Bye bye Bowen...

...for 50 days you’ve been home. But come this Friday; it’s time for us to go our separate ways.

Don’t worry; it’s not you, it’s me.

I know that we’ve had our little arguments, (your weather, for one);

But remember that you ARE beautiful, and I’ll always think of you fondly.

I’m just not ready for a long-term commitment;

I need to move on and see what the rest of the world has to offer.

Don’t worry; I’ll be back sometime soon.

Thanks for your hospitality, and your friendship.

Yours Truly

Ian.

The first part of our marathon is over: We’re flying to Darwin tomorrow - and hopefully (if the rain hasn’t stopped the building of sets out west)... Kununurra, WA.

It’ll be a little surreal to go from the smallish township of Bowen (no traffic lights), to the bustling northern city of Darwin; but I think that most of us are ready for a change. To be honest; the weather these past 2 weeks has been enough to fray even the calmest of nerves.

We’ve seen rain/torrential rain/mizzle/mist/hazy-rain/showers/cold-snaps/deluges/and trudged our way through quagmires of mud (mostly due to the Dust that we brought in...) In short it hasn’t been fun to drag cables around.

Hey at least I got good use out of my new gum-boots.

There’s no doubt that I will return to Bowen, however it’d be nice to do so during autumn or spring... and for a holiday... not a highly technical filming expedition.

See you all in Darwin.

Latest - From the ARCHIVES


The strange silver ball thingys at Radcliffe place (opposite the Treasury casino), Brisbane


Update: Thursday afternoon 28th June 2007

Well, we’ve finished in Bowen – and boy did we go out with a bang.

It’s no secret that a big part of the film revolves around the bombing of Darwin by Japanese forces. One of the last shots in Bowen involved the destruction of one of our sets by fire.


Safety officer observing the controlled fire.


Another angle


And another

Also; a decision has been made in regards to the rain in WA; which was heavy enough to prevent the set builders from actually GETTING to the location to build the sets!

To allow them time to build; we are returning to Fox Studios in SYDNEY for a few weeks, our triumphant location-filming resuming sometime in August for a month-and-a-bit; before re-returning to Sydney for a larger Studio shoot.

On a sadder note, I lost my rain jacket today, which had faithfully served my precipitation-shedding-needs since its purchase in Vancouver during 2001 – you will be sorely missed (and quickly replaced I’m afraid). The jacket is added to a semi-exclusive-list of equipment I’ve managed to misplace in the last few days, including my new head-torch, and or course – my sanity.

Ok, see you all soon (especially those of you in Sydney).
Ian