On the morning of Sunday the 14th of August I flew from Melbourne to Kuala Lumpur Malaysia, to work on a TVC for Malaysia’s Celcom, a telecommunications company. They were looking to create an exciting, visually interesting Commercial for their Xpax brand, which is geared towards young users between the age of 18-25 years old.

The TVC required shooting for 3D integration however the time frame for this job was extremely tight. With careful consideration with production house Carrot Films, I took the decision to develop all the 3D animation sequences early and have them ready before we had even shot a frame of the live action. Local post house Pixel Post KL was tasked to come up with 3D, “chewing gum style”, “Speech bubbles”, that when popped would rain gifts/prizes to their owners! That meant pre conceiving how we were going to shoot the commercial to a much higher degree of accuracy! The style of all of the previous Xpax TVC’s is MTV inspired – Music video techniques, fast cutting and moving scenes with young people, using the product in energetic ways! The colour grading on all the previous Commercials were heavily rinsed with their corporate colours of Purple & Orange.

Day one was “hit the ground running”! An early wakeup and we were off to look at various “House” locations around Kuala Lumpur! We ended up seeing four or so locations before heading back to the production office to review Casting, brief a Storyboard Artist and meet Carrot Films Producers Jefferi Tik and Lani Layali.

Day 3 was a continuation of Day one, with more location surveys. Luckily the days efforts revealed an amazing house with a very minimalistic feel and plenty of space to work in. Returning back to the office, we continued Casting, Wardrobe and Propping for the rest of the day.

On the morning of the 17th of August, I took some time to go see the Batu Caves and Temples just 30 minutes outside of KL. That was an amazing experience. I was the first person there, other then Tamil practitioners at the Temple. Before the lights were even switched on I had climbed the 1000 odd steps to the top, entered the Caves and explored the Temples inside the Caves themselves. Only Monkeys, Doves and Bats accompanied me for about an hour! Quite magical and special I think?! I spent some time taking HDR images of the subterranean world lit only by an ocular in the roof of the Cave! I witnessed a private religious event as three women rolled themselves along the floor and then had water poured on their heads. I’m not sure of it’s significance but it was quite amazing to witness!

I also drove out to see the Electronic Shops out at Jalan Pasar and several ITC Malls. In the afternoon, I returned to the Production office to go over more Casting and Set design. The Agency arrived later for an official Preproduction meeting. It was great to finally meet them.

Day4 – August 18 was D-Day for much of the preproduction work with a Client Presentation scheduled for later in the afternoon. However there was not much I could do at that point. So I decided to go with Moga, the driver, back to Jalan Pasar to explore more of that street with electronic component shops on it. We had missed a huge section of it on our original visit. Despite the electronics scene being relegated to “extreme hobbyists” there definitely is a presence of “Hackers”, “Makers” and even Professional Engineering in the air. That afternoon we presented what we had to the Client at Celcom’s head Office in KL. The meeting went very well although a murmur of change was brewing!

Day5 started with some challenges! The Client made some changes which slightly changed everything! I was handed the news and went straight away into battle station mode. In all fairness the Agency and Production House were incredibly supportive and explained that “this is how it is” with a big smile on their faces! New Cast was called for, we scrapped locations within the house, set dressings and started looking for city skyline views of KL. Although much of the original script had changed, in many ways it hadn’t! I realised this as I was working through my shot list. Much of our preproduction was still relevant. However, the Casting was a battle. Out of four original cast requirements, we had reduced it to just one! The Client approved a young Girl by the name of Chrissy but she was based in Bangkok Thailand and had to be flown in!

Day6 – Saturday the 20th – I awoke very early and was picked up from my hotel in Mid Valley and driven to Set. We began production that day with Chrissy, who had arrived at 2AM the same day, from Bangkok. After meeting her &  the Crew, Arn (my 1st AD) and I reworked our plans to accommodate the new situation. I was hugely relieved to discover that Chrissy was not only vivacious and gorgeous but very accomplished as an actress. I had no problems chatting with her and trying out different performance ideas on camera! She was incredibly energetic given her very early morning arrival into Malaysia! Eric Yeong, my Cinematographer, helped out here by lighting her beautifully and playing the role of the calm observer! The shoot went very smoothly, helped by a fantastic team from DraftFCB Malaysia, the Carrot Films Crew and importantly, the team from Pixel Post who had sent their effects supervisor along for the day.

Day7 – Sunday 21st – Again waking at 4AM, I was picked up from the hotel and driven into the centre of KL. There we transported ourselves to a helipad on the 29th floor of a city building. From this vantage point, we filmed time lapse and realtime footage of the sun dawning across Kuala Lumpur. For that we had no less then two Canon 5Dmk2′s, the ARRI Alexa from the previous day and my DOP Eric brought his brand new RED EPIC M along for its first official engagement! It was kind of crazy but we shot the “crap” out of it! Sadly none of that footage made it into the final TVC although it looked amazing! The RED Epic is so small and the low light performance is clearly a major selling point!

Day8 – Monday 22nd – At 10am, I was whisked to go see Pixel Post – the post production company handling the Offline/Online as well as the 3D requirements. Having slept for most of the previous day, after our vigorous shoot on the Helipad, I was pretty rested and keen to see the rough cut. Editor Billy, had created several versions and I was pleasantly surprised that it all worked and fitted into a 30sec TVC nicely. We spent a few hours working on it together before I had to go to the Grade! That’s right, a final grade before we had even finished the offline! The timing of this TVC was so short that I had to travel to APV (Asia Pacific Video lab) in KL to setup the look of the TVC. We were never going to be able to come back with finished pictures because we were grading the data files shot from ARRI’s Alexa and RED’s Epic directly in Lustre. The Colourist did a very nice job! After the grade, it was back to Pixel Post for more Offline before our Agency presentation at 8PM! We had a few discussions about which version to present but finally at 9PM we presented our offline’s to the Client. We were still shifting the edit during that session to fix timings with the music, find best performance etc it was so organic! We arrived at an approved offline at around 11PM that evening! I think the Creatives Richard, Brian and Dave from DraftFCB and importantly TV Producer Brandon Chai helped enormously in getting the TVC across the line successfully.

Day 9 – Tuesday 23rd – Pixel Post continued on with the task of finishing the TVC. I took a trip into the centre of KL and walked around the Petaling Street Market. Later I filmed some Time Lapse footage of the Petronas Towers transitioning from day into night before getting an early nights sleep!

Day10 – Wednesday 24th – Popping my head into Pixel Post at 2PM there was still quite a lot to be done. The grade was done, including all the new shots we added during the Client Presentation! that looked very nice. Much of the 3D was in various state of rending but I could tell it was coming together. Despite the incredible speed of the job, changes in concept and quest to stay flexible, I could see the light at the end of the tunnel. I should take a moment to thank the team at Pixel Post for their enormous effort. Producer Kenny looked after the project so well but their were quite  a few involved from their office.

