Lipton tvc

This was a set built for Lipton tea bags. The production company was "Gods & Monsters" and it was directed by Barney Howells and produced by Nick Round.

We had to create a set that was interesting and yet didnt look too busy or dominate the frame. The 3-D shapes look simple enough but were a reasonably complicated build. The most difficult part of the whole job was keeping the floor white while a dozen dancers tried their hardest to cover it in black rubber.

Medibank TVC-Perth

Getting the "Medibank" letters to Perth in one piece was a bit of a challange. Building suitable crates to carry each letter was a big job. But we had to be sure that each letter got to Perth in perfect condition and we had been warned that road transport could be a bit rough. But it all arrived in one piece and the weather was perfect for an outdoor shoot in a park.

Bakers Delight-Easter

Bakers delight TVC - produced Fiona McGregor and directed by Dogboys of Pound productions. Here we had to dress a community hall to look like a  cake judging competition at a local annual show. The banner was hand painted by Damian Fitzgerald.

Rockwiz national tour 2010

Rockwiz will be touring Australia wide and a new set is required. We have to design and build a set that will knock down to small foldable components that can then be put into packing crates . It still has too look "Rockwiz" but has to be easily assembled by who-ever may be on hand at that particular venue. It is still the 2 desks for contestants and the 2 podiums for Julia and Brian. They are also introducing a lucky spinning wheel but i cant divulge what part this will play in the live event. The building of the wooden boxes to house this precious cargo took almost as long to complete as the building of the set. 

Experimenta-"Utopia Now" 2010

Experimenta are once again exhibiting their "International biennial of media art" at the Black box  at the Melbourne arts centre. This is the 4th time we have been contracted to fit out the black box for this event so we are pretty familiar with the space. This particular exhibition required lots of rooms with all the walls extending up to the grid at 3.3 metres high. 

It all had to be pre-fabricated and then set up in 3 days at the art centre. This meant building over 200 modular wall sections at the workshop and then trucking the pieces to location. The boys freaked out when they saw how much wood was being delivered.  I will post some shots of the finished interior shortly.

Medibank TVC-Sydney

We reconditioned the "Medibank" letters , sourced props in Melbourne and trucked the whole lot up to Sydney. It has been 10 years since i have done the Hume so i was looking forward to the road trip. It was going to be a 3 day shoot at "freshwater Bay" but the weather didn't do us any favors and so we ended up staying a couple of days longer. This meant lugging all the gear up and down the beach each day which was all very exhausting but there are certainly worse places to be hanging out. 

Rockwiz Xmas special at the Palais

Rockwiz did one Xmas special 2 years ago at the Palais and it was a huge hit. So much so that the repeat performance this year was sold out for 3 nights. So we all had to raise the bar and a much bigger show with improved staging , larger screen and extra lighting was fashioned.

We layered red drapes from front to back and top to bottom  so the whole viewing stage was covered in drapes. It was then enhanced with a huge array of lighting. It all still had the "rockwiz" vibe even though it didn't have some key prop elements and wasn't at the "Gershwin" room.

Also had the thrill of navigating the very narrow stairs and catwalks that take you up and around the outside of the interior dome. One of the pics shows the view from the projector room which is up in the dome and accessed by this catwalk. 

Helicopter simulator

I was asked by a mate of mine who works for "Heliexperiences" to help build a helicopter simulator. They had all the basic software and flying hardware but wanted to put it all together into a permanent enclosed faux helicopter. It had to be done in a couple of days and the budget was very tight. We made a couple of timber patterns and with a router duplicated the profile on to some thicker board. We fabricated a steel frame to hold it all together  (it also had to hold the weight of a large plasma screen ) . Its debut was at the Melbourne show and apparently it was a big hit. 

heliexperiences.com.au

Japanese Tv commercial shot in Melbourne

 Japanese TVC

The shooting and pre production for this particular Tvc was most interesting .....

The director and most of the Japanese contingent arrived in Australia the day before we started shooting. Not the ideal way to go about it given some of the locations were still undecided by the director. We of the art department had to work nearly all night in order to prepare for the first days filming. (it is fairly depressing when you get home and set your alarm and you have to get up in one and a half hours)

We were basically shooting background plates for a whole lot of CGI action that was going to be composited back in Japan. This meant doing weird things like building a mock cafe with a breakaway awning that collapsed on cue. (Damian seems to have found a nice spot to hide.) We also had to carry around a grey mannequin that was shot in various positions to replicate the hero in all this action.

Another set up was in Carlton outside a barbers shop. We had to add some signs and barbers poles to make it really obvious it was a barbers shop. The shot is basically stop animation. We had a whole lot of extras and furniture out side the barbers shop. Frame by frame we had to move the furniture along the street half a metre a time. (very Benny Hill)  There were about 80 frames so it took awhile. Before we did this shot we had to set up the furniture along the median strip so the director could work out the sequence and order of things. (Leon is bemused by the whole event.)

We are looking forward to seeing the finished product, it will be pretty wacky. I also hope it clarifies what is meant to be going on in the commercials cos we have no idea.

Foundry

A couple of weeks ago we shot part of a tvc in a foundry. It was a great location and all very Dickensian. Most of the work they do is sand casting with iron so it is dirty , heavy work. These guys are packing the sand around the patterns , then removing the pattern without breaking the sand away.

All the patterns are put on a conveyor waiting to be filled with the molten iron. It reminded me of some of the locations that were used in the terminator films.

Everything gets covered in the blue powder that gets painted over the moulds. I can only guess that it is a mould release agent of some sort. We had to get some replicas made of some of their castings so that they could be man handled without injuring anyone. The ones hanging off the gantry are the replicas. (with a bit of license) These were cast from a lightweight foam by the people at "Maker + Doer" . 

Just Desserts

Over the last few weeks i have been working on a short film"Just Desserts". Produced by Donna Lyon and directed by Nigel Karikari. It was shot by Katie Millright. The film is set in a stylized road side cake shop. The art departments job was to convert a  bowling club into this cake shop. 

We introduced some fake brick walls to help match the exterior that was shot at another location. 
The main room was partitioned to make a smaller space and a new front door was added to also match the exterior. It was all done on a very tight budget and so all of the construction was done by us at my workshop using mostly recycled set pieces. Faux brickwork can sometimes look a bit disappointing but we experimented until we were happy and in the end were very satisfied with the result.