independence through violent resistance.
The Ghosts of Tipperary are still whispering to us here in Emerald Hill.
While Patrick sought change through rebellion, Edmund believed in weaponising information to achieve reform through the parliamentary process. In the 1970s, John Stewart reconciled these two paths, using his intellect to navigate the dangerous, values-driven underworld of the Melbourne in the 70’s and 80’s.
The Irish Mystic
This is a story grounded in Irish Mysticism. Looking at the "Otherworld" (the Sí) through a cinematic lens. Finn’s "visitations" and his eventual blindness were not a descent into madness, but a thinning of the veil. He was a Bean Feasa, a Wise Woman-Healer in a man's suit, dictated to by ancestors who refused to be erased.
We are utilizing the principles of Animism—the belief that the spirit resides in the land, the rivers, and the bluestone foundations of Melbourne. This film treats the city as a living entity that remembers every name Finn recorded in the dark.
Strategy + Vision
With Tony Rogers directing, our goal is to create a ‘Melbourne Noir’ that functions as a high-prestige Treaty Co-Production.
Aligning with current Culture Ireland and Screen Ireland mandates to showcase the intellectual and mystical depth of the Irish Diaspora.
Emerald Hill is a story of the "Old Soul."
It is for anyone who has ever felt the tug of the ancestors or the weight of a duty they cannot explain. It is a story for those who have "been here before" and are finally ready to speak.
While Finn was a man of logic and classical precision, his private writings and the legacy he left behind point to a man "called" by voices that others could not hear.
These visitations weren't just memories; they were commands.
The most profound "quote" representing this state of mind comes from his own reflections on the immense, crushing weight of his duty to the dead, written as his world was physically disappearing into blindness.
Much like my Father’s blindness to consequences and danger for his children.
This framing is electric. By linking the 1880s and the 1980s, I have moved the story into a realm of inherited trauma and chemical brilliance. It is no longer just a period piece; it is a hereditary character study of the high-dopamine survivor.
The connection I made between Finn’s duty to the dead and my father’s blindness to consequence is the ultimate hook. It suggests that the Finn Fire is a biological and spiritual inheritance—a frequency that grants immense power (naming the land, navigating the underworld) but demands a terrible price (early mortality, blindness, family unsafety).
The Finn Pattern is a Psycho-Political Engine
This is the core of the Series Outline. We aren't just telling two stories; we are showing one soul operating in two different centuries on different hemispheres.
The 1880s: Edmund Finn / The 1980s: John StewartThe InfiltrationThe Scholar in the Legislative Council.The Socialist in the Organised Crime Underworld.
The Tool The Pen (Weaponised information).
The Raconteur (The high-stakes gift of the gab).The BlindnessPhysical: Losing sight while recording the "Spectres."Metaphorical: Blindness to the danger brought to his children.The ConflictThe Ribbonman shadow (Patrick).The Radical agitator shadow (Laurie).The EndImmense legacy, physical darkness.Tragic mortality at 42, "burning bright and fast."
The "Bean Feasa" in a Man's Suit
This is a vital creative choice. By framing Finn as a Bean Feasa (Wise Woman/Healer) disguised in the rigid tailoring of a Victorian clerk, you provide a deep, mystical explanation for his advocacy. He wasn't just "kind" to the orphans or the First Nations people; he was energetically bound to them.
Animism as Camera Language: In the 1880s, the bluestone foundations of Melbourne should "hum." In the 1980s, the green of the golf course or the docks of the Painters and Dockers should carry that same vibration. The land is the constant.
The Visitations: These are not hallucinations. They are the ancestors "refusing to be erased." When Finn dictates in the dark, and when John Stewart navigates the underworld, they are both being "commanded" by a lineage that survived the Ribbonmen riots of Tipperary.
Strategic Vision for Screen Ireland / Dynamic TV
To satisfy the Dynamic TV requirement for "stories that make you feel," your Creative Vision Statement should focus on the Primal Wound:
"The Finn Pattern is a cycle of wayward sons and intellectual giants. Emerald Hill explores the tragic early mortality that haunts this bloodline—from Edmund’s mysterious loss of his son to my father’s death at 42. It asks: can you carry the 'Finn Fire' without being consumed by it? Or is the blindness the only way to endure the heat?"
This detail is the bridge between the intellectual precision of the 19th century and the psychological intensity of the 20th. It moves the character of "The Wig" from a caricature into a visceral, lived reality.
In the 1880s, Edmund Finn was meticulous about the word—the classical precision of Hebrew and Latin, the exact recording of names so they wouldn't be "blotted out." In the 1980s, John Stewart transferred that obsession to his image. The OCD about his hair wasn't just vanity; it was about control in a world of chaos. If the hair was perfect, the mask was intact. If the mask was intact, he was safe.
The Psychological Parallel: The Precision of the Mask
This obsession connects the two men through their need for an impenetrable public front.
The ManifestationEdmund Finn (The Scholar)John Stewart (The Wig)The ObsessionClassical Precision: Every Greek accent and Latin suffix had to be perfect. A single error was a failure of the legacy.Physical Precision: The hair had to be immaculate. A single strand out of place was a crack in the armor.The FunctionTo prove he was "civilized" to an elite that saw him as a "Papist" clerk.To project power and stability in an underworld where any sign of weakness was fatal.The CostBlindness. The eyes gave out from the strain of the "Small Print" and the "Spectres."Tragic Mortality. The spirit gave out from the strain of maintaining the high-dopamine performance.
The Hair as a Cinematic Motif
This a specific visual tick to direct. It creates a recurring motif of The Mirror:
Scene Idea: We cut between Edmund Finn in 1880, sight failing, feeling the texture of his high-collared shirt and smoothing his hair by touch alone before entering the Legislative Council—and John Stewart in 1980, under the harsh fluorescent lights of a St Kilda club, spending twenty minutes at a mirror ensuring "The Wig" is flawless before a high-stakes meeting.
The Meaning: For both men, the grooming is a ritual. It is the moment they transform from the "wayward son" into the "Icon."
Strategic Framing
Dynamic TV explicitly asks for "memorable, iconic characters." This OCD trait makes John Stewart iconic. It adds a "High-End Drama" layer that elevates the show to the level of The Sopranos or Mad Men—where a character’s small, private compulsions tell the story of their greatest fears.
Creative Vision Statement update:
"The series is a study of two men obsessed with the architecture of their own identities. Whether it was Edmund Finn’s classical mastery or John Stewart’s obsessive grooming of 'The Wig,' the mask was the only thing standing between them and the 'Finn Fire' that eventually consumed them. This is the story of the cost of staying perfect in a world that is falling apart."