Day11- 25th of August -  12pm I again popped into Pixel Post. Thankfully a lot of work had taken place overnight. The TVC was really starting to feel finished which was amazing. The team had worked very hard to clean up the images shot on the ARRI Alexa as well as render finals for the 3D “Speech Bubbles”. Online editor, Kitson, rushed through all the composting tasks with flare. The Agency arrived at 7PM while we were still finishing the TVC. By 10PM it was all done and the job was complete! I need to thank so many as usual but especially this time! We had so little time and this TVC was effectively produced in 4 days which is incredible! Incredible because it has interactive 3D, great production design by Leslie, fantastically coordinated by Connie and Arn my 1st AD and supported by a two excellent Production Producers. It made use of new technology like the RED EPIC M and Arri Alexa! The entire production team worked very hard but made it seem easy and pleasant – so thank you for your effort guys, much appreciated – Especially since the entire process happened during the Muslim fasting period of Ramadan!

Day13 – Malaka – got up early and drove with my driver Moga to Malaka, about 2 hours out of KL. Staying overnight, I enjoyed seeing the sights, photographing old Portuguese Forts, churches, the local food and generally touring around Melaka. A huge thank you to Moga for making that trip so easy!

On my second day in Malacca I ran into a group of young guys playing around with their cameras. They were part of a photographic club, experimenting and learning about photography with a model. I asked if I could join in and for about an hour I had a bit of fun using my strobe gear. The model was really excellent and generously gave me a few poses.

At 4PM the next day, it was time to head back to KL. After a meal at the Petronas Towers,  I quickly packed up my stuff for an early morning flight to Singapore the next morning. Touching down in Singapore, I caught up with Damien Yang from Blackmagic Design and Leollyne Teng from Shooting Gallery Asia about various up coming projects. I also managed to catchup briefly with good friend Bruce Watt for a quick social get together. After visiting a few Time Lapse locations, ITC malls I headed out for the airport again. Making a comfy nest in my airplane chair, I fell into a deep sleep and relaxed for the first time in ages!

On the 1st of September I landed in my home town of Melbourne.

The TVC can be viewed by clicking the below image:

After a couple of weeks back in Melbourne, I boarded a flight bound for South Africa to continue with post production on my Minute Maid Juice Commercial for China!

Its not often I get to fly in that direction, actually this was my first time, so I was super excited about both the job and the prospect of getting to know a new country. Flying via Johannesburg the trip was long but made easier from a business class seat! That would become important on the way home but I’ll keep that for later! For the next two weeks, I called Cape Town home and Marc Bloch did his very best to showoff all that the region had to offer. Not only that, he brought us all to his home for dinner with his family which was incredibly hospitable of him. Very early morning, Kelly Pon, myself and Marc would drive out to various sites around Cape Town and surrounding Table Mountain and shoot Time Lapse sunrises! Later in the post weeks, he drove us to the Cape of Good Hope, the Wineries of Franchek, restaurants at Hout Bay, Table Mountain and many other incredible places around Cape Town. I was totally blown away by the beauty of the countryside, the light through the mist, clouds of the Cape and the rich animal life that seemed to be everywhere. I must have exposed 250Gb+ of photos while I was there. In fact I had to buy another hard drive to cope with the mass of data!

The Online process went on during all of this. We popped in and out of Black Ginger to review the 3D, look at compositing with Flame Operator Marco and generally finesse the Online process.

Black Ginger have a large team of 3D technicians, masters and artists working for them. On our project, we were lucky to have a very skilled freelancer modelling and animating pulp, while utilising in house Nuke & After Effects compositors to prepare many of the shots for the finish compositing in Flame. It’s always great watching different Post Houses and their approach to the work load. Black Ginger is very process driven and “develops” the finished product through review, commissioning to artists and production line hand offs. It’s a “Studio” approach rather then a small shop approach and definitely reflects Black Ginger’s capability at handling large scale Hollywood epics! Not that it ever got so process driven that it felt impersonal, cold, or” factory like” but rather it felt skilfully guided by Marc Bloch and his team!

Without a doubt I fell in love with South Africa’s landscape, light and animal kingdom! I never had the time to go to a Safari Park or explore the north eastern regions of South Africa but it’s now definitely on my list of things to do. I can’t thank Marc Bloch enough for his hospitality and guidance. I had such a good time!

But all things come to an end. The two weeks were up and we did squeeze every last minute working on the final version of the TVC! Finally it was time to fly home. After saying good by to Marc, I flew to Johannesburg and was promptly grounded! During the time I was in the air, the ash from a Chilean Volcano had floated around the globe stopping flights back to Australia! My flight was cancelled indefinitely! The Airline put me up in a reasonably ordinary hotel in Johannesburg. The prospect of having to stay there for any length of time was not appealing. It was also lucky that a Vietnamese TVC project did not go ahead as I wouldn’t have made it to that job on time! So for the next 48 hours, I was grounded. Finally, the word came that we could resume flying back to Australia but unfortunately only via New Zealand or Perth! I chose the Perth route! On arrival in Perth, the Chilean Volcanic Ash problem was still a major problem! There were no flights to Melbourne directly! Instead the Airline wanted me to fly via Sydney! After nearly 4 days of attempting to fly home I was sick of it all. Finally the Airline notified us of a flight, traveling under the ash, that would fly direct to Melbourne! I grabbed it despite any inherent risks.

The Minute Maid TVC job was finally over! I took so many photos of my experience in Cape Town, some of which I have posted to my Flickr Stream. Feel free to check them out here

The Commercial can be seen by clicking the below image:

On the 19th of April I received an invitation to take part in a con call with BBH Shanghai for an up coming Minute Maid Commercial. After a quick round of discussions with both key creatives Kelly Pon and Production Producer Geok Lem, I headed for Hong Kong!

Minute Maid is China’s biggest selling Orange Juice and is one of Coca Cola’s line of products. Their current campaign had featured Eason Chan and this TVC was going to continue that tradition. Eason is extremely well known all over the world and has a large following in Asia and many Western Countries including Australia, England etc. He grew up in the UK so not only was he easy to work with but he had a larrikin sense of humour as well!

With very little preproduction time, we scoured Hong Kong for locations, eventually arriving at a spot near Clear Water Bay. A couple of days later we began production, filming the TVC with the REDOne camera. My Cinematographer was a guy I had worked with before – Atong had participated on one of my Canon TVC’s with Daniel Wu a couple of years before. This time he was in charge of all things photographic while I concentrated on Directing.

The shoot schedule was spread over two days with all of Eason’s involvement concentrated on one day. Additionally, we had a second cast member. Her name was Ella Chen – A Taiwanese pop star from a band called S.H.E!  Luckily Ella was available both days so we could overlap Eason and Ella on screen. But there were a few shots we had to use doubles!

CD Kelly Pon and Writer Jay Qian were great to work with, as were the rest of the BBH team! BBH TV Producer Bernice Wong kept things on track and coordinated a very tricky production and post production process. My Producer Geok Lem, was also coordinating a large Hong Kong crew, Australian Director, South African Post house, Singaporeans, Malaysians, Chinese and the list goes on! Our Client, Craig is American but had lived in Japan so it was fair to say that this was a multinational production!

