Stage 7...

...of Fox Studios Australia.
(ha; and you thought it was going to be a continuation of that whole Stage 3 : performing thing...)

Anyhoo, Stage 7 at Fox; is an old exhibition hall. It’s not specifically designed as a sound-proof Shooting studio. At first glance it has all the regular features - lights and bells, sound-stage roller-doors, a lighting grid, LOTS “o” POWER, etc); One thing that is definitely NOT on the list of regular features is a silence that could let you shoot whispering dialog from a wide camera set-up; especially if it’s blowing a gale outside...

I mention the wind, because it seems as though Stage 7 has a teensy problem... it Hums...

Not an electrical hum, mind you (that would be easy enough to fix...) the BUILDING hums...

My best guess, and remember it IS a guess (since I haven’t been up in the rafters); is that the walls are being moved ever so slightly in the kick-ass-breeze, and the resulting vibrations are travelling into the lighting grid-pipe (rigid), which is transferring into the rigging that holds the space-lights (6 x bulb lighting fixture – very common for ambience lighting from above in sound studios). This vibration manages to hit a frequency that is audible, and you start to get “waves” of humming


Space-lights

I’m making these conclusions, because the noise is most definitely coming from those sections of the lighting grid that are under load, and it only seems to occur with a large gust of wind (that you can also hear whipping over the building’s structure).


Blue-screen is fun.

Anyhoo, as nice as Bowen and Darwin are; it’s good to be back in a major city (even if it is Sydney, with its bat-shit insane roads and traffic. :) )
Here’re are a few shots of the flight from Darwin



For 1000’s of kilometres there’s pretty much NOTHING...



Every-now-and-then, there’s a road or two.



The landscape starts to look like a coastal reef (even though it’s bone dry)


And sometimes it looks like it’s you’re viewing photos from mars...



Back in Sydney for a few weeks... good thing I bought a Sat-Nav system for my car...



Cable patching can be a tricky business...


Time for the regular PHOTO FROM THE ARCHIVES...
In honour of my MISSING one of the most Kick-arse Australian ski-seasons in living memory;

I present...


Artistic-ski-rack-shot circa 2001, Whistler BC, CANADA.

Okey-dokey, I guess that’s it for the moment.
See you all later;
Ian