G'bye Oz... July 6 / '08

How incredibly quickly these last few months have come and gone

Actually that's not entirely true. My time in Australia was filled with so many adventures, challenges and events that while there, it seemed without a sense of time. Only now that I'm back on Canadian soil, do I realize what a tiny blip in my life calendar it was.

And what a great blip!

Huge thanks to my Australian crews in both Perth and Broome as well as the many friends I made along the way

Memories I'll cherish will be of working with some wonderful, kind and always humorful people, being introduced to the creative geniuses headed by Daniel Browne at CDM (they built the Stormrider, Flybikes and many of our coolest props), some great and potentially long-term friendships and the beautiful, beautiful Indian Ocean, which I was most fortunate to live on, separated from the water by just a few metres of dazzling, soft white sand

Of course my last location for shooting in Australia was Broome, so these are a few pics from there, starting with an image of a typical Broome shooting day - the crew waist deep in wonderfully tropical water, then Mim, Art Department Coordinator using her "private" phone, some camels on Cable Beach at sunset and then myself and Calum, one of our cast pre-quick beach rip in a local Dune buggy, moments after the pic with the camels was taken (thanks Andrew for that ride...)



The Valligat at sea - real power provided by an engine and pilot under the cargo netting in the stern







The fabulous Stormrider. Story-wise, it's a boat/submarine hybrid that was constructed from a damaged private jet fuselage and tons of other debris. Engineered by the same naval architect that oversaw Australia's winning yacht in the America's Cup that they won - this baby was unsinkable and incredibly fast. All exteriors were shot in Broome and the interiors will be shot on a special rig in front of a greenscreen rig in Vancouver, simulating rollovers and various angles of pitch









To capture water effects for when the Stormrider submerges and surfaces, it was rigged on this crane and dipped in and out of the water at various angles and speeds














Ahhh - the lovely sunset again from the Cable Beach Club


That sunset image reminds me I've gotta shout out to the night sky in Broome - has to be the most brilliant stars I've ever seen in the sky - so intense they seem set apart from the blackness behind and beyond them - I witnessed this every night just a few hundred metres from my residence


These pics combined with the other Aussie and Singaporean ones from previous entries reveal a tiny, seriously tiny portion of the images and experiences this adventure has given me - forever thankful for that and for the people who made it happen