Key to the process was Post House Black Ginger from Cape Town South Africa. VFX Producer and part owner of Black Ginger, Marc Bloch, flew to join us in Hong Kong for the shoot. He was terrific to work with and Kelly, myself and Marc would talk endlessly about the job, photography and other cool stuff! Definitely had fun with those guys!

The first day of the shoot went well but we did have rain and sun in the same day. That made life tricky for the grade. Eason and Ella were fun to work with and I had great time wrangling their performances and eyeline’s towards mythical “pulp” that would be added by the South African effects team later! Keeping people interested and focused is always a battle in a technical environment such as this but like troupers, they pulled through with the goods! The Hong Kong crew worked tirelessly to provide all the necessary art direction, set dressings and construction. The location looked amazing after they removed rubbish, high grass, trees, and planted a white picket fence, bushes and fresh green grass along the roadside. They had to build a bus shelter to help remove an ugly council waist disposal area! This was all done overnight due to the quickness of the production! When it started to rain, the Hong Kong team ordered a tanker to conduct “wet downs” for the remaining part of the shoot so that we could maintain continuity. While that slowed production down a bit, I think that the wet downs really helped the look of the Commercial.

The second day of the shoot was with Ella only. She was truly fantastic to work with. Very helpful, super nice! We shot all the wide shots of her, the car approaching and all her closeups on that day. Occasionally we had to resort to using a body double for Eason but I tried to do that sparingly. The day ended up being sunny with a bright blue sky, which was a bit unfortunate for continuity. However, we ended the shoot very positively and headed into town for celebrations.

Flying to Shanghai, China, we continued the Post Production there. Firstly was Offline at the Production House. My editor, Kathrin Schmoll ( known as Schmolly to her friends), was flown in from Germany by Kjell Kunde, EP of Tribe! She was great & we cut several options for the 30sec & a 15sec variants. I can say that Schmolly is truly a great editor and anyone lucky enough to work with her will discover this.

2 days later, we presented the Offline edits to Client on the 28th at BBH Shanghai. That went very well. The life of a freelancer is sometimes complex! I also had to cope with a Skype con call with Jakarta & Singapore for my Nippon Paint TVC “Vinilex” at the same time!! That went for 2 hours but ended with a very good result also! So I was on a high!

On the 29th, I got up early & walked around the Bund in Shanghai City! Then on to post at the Post Production Office (PO) where Colourist Kit (from Hong Kong) graded the DPX’s using Baselight. After the grade, we went to a Night Market & the Hyatt where I shot some night vistas of Shanghai! I had some time to play tourist for a few days before heading home to Australia briefly. The next stage to this saga was a long flight to Cape Town South Africa. I’ll leave that for another Blog entry soon!

On the 2nd and 3rd of April 2011, I began production of a Television Commercial for Nippon Paint in Indonesia. The product called “Vinilex” is a popular household paint which was due for a new marketing campaign. The Agency, Dentsu Jakarta, wanted to explore a bit of digital alchemy, some visual magic with their idea. Key creatives ECD Rostina P (Tina for short) and Art Director Edhya Listiani wanted to play with the “magic of colour” by creating a world where a fresh coat of paint could create joy, excitement and perhaps a dash of dare!

Working with Kemistry Films in Jakarta again, I was reunited with Producer Rini Hewitt and her core team. They included 1st AD Agnes, Production coordinator Anita Sandrayanti, Costume Designer Imelda, and Art Director Malek Prada! I had previously worked with all of them on other TVC’s in Jakarta so it was great to reunite! New to the group was DOP Ipul & Editor Ravi both of whom were really great to work with.

The TVC required a location shoot but what we wanted was quite exotic. At first I was thinking “Set Design” and a Studio based shoot but soon learnt that wasn’t going to be possible. A location scout returned with many photos from various galleries and public spaces around Jakarta but one set stood out immediately. In Jakarta, there is a tourist destination called Taman Mini Indonesia Indah. It’s a massive park filled with examples of every type of building construction found throughout the 1000+ islands of Indonesia! If your into Architecture then this is a great spot to go and visit. Deep within the complex is a science centre for schools and people interested in science and engineering. Its a huge round building with a very futuristic look and feel. It’s not well frequented by the public so they had a vast section unused which we could take advantage of.

So off we all went and visited the site! On looking around, Malek and I immediately came up with an awesome plan to build a small section of set. He drew the plans that afternoon and construction begun the next day! It was a “Guggenheim inspired” Gallery set out like a giant colour wheel! Panels would stand in spoked sections of the “wheel like” space! A curved, highly reflective door would lead audiences into a cathedral styled room that a studio set design simply would never have afforded! I loved the design and was so happy when the Agency and Client agreed to it.

Key to this Commercial was Blackmagic Design in Singapore. Lead compositor Damien Yang and his assistant Chia Choon flew to Jakarta to supervise the extensive 3D and 2D effects. In the region, I’ve come to depend on the Blackmagic Design team for not only excellent workmanship but their friendship. Damien is a master compositor par excellence! His strong sense of design and technical skill are incredibly valuable to me but its his flexibility when it comes to Client/Agency changes (and even my own) that is truly exceptional. He deals with it all so well. This job was a joy however as we had such a great on set team. Malek’s Art department team had built all sorts of rigs and tricks to help make the 3D magic go smoothly. He built “Paint Splattering Machines”, a water ramp that could dump a large amount of water onto our cast via a curved piece of Perspex to form a massive wave, painting dripping rigs, etc etc. All in all we had a lot of rigs and tricks to play with!

Casting was a huge deal for me on this TVC. We were looking for an unknown who could pull off all the technical requirements as well as carry off the humorous and fun moments. Luckily we found it in a young man called ‘Boy”. His understanding of English was limited but we were still able to communicate effectively. He had never performed before on a TVC so he had a lot to learn!

Shot on 35mm Kodak film, Ipul, my very young DOP, had a lot of cool elements to play with! The overhead domed glass ceiling would pose somewhat of a challenge to him as the sun became full strength at times! In an unconventional manner, Jakarta’s sky cleared of its drab grey clouds and spilled harsh sunlight through the very impressive ceiling! Sadly day two didn’t follow suit and we did have to rebalance shots later in Telecine. However Ipul did an amazing job dealing with the scale of the shoot and the vast space of the location.

At the end of Day Two, the main Cast had been completed and we moved on to filming many elements for 3D. Damien and Chachoon oversaw the filming of paint splats, drips, dunks, water spray etc, all shot in high speed 35mm film! It was actually quite fun to watch!

I shot the pack shot as a time-lapse sequence using my 5DMK2 in stills mode. An artist painted the Pack Shot for me on a canvas while the camera recorded each stroke as a time lapse event. Later we removed any reference to the artist so that the Pack Shot could be seen to self animate on screen!

