I was part of the film crew that was shooting on Athllon Drive on Friday, as mentioned in a previous thread. It was an interesting weekend, and all went reasonably well. But it did leave me with a few thoughts. The main one being that there are drivers in Canberra who are complete f@cking morons.
In compliance with the police requirements of the permit to block the road, we had witches hats, barricades and big yellow signs saying “Road Closed” across the road. And drivers would STILL squeeze around the barricades to drive down the blocked-off section. The classic was the driver of a light truck who drove over the curb to get past the barricades, squeezed past a car parked across the road with its hazard lights flashing, passed three people waving their arms and yelling at him to stop, and finally only stopped just before he reached where we had people and equipment all over the road because the 1st AD stood in front of his truck. When asked if he’d seen the Road Closed signs his reply was “Yeah, but I was only going through to the other side”.
When it became clear early in the piece that barricades alone wouldn’t be enough, we acquired some flouro vests from the local constabulary (who were very helpful) and added people in front of the barricades. Even then, there were numerous exchanges like this: “Can I go through there?” “No. See the sign? The road’s closed.” “Yeah, but what does that mean?”
People, if there are big signs up saying the road is closed, consider that it may be for a reason. As well as people and equipment on the road, there was also a stunt sequence of a driver swerving in and out of our pre-set traffic and onto the wrong side of the road. During these sequences we made doubly sure of our lockdown, but given what I’d seen earlier, I wouldn’t have been surprised to see someone blow past all security measures anyway.
The other lesson learned: You can discharge a handgun numerous times in the carparks of the Tuggeranong Hyperdome in the early evening and recieve no reaction whatsoever. 🙂 (This was done with permits, police knowledge and a fully qualified armourer on set)
But all in all, the footage looks awesome. Keep an eye out for “Crossing The Line” at local film festivals (it’s a short, so won’t be getting a full cinema release).
Cheers
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