One Man, One Camera, a Big Hat, and a Bad Moustache!
I remember as a young boy seeing Alby Mangels travel adventure film ‘World Safari’ and being mortified that the girl sitting next to me thought the film was crap. For me the path was set, I wanted to travel the world and film my antics. I too wanted to bare my chest in every scene, get myself a mongrel dog and meet a new female companion at every port.With the advent of digital video, film making became affordable and l became the proud owner of one of the first mini DV video cameras. But instead of going to film school, I learnt the art of filmmaking as the wedding video guy.My first documentary assignment was to travel around Australia, straight up the guts, sharing the back of a ute for a bed with my brother.Understandbly sometimes things got a little heated ( and smelly),but despite the arguments we managed to come back with a travel series which won an award for best travel program on a Melbourne cable channel.While in the outback, a strange transformation took place. One night while wandering alone, I met a tall Aborigine kurdaitcha man at the crossroads of some ‘piss stop’ town. He drew some symbols in the red dirt with a piece of bone, whispered to me some secret tips on filmmaking, then disappeared into the dark of the night, on emu feathered feet.From that moment, I went from being a mild mannered wedding video guy to becoming ‘THE OVERLANDER’, adventure filmmaker. I suddenly had a strange desire to wear a huge cowboy hat, grow a bad 70’s porn moustache and only wear khaki.Luckily this only occurs when I’m in the Outback!Since then I have travelled far and wide with my trusty stead, a 1979 holden kingswood.Some of the projects I have worked on include:A music video for Rage, ABC. ‘Beer Sandwich’ by The Fuck Fucks. Only gig to ever be filmed on the roof of The famous ‘Espy Hotel’ in St Kilda. (Unfortunately Mark’s music video career was cut short, vowing never to film another film clip after seeing Fred Negro perform naked one night with only a roast chicken and a watermelon!! Mark only ate breakfast cereal for the next six months!!)a one hour documentary on organic farming,Australia’s first online travel video established 2001,an online doco about my hometown, Ararat,a doco on the “Way of St. James,†an ancient pilgrimage route in Spaina 20 minute doco on The Last Outback Boxing Troupe for the ABC
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