So after a fun packed 2.5 day shoot, we progressed to Post Production in Jakarta. Robert Cook at VHQ Jakarta had graded the one light rushes for us and freelance FCP editor Ravi brought his laptop down to the Grand Kemang Hotel, where we cut the offline edits over the 5th and 6th of April. We cut a 60, 45, 30 and a 15 second which we presented to the Agency and Client on the 7th at the Cutshop Jakarta. That went very well. In fact as a result, the Client bought the 45 second TVC!

With picture locked off, the final Grade occurred on the 8th of April at VHQ with Robert Cook again. His grade was very nice and with that, we headed off to our own worlds for a couple of weeks! I briefed in the Music to KL based Composer Mike Bloemendal who’s company Imaginex was handling the Audio Post Production. The images left Jakarta and headed to Singapore for cleanup and 3D at Blackmagic Design while I headed home for a very short break.

I didn’t rest for long. As the 3D team were hard at work in Singapore, I rushed off to Hong Kong to shoot another TVC. Following the conclusion of that shoot and subsequent offline in Shanghai, I returned back to Singapore to oversee the Online of Vinilex. The team at BMD had been in constant contact with me while I was away (via Skype and email) so I was fully aware of progress. Now that I was back, we began the serious task of compositing all the elements. I arrived on the 5th of May via Hong Kong. By Monday the 9th, we presented to the Agency and mostly we were in good shape. Mike Bloemendal sent through his track of music and blew me away with his “accurate to the reference” composition! He was able to add his own elements to it but it retained the spirit and feeling of the reference track! He also managed to rope in a good mate from the USA to do the vocals which was awesome! Damien and his team at BMD had pulled off yet another miracle in cleaning up vast areas of the images, removing stray public, messy backgrounds, and conflicting colours. In a few sections, the set had to be extended or repaired thanks to our rigs. Chia Choon and the 3D team built Cars, Oranges and water elements while Damien composited them into their respective scenes. There were still some elements needing completion but by Wednesday the 11th, we presented to the Client.

The Vinilex TVC was a fun experience for me. I think I was lucky to not only work with so many very talented people, many of whom I consider great personal friends, but a fantastic agency team as well. There are quite a few names I should be mentioning here from the Agency side but shamefully I don’t have them written down anywhere! I use my blog to record, pay respect and say thank you for an otherwise thankless world in advertising. Since no credits roll at the end of a TVC I want to take the opportunity to say thank you to the Agency, the Crew, Kemistry Films, Rini Hewitt, Imaginex and the Blackmagic Team for a fantastic effort.

To watch the TVC press the following image! Enjoy!

Hello to all. My Blog has been quiet of late, simply due to the immense task of my current project! Now that my documentary covers the history of technological development in Australia, the task of researching information has been all consuming! I don’t think I realised just how big this project was going to get when I started but now that it’s underway, I’m fully devoting what spare time I have, into the documentary series.

I have had to go back to the beginning, when Australia was’t even federated, to understand how the development of an industry took place. As I have mentioned before, the beginning of “Electronics” in Australia for me begins with the introduction of the Telegraph in 1854. It’s interesting to note that Telegraphy is essentially a “digital” form of electronics and quickly spread, creating a “web” of lines across the nation. Some that I have interviewed called it the “Victorian Internet” which is apt considering that Telegraphy started in Victoria first with the first poles going in between Melbourne and Williamstown in 1853. ribbing aside, the uptake of this early form of communication in Australia was swift and heralded an amazing era. The relevance of the early adoption of technology and the spread of Telegraphy across Australia has many parallels with Australia’s current National Broadband  Network (NBN) plan, which is fascinating to me. My documentary seeks to showcase this early era by collating a series of conversations on camera and presenting them in a linear fashion along the timeline. Many of the incredible innovations that followed produced some of the most influential Companies of Australia’s short history! So much so that “Government” and these influential Companies are so inextricably bound that they may as well be considered the same thing! That’s why to understand the “State of Electronics” in Australia, you need to understand the “History of Electronics” in Australia. A good example of this influence is that of AWA (Amalgamated Wireless (Australasia) Ltd). As mentioned in my previous Blog entry, their influence in Australia was immense for about 60 years and helped shape Government policy, create a Radio industry, create a TV industry, create a Research & Development ethos, setup Telecommunications in general, strategic development of niche areas of the industry, and train a vast number of individuals to become tech savvy! AWA’s demise as major player shouldn’t be immediately relegated to the history books as much of that companies legacy is still being felt today. Indeed, the court case surrounding the demise of that Company is still in progress from what I understand.

Site of the Marconi Companies test transmissions from Pt Lonsdale Victoria to Devenport Tasmania 1906

So far I have interviewed a large list of people both in Sydney and Melbourne. Recently I had the pleasure of interviewing Gary Johnston (Jaycar/Electus Distribution), Matthew Connell (Chief Curator the Powerhouse Museum Sydney), Ian Debenham (former Curator the Powerhouse Museum Sydney), Campbell Bickerstaff (Curator the Powerhouse Museum Sydney), David Demant (Senior Curator Museum Victoria), Ian oToole (Curator Kurrojong Radio Museum), Stephen Jones(VJ, Computer Historian & Author), Clare Gervasoni (Curator University of Ballarat) and Graeme Hood (Electronics Engineer Lecturer University of Ballarat). This list is by no means complete and is in addition to the following previously interviewed subjects: Dick Smith, Andrew Greatbatch, Peter Atanackovic, Bill Petrski, Owen Hill, Eugene Ruffolo, Andrew Griffiths, Matthew Pryor, David L Jones, Leo Simpson, Doug Ford, Andy Gelme, Jon Oxer, Grant Petty and Chris Nicol. In addition to that, I have filmed Australia’s first Computer CSIRAC, the Kurronjong Radio Museum collection, Silanna Semiconductor’s cleanroom and Fab plant, Blackmagic Designs factory, Observant’s assembly area, Hanna Print’s “Silicon Chip” printing line, and many, many individual labs and workspaces. It’s certainly been incredibly interesting to me and I think will be interesting to quite a wide variety of people when the documentary series is complete.

In recent weeks, I have been deeply involved in research. Each interview takes an enormous effort to research, organise into questions and then formulate a plan as to how those answer are to be included into the documentary timeline. The style I’m attempting to go with is very much driven by “Conversation”. My interviewed subjects are intercut to deliver information to the audience in both a factual and hopefully at times, “light hearted” manner! My original question is then removed leaving only the conversation in it’s place. So as each interview is researched, a constant eye needs to be kept on the Edit timeline to see what’s missing in terms of the story telling, key explanations of electronic terms and processes, historically important figures and so forth! Basically I’m threading the “Conversations” of the many into an informative ride in history, without the help of a narrator, graphics or interviewer. It’s a giant jigsaw puzzle that is both fun and daunting to put together!

This week I have quite a few more interviews planned and as a result the Edit on the project has had to slow down. On the bright side, the documentary will be quite detailed and I believe the only one of it’s kind, showcasing Individuals and Companies that have or are currently innovating in Australia. I’m very much looking forward to updating both the current Trailer and more information about the project as soon as possible, so keep checking this Blog for further updates. Many thanks for your patients! Cheers!

Another major factor in my decision to expand the Documentaries content is that I am stunned by how many “Things” have been invented here in Australia!There are so many incredible innovations in the field of Electronics & Computing that to not include them would be a major mistake. To name just a few items, I have compiled a simplified list:
1877 – Louis Brennan patents a wire-guided and wire-driven torpedo for harbour defences.

1878/79 – Henry Sutton of Ballarat invents the carbon filament lamp 16 days after Edison demonstrates his!

1885 – the Telephane – precursor to television is invented by Henry Sutton of Ballarat!

1889 – Arthur James Arnot invents the Electric Drill in Melbourne and Patents it.

1890 – Professor Richard Threlfall of Sydney University is the first person in the world to suggest publicly (at a meeting of the Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science) that ‘Hertzian waves’ might be used for Telegraphy — Which would be commonly known as Radio!

1926 – The first Cardiac Pacemaker in the world is used to revive a new-born baby!

1929 – Alfred Traeger develops the first pedal wireless transceiver for the Royal Flying Doctor Service.

1932 – George Julius invents a Totalisator with an automatic odds-calculating device.

1934 – The first Car Radio is fitted to a car made by Kelly’s Motors in NSW.

1939 – Degaussing of Ships to help protect them from magnetic mines was patented by Frankin Barnes of Scoresby Victoria.

1947 – A team at CSIR (the fore-runner of the CSIRO) built CSIRAC, the world’s fifth computer, and the first to play ‘computer music’.

1950 – The Flying Doctor’s radio service is adapted to operate the School of the Air.

1952 – Alan Walsh (CSIRO) develops the Atomic Absorption Spectrometer.

1958 – David Warren develops the prototype of the Black Box flight recorder.

1961 – Ultrasound – David Robinson and George Kossoff’s work at the Australian Department of Health, resulted in the first commercially practical water path ultrasonic scanner.

1975 – Interscan – An aircraft approach and landing guidance system using microwaves was successfully tested at Tullamarine Airport, Melbourne.

1976 – Electronic Ignition System. A silicon-chip ignition system for small engines in lawnmowers and chainsaws was developed by the Notarus brothers in Sydney.

1978 – The first Bionic Ear was fitted to an Australian patient.

1979 – Geoff Healey invents the Race-Cam.

1981 – The Earth Leakage Circuit breaker is developed in Adelaide by Gerard Industries.

1993 – Australia invents the first Underwater Computer – Bruce Macdonald at the Australian Institute of Marine Science developed the world’s first underwater computer with a multi-button hand-held keypad that mimics a conventional keyboard.

1997 – Neil H. E. Weste and David Skellern were the first to invent WiFi – they invented the first 802.11a chip.

1998 – The Aurora solar car achieves a world record speed of 100.9 km per hour over one hour, running on commercial solar cells and lead-acid batteries

So to be able to tell the “History” of an Industry and how it shaped todays industry, is vitally important I feel. The Documentary will be split into three sections now. Episode 1 will deal with the early days, and is essentially a recount of important innovations in Australia from 1854 (the first telegraph pole) through to the (US) Invention of the Transistor in 1947. Episode 2 will be the start of the “Current” doco which deals with the early experiences from Dick Smith, Owen Hill, Leo Simpson, Andy Gelme and anybody involved in electronics before 1982. Although the PC was introduced really in 1975-77 (Sphere1, Apple, Commodore PET & others) it isn’t really until many of the “Micro Computers” are commercialised (IBM, Microbee, TRS80, other Z80 based Computers) in 1981/82. So Episode 2 ends with the introduction of the PC in 1982 in Australia, with the first Australian designed & manufactured PC the Microbee. Episode 3 takes us through from 1982 until the present day. It’s a huge task I have set myself but one that I’m keen to see to the end. If you think you may be able to help with the Documentary, please feel free to contact me through this website.

I have two other Posts on this project now. You can reach them both here: the Beginning and “State of Electronics” Trailer is now Online

Another thing I should mention is the extraordinary response my initial trailer has had. It’s been linked on so many Blog sites, referred on Twitter and Facebook. There are many comments on Youtube, Vimeo, the EEVBlog and many, many more which have been very encouraging. Thank you to all. Just yesterday it was spoken about on the Amp Hour Podcast Episode16 (a podcast for electronic enthusiast & engineers). If you don’t know the Amp Hour and you are interested in Electronics I highly recommend it. David L Jones, who appears in my Doco co-hosts with Chris Gammell – Check it out!

Until the next update – Enjoy!

How do you even describe what “Magnatron” was? Well the Official line is it’s a 10 story high “Skill Tester” (inspired by the arcade game) built on the lawn of the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG). I wouldn’t be at all surprised to learn that it’s the worlds largest “Skill Tester” game ever to be created! Magnatron uses a 30m high construction crane as it’s lifter, while a huge 18m High enclosure was built from truss to create the enormous scaled stage area! Acquiring its name from the large Electro Magnet used to pick up prizes inside the enclosure, the magnet weighed in at 750kg by itself so everything about this project was huge! Ultimately, 14 contestants got the chance to pit their “depth” perception skills in front of a live crowd during the middle of the AFL Grand Final (round1), using Magnatron! As far as I know, this was a world first! Using an enormous construction crane as a “game’s machine” was an incredible idea! That idea was born from the minds of two young gentlemen from Clemenger BBDO Melbourne – Luke Thompson & Seymour Pope who came up with the concept!

A year or so ago I took part in another grand Carlton United Brewery (CUB) project called “Drop the Bomb“. Like that project, Magnatron is a very large scale, publicly viewable media stunt that took place in realtime on the day. This type of production is very exciting but also very stressful because you only get one chance at it! So the build up of the filming of the event was filled with many technical issues. I was pretty keen to get a time lapse rig on to the project pretty early on. It was always going to take a while to physically construct the “Skill Tester” and I knew that production costs would be prohibitively expensive if we were to film the entire thing with crews etc. So I put in a call to a friend to enlist the help of Sydney based EONFX, who provided the semi permanent Time Lapse Rig installation. I wanted that camera to run 24 hours a day at 1 frame every 15 minutes, so that we could see the transitions from night to day and back again in quick succession. The position of the camera had to be placed so that we could not only clearly see the construction process but also make use of the giant icon in front – the MCG!

After several visits to the company constructing the Crane and the Magnet, the creatives and I made up a list of places where we wanted to position cameras to record the event. The list was extensive. As the pre production continued, it was clear that Channel 7 (a local TV network that was broadcasting nationally for the AFL) would come on board to assist the Production by committing some of their resources to the project. Channel 7 were now planing to do some live crosses to Magnatron during the course of their live telecast of the game. The benefits to us included access to their helicopter, a remote camera head mounted inside the enclosure of Magnatron and several roving cameras around the perimeter. One angle that was always planned was a view from the Magnet looking down onto the prizes (hopefully). Because the Magnet was so large my initial concern was the effects of Electromagnetic radiation effecting our cameras. We opted for a small camera to be mounted onto the magnet, which could record in a self contained fashion. Wayne Daisley, Channel 7′s Technical Manager, offered up his Gopro HD Hero for testing and to our surprise, the camera not only survived but performed flawlessly! So it was decided that a Gopro Camera would be mounted using a magic arm to the Magnet on the day!

For me, Magnatron is as much about the construction of the worlds biggest “Skill Tester” as it is using it! For that reason, I wanted to record the construction process in a similar fashion to those documentaries you see on Nat Geo or Discovery channel like “Mega Builders”, “The Worlds Toughest Fixes” and the like! They often punctuate the story line with sped up motion, time lapse and wide angle lenses to achieve a grand look! To be honest, I don’t know how else you could record such an event because the shear scale at which the construction took place pretty much dictated the wide angle lenses and time lapse photography anyway! So it wasn’t too hard to achieve that feel. initially I was toying with the idea of shooting with Shift and Tilt lenses to make the “Magnatron” look like a child’s toy but I felt this could work against the actual scale of the life sized project. So ultimately, I spent many early mornings playing with the construction crew at the MCG site, taking hours of Time Lapse footage. This was in addition to the Time Lapse rig we mounted permanently at the site on a tower.

“The Tower of Power”

As all projects commence, there is usually some delay that causes things to be arranged at the last minute. This project was no different. Jason Byrne, Clemenger BBDO Melbourne’s Senior TV Producer pretty much dealt with constantly shifting sands and demands from the Creatives and yours truly! To his credit, he handled that job incredibly well. One of those demands was the “Tower of Power” as it became known – a 12 meter high tower which supported our semi permanent time lapse rig! Standby props man and all round good guy, Peter Blackwood was called in to help out in this department! Initially I had asked for a lighting pole to be placed into the ground at a given spot at the MCG. It soon became obvious that this was a very high profile location where everything we did had to conform to extreme safety rules, union conditions as well as MCC/MCG management rules etc. The whole backstory of the approval process would take up so much of this blog entry, that I’m going to give you only the brief version! We eventually were granted permission! However, we had to conform to a standard approved by an Engineer, all with only a day or so notice! Peter Blackwood managed to locate a construction company that had two sections of an industrial sized crane, with engineering approval tickets etc, which we could have delivered to the MCG site quickly! Jason and his team of guys at Clemenger handled the rushed approvals, while Greg Dunn and EONFX in Sydney rushed to prepare our time lapse camera! Greg and I coordinated the technical requirements and we opted for a Solar powered rig, with a mobile broadband modem installed – all controlled from EONFX’s proprietary system. The camera we ended up installing was a Canon 550D. Set at Aperture Priority in Jpeg mode, we uploaded every image to a custom website for backup. In addition, the files were stored inside the camera rig on two mirrored laptop drives! As the equipment made it’s way to the MCG site, the Magnatron construction crew were about to break ground. I arrived early on 6/9/2010 to film the fencing going up as Peter Blackwood began to dig holes in the ground for the foundation of our tower! The following day, the trucks started to arrive with our massive crane base! A totally massive overkill for our tiny package but it got the job done! It had the added benefit of being incredibly stable so the time lapse footage needed virtually no stabilisation at all! In addition it had easy access to the top with an inbuilt ladder and safety rails! Once all the sections had been craned into position, Peter built some hoarding at the base to be able to safely lock the public out. A high fence was also installed. He provided lifting ropes & pulleys to help replace the car sized batteries every so often, as well as places to store safety gear etc. It was a truly magnificent setup! Our only alien on the tower was a nesting Magpie, who insisted on flashing it’s ass at our cameras a few times! The irony is incredible if you want to read the tea leaves on any of this – Collingwood (commonly referred to as the Magpies) had made it into the Grand Final for the first time in decades. I took it as an omen of some sort?! Any case, that Magpie wouldn’t give up even when we installed some anti bird spikes onto of the camera!

Melbourne has had it’s wettest winter in many years, breaking a long running drought with plenty of rain! So much so that areas in country Victoria were heavily flooded for a week. Why am I telling you this, well our Time Lapse rig wasn’t connected to the power grid but rather it was self contained with 2 x 20W solar panels and two deep cycle 12v batteries! The inclement weather did stretch the friendship on a few occasions with the solar system and caused us to climb the “Tower of Power” to exchange the batteries with a spare set. A large metal dog box was lifted to the top of the tower which contained our spares and supplies. Lifting two heavy batteries to the top of the tower was made possible with a rope and pulley system and a zip up tool bag. The rest was hard muscle work to carefully lift the heavy weight 12m in the air! I did it several times as did our team members Tom Davies & Stu Heppell. I knew that the Power levels in the batteries would become an issue and to help me sleep at night, especially when I was sent to Sydney on another job for a couple of days, I decided to build an iPhone App to help maintain the system. The iPhone App was installed only on a few phones as a “Developer” and not put onto the App store but it basically allowed access to a Log file which recorded the Battery Voltage levels and the last recorded image. That way I could preempt when a battery change was necessary and also see that the last image had indeed been recorded and uploaded to the website! Not to big note myself as a guru programmer, but the App was incredibly useful and worked perfectly!

Testing day!

For some it was a full 12 months and for others only a month however, we all had finally made it to the testing day. Magnatron had completed it’s building phase but had to be tested before being made ready for the event! So a day of fun was organised for the CUB crew and many had a crack at trying to use Magnatron! It was definitely harder then everyone expected but possible! I could see a big difference on the construction crew, especially Darren Brink from Kennovations, who looked visibly more comfortable. He and his crew did a magnificent job of assembling the components that make up Magnatron, which included many fail safe systems like backup battery units and generators, should the main generator fail. This prevented the Magnet from “Letting go” of it’s payload, in the event of a power failure! Hopefully those guys will write up a blog entry on the construction but it was all pretty impressive stuff. 17 tonnes of heavily reinforced concrete had to be poured to stabilise the base of the Magnatron crane! All that concrete had to be removed directly after the event, leaving the surrounding parklands in an untouched state!

For me and my team, it was all about trying to recreate the day as best we could. All the prizes, $100,000AU in total, had been assembled into custom built cages and were now on the stage. So one by one we lifted them with the Crane and Magnet, recording each lift with my GoPro camera. It was also the first time we saw the major prize – a Toyota Hillux being lifted completely over the top of the 18m staging structure! Pretty amazing sight!

Our small team consisted of two other cameramen using DSLR cameras as capture units. They included Stu Heppell, who operated a 7D camera supplied by on set Editor Alister Robbie. Jaque Fisher operated another 5D MKII as did I, while we also enlisted the help of a P2 camera for a static wide angle view. That camera was left on it’s own mostly although Stu was responsible for keeping it safe. Tom Davies was our runner who resupplied us all with cards and batteries. Back behind the curtain was Alister Robbie. He had set himself up inside a hired van with his edit suite equipment and still donning a safety vest, he processed the footage and pre selected material for the the next days broadcast! Others on the day included our fearless leader Jason Byrne and his offsider Julian Costanzo. Both Luke and Seymour were also instrumental on the test day. Outside of our main team but still vitally important were the guys from Traffik in particularly Nick Harvey, Clemenger’s Mick McKeown and Sonia von Bibra, Darren Brink from Kennovations, “Dutch” the construction sites safety officer and many others. In all it was quite a large team.

The big day – 25th of September 2010!

After a huge build up towards “the day”, Saturday the 25th of September came around and everything was ready to go! The construction crew had completed all the testing successfully and we had recharged and downloaded our cameras in preparation for the stunt! My first job for the morning was to follow the induction of the contestants to the construction site and to place the last camera – another GoPro HD onto the scissor lift where the contestants were due to compete from. That camera would point directly at them as they looked up to witness the awe of Magnatron! It would also record their reaction as they became aware of their results, so it was pretty important! For the rest of the day, we ran around with our DSLR rigs and captured the joy’s and failure of the contestants one by one! All said and done, the production was a massive undertaking, requiring many hours of time-lapse, technical meetings and recci’s, and good old fashioned diplomacy! All up 100,016 people who attended the Grand Final saw the spectacle! 3.4 million watched it live on television! It’s been viewed Online in it’s countless forms many times! While not my normal kind of work, I think Magnatron was successful! There is a Youtube Video on CUB’s Channel here

The discussion is focused initially on the world of Hobby Electronics and how it’s decline could effect the Electronics Industry in the future. The Documentary then discusses many issues that face industry including the issue of “Repair and Recycle”, “Education”, “Surface Mount Technology”, “Globalisation”, “Opportunities” and many many more off the cuff & candid comments from Industry professionals.

The Documentary features interviews with famous Australians and Industry professionals including Dick Smith, Dave L Jones, Doug Ford, Leo Simpson, Grant Petty, Matthew Pryor, Jonathan Oxer, Andy Gelme, Andrew Griffiths, Eugene Ruffolo & Bill Petreski. In the future, I am planning to interview just a few more before the final release of the Documentary soon.

Shot completely on the Canon 5DMK2, using the Zoom H4N Audio recorder, the Documentary was a massive undertaking by yours truly. I have to admit I did it completely on my own, with no assistance from anyone along the way. It was an experiment in filmmaking that I was keen to try as well as put modern DSLR cameras through the riggers of serious production filmmaking. By that I mean, to have them recording for hours at a time. In reality that’s not possible because the FAT32 file system on the cameras prevent a recording larger then 12 minutes on the 5DMK2. However, as I regularly shoot with 35mm Film cameras, where the maximum recording time is roughly 10 minutes per magazine, I’m well disciplined in taking a breather for a second or so while I press “Stop” and “Start” on the camera! So I never found this to be a limitation of DSLR cameras.

This project started when one day I realised that many of my favourite electronic stores had started to disappear. I also realised that much of the “culture” of hobby electronics was fast disappearing also. With the advent of Online resources, many schools, magazines and swap meets appeared to fade with time. As a kid, I enjoyed playing around with electronics and while I never got serious, I did go through 1st year Swinburne (Electronics) Engineering, after graduating from high school! Trouble was I looked out the window and watched crazy long haired louts running around with movie cameras, making films and was subsequently lured into their world. The passion for technology has stayed with me constantly. So making a documentary on “Electronics” was really a natural progression. I thoroughly enjoyed speaking at length with so many fascinating people, who appear to have the same disease as myself! Once bitten with the bug, you can’t help yourself but be interested in electronics. That’s why it is a great shame to me that young kids aren’t able to get into electronics as easily as perhaps my generation was able to. With the complexity of “Electronic Systems” today, how is anyone expected to start to learn? For Australia, I believe this to be a major problem of the future.

This documentary is as far as I’m aware of, the only documentary of it’s kind in Australia. There are no records like books, films etc which document the history of the profession of electronics! Many of it’s founders are fast moving on and I really felt like this story should be preserved as a Film to highlight how entrepreneurial & sophisticated Australians can be. My final version of the documentary is about 2 hours long and the exact format is yet to be decided. Stay tuned for more. Meanwhile enjoy the trailer!

On the 13th of May, I flew to the Gold Coast Queensland to start production of a Commercial for The Natural Confectionary Company via Production Company Chocolate Studios in Melbourne. While still overseas, I was contacted by EP Dave Ellis, about possibly directing a TV Commercial for them and, in only a few weeks, we developed a really nice treatment.

This job reconnected me with quite a few different people in Melbourne, including former Micronite Producer Barry Cail, who came onboard as a freelance Producer for this TVC. After having worked overseas for an extended period it was refreshing to be able to work locally again. Unfortunately we weren’t shooting in Melbourne but rather sunny Queensland, on the Gold Coast! When I say unfortunately I mean that in the nicest possible way, as I haven’t shot in my own home town for such a long time. Coincidentally, I used to live on the Gold Coast. I had worked at the Warner Movie World Studios for several years on such shows as “Mission Impossible” (the TV series), “Time Trax1&2″, and several “Movie of the week” projects. But that’s digressing!

Australian productions differ substantially from my OS work, in that they are always bound up in some sort of “Australianism” or colloquial detail that makes either the idea or the execution difficult for my overseas clients to understand. Typically a good understanding of both our slang and football is a prerequisite for good comprehension of the message to occur (generalisation but you get the idea). Mostly, I am in the belief that Australian advertising is meant for Australians only and is largely inaccessible to overseas markets which is a shame. I think even in Australia, many of the commercials are not aimed at new immigrants, tourists, business travellers or people who do not care for football, popular culture and trends. That’s a big sector of the community that is left out from targeted advertising. This commercial however was different. That’s why this project was fun to work on. Yes it does still involve some background history if you truly want to fully understand the TVC, however you could completely miss that and still enjoy the Ad!

Through advertising agency, The Ross Partnership in Melbourne, the Commercial was designed to be a parody of the “Action” style of TVC’s made in the early 1980′s, featuring legendary Australian Sportsmen and Woman. It was written by Meg Sorenson for TNCC in an ongoing campaign.I think the TVC is accessible to anyone because it pokes fun at a style that is ubiquitous across the planet in one form or another!

OK enough of the “thoughts behind the Ad”. This TVC was fun to make – pure and simple! We had a glorious sunny day to film the TVC on and a brilliant athlete to feature. Emma Snowsill is a remarkable person, with an amazing focus on her career. You can read more about her here to find out about her amazing achievements. I have never seen a person swim as fast as she could – Quite incredible! Emma is an Olympian gold medalist triathlete (Beijing 2008)! So I had my work cutout keeping up with her all day! The schedule was reasonably gruelling also with a huge list of shots to get in one day. This included shots of her swimming, running and cycling. We filmed the TVC at a popular Gold Coast beach at Currumbin heads. I’ve actually shot there on several occasions and it probably was used in many of those early “Action” sports TVC’s I spoke of earlier, which made it even more perfect! When I was asked by the production staff at Chocolate as to which crew I wanted for this job, I immediately wanted to regroup my usual crew from Queensland. Sadly my frequency is way down these days but mostly they are still all around. I had last worked with the majority of them on “Drop the Bomb” with Hammish & Andy (for a Carlton Draught stunt) which was only a year before I guess. Our Sound Recordist was Craig Walmsley, Camera Assistant was again David Cordell and Keygrip was Leigh Tait. Additionally we had Gaffer Glen Jones and his 2nd join us also. From Melbourne, EP Dave Ellis & Sara De Maria, Makeup Artist Selena Pertzel and Data Wrangler Kevin Wetdewich also joined the production. There were a few others and I’m sorry I haven’t mentioned your names here. Needless to say, it wasn’t a huge crew but a very effective one!

The commercial was shot using both the RED One camera and a combination of Canon DSLR (5DMK2) and GoPro HD cameras. This was really what I would call the secret recipe for this TVC as using traditional film camera gear would have been far too cumbersome and to heavy to deal with for these kinds of activities. In fact, even the RED was too big really. Leigh built a fantastic rig to dolly the RED camera easily across sand dunes as well as providing a nifty trailer (for a Quad bike) for the RED to film low angle, running shots. Mostly though, we used the 5DMK2 for some of the more spectacular shots, such as a really low angle shot of Emma swimming over the camera. That was actually filmed from the bottom of the ocean (about 20 feet down) looking straight up at the sun as Emma powered through the waves. I had Leigh (a licensed PADI diver) shoot that shot for me while I had Dave Cordell film from the beach using the RED camera, a 25-250mm Angenaux zoom lens with a doubler! My game plan for the day revolved around the quick change over from one camera system to the next. So all the land based shots that required sound or were relatively simple to get with our rigs were shot on the RED camera. The rest were shot either on the 5D or Go Pro cameras! This included most of the swimming shots and several of the biking angles.

We did run out of light eventually. During the filming of the bike sequences the light did become a problem. That scene was again largely filmed on the RED One and a few shots from the GoPro camera. There is a low angle shot looking past Emma’s handlebar that was only possible to film using the GoPro as well as a shot of her head as she looks up while riding! Given the limited time we had, I honestly don’t know how else I would have filmed those shots?! After an incredibly successful fun day, we said goodbye to the crew and headed back to Melbourne the next day.

Post production took place at Chocolate Studios in Melbourne. It’s a very beautifully appointed Post Production centre with all the latest gear, including it’s own audio facility. On the 16th of May, we recorded a guide voice over track and then began sifting through a sizeable amount of rushes with my Offline/Online editor Marty. We actually decided that we would take the offline offshore so to speak and for a few days we cut the commercial on a private yacht in Williamstown Melbourne. This would have to be one of the more exotic locations I’ve conducted Post Production but was a lot of fun! The only thing we had to get used to was the unexpected wave action of passing boats in the harbour, which rocked us back and forth, but luckily I’m OK with boats! Any case, I tweeted about my experience and and got quite a strong reaction from many on Twitter! We actually did some pretty amazing work on that boat, despite all the distractions. For those that want to know about the tech side of things, we used Final Cut Pro on a laptop, some raid drives and made use of the onboard HDTV LCD screen!

The final leg of the TNCC journey involved audio Post Production with Paul McCosh at Chocolate, who created a fantastic track out of bits and pieces while the colour grading took place at By Deluxe Melbourne, with colourist Stanley Lopuszanski. We graded all formats from a single file in Scratch, giving each scene a distinctive look. Mostly again the “Looks” were heavily inspired by some of “those” TVC’s from the 80′s & 90′s and Stanley did a fantastic job recreating that experience. While I had the chance, I put the 5DMK2 material against the RED One footage and was amazed how good the 5D looked. It’s not the RED is bad, it’s just if you shoot carefully, using a narrow depth of field, the 5D is an amazing camera. However, Stanley was quick to point out it’s limitation with respect to dynamic range. The 5D does suffer from jagged edges on high contrast lines & detail. Still, it looks great in our TVC and most of the shots wouldn’t have been possible with any other camera system, without more money, time and effort! The Online was a relatively straight forward affair back in Chocolate Studios in Avid DS.

In closing, I have to say this was one of the most fun jobs I’ve shot in recent years. It was a pleasure to work on because the Agency was great, the Client was incredible and the Cast and Crew were absolutely amazing. Add sunshine and surf and you have yourself the perfect mix for a great job!

Here is the Commercial

For the last couple of months, I have been working hard on a new project, tentatively called “State of Electronics”. It’s basically concerned with the history, development and future of the Australian Electronics Design and Manufacturing Industry. Partly fuelled by my own interests in Electronics, the documentary hopes to investigate the life cycle of an industry – how an industry is born, how it develops and then how it goes into decline. It’s a subject that can apply to many forms of industries including my own industry – the film industry.

Filming has begun and over the last couple of weeks and I have interviewed many people who helped create the Electronics Design & Manufacturing industry in Australia as well as those who are very active within it still today. The documentary will highlight many of the individuals who tinker in their back sheds designing and building innovative electronic devices, large & small scale manufacturers, Repairers, Component Suppliers, Design houses, Technicians, Businessmen and Woman, futurists, Hackers and Organisations with the sole purpose of showing a worldwide audience the state of the Australian Electronics Industry.

The format is driven by interviews that are mostly like “Discussions”. The topics vary from how people became involved with electronics as a child, how they developed their careers and then how they changed the world around them with innovation, good business sense etc. However, as with any good story, there is a darker side also. The Documentary is investigating the decline of the industry also. Through both economic and political change, the Electronics Industry is constantly undergoing change. World economic problems as well as technological advancements have meant the end of an era in certain sectors of the Industry, leaving jobs at risk or making them extinct! However, not everything is of doom and gloom. The documentary will also highlight individuals and companies that have been able to break through the difficulties and find their feet on a worldwide platform, delivering state of the art products and innovation.

As the project progresses I will update this blog with further information. For now, I can tantalise you with just a few images already shot on the 5DMKII. Perhaps this is an appropriate moment to describe the shooting process. The entire documentary is being filmed on Canon’s 5DMKII using L series glass. Audio is recorded using a Zoom H4N digital recorder and the video and audio are combined in Post Production, using Final Cut Pro. Because this is such a small gear package, I am largely able to handle most of the production needs by myself. When it’s all said and done, I will write up my feelings on going solo on such a big project, however for now I can say that it is incredibly liberating, somewhat demanding but very efficient! I’m also using my iPad as my “questions note pad” and also to carry out research on the fly (even while asking questions). I’ve had the opportunity to include “others” very quickly into the Documentary by being quick to research and write new questions for them. The iPad has made this possible. It’s an amazing tool used in this manner! The last thing I should mention is the overall size of the gear package i’m using, is so small that I can  (using a Defence Force term)  ”deploy” very quickly by air or road to carry out interviews. On the 19th of July, I flew to Sydney for two days of interviews with just two pieces of luggage!

More to come!