My Visit to the Dockland Studios Melbourne.

Before I started at Melbourne Uni I had begun studying a Bachelor of Creative Art Industries at Victoria University. Why I never completed this degree could be put down to many factors (including seeing fights and cars getting stolen on my walk to uni), but mostly it just wasn’t the course or university for me.

Whilst I was there, one of my classes was based on the idea that there was no future within the Arts Industry, with the premiss being that we should all drop out of university now and start looking for a full time jobs.

One day however this class had a field trip, which in my mind almost made up for the other 11 weeks of pointless dribble, it was an excursion to the Dockland Studios Melbourne. They had just began filming the Commonwealth Games Commentary and we were allowed to view the set. We also went into the main studio which although it looked like a massive generic shed it gave me an incredible insight into film creation- For instance this very same plain dark shed had been transformed into a swap for Ghost Rider, the inside of a house in Don’t be Afraid of the Dark (which had just finished filming) and the inside of a ship for The Pacific.

A Cultural Misunderstanding

Background: A few weeks ago I was on an Intrepid tour through Thailand, Vietnam and Laos. Whilst staying with a Hill tribe in Thailand (not a sentence you get to say everyday) my tour group got into abit of a heated discussion.

At this point the group consisted of  about 50% Australian, 25% British and 25% American. The discussion was instigated by an American family and was based around the Australian film industry (a topic all of the Australians including myself were super keen to discuss), however it quickly became clear that there was a lack of respect for our industry with the rest of the group. The conversation quickly escalated into a patriotic argument, with the American family presuming that Australians were ashamed of films such as Priscilla Queen of the Desert…. a comment that actually left me speechless.

The diverse group of Australians in the group were all quick to assure them that they couldn’t be further from the truth, with even the blokest bloke of the group declaring his love for the iconic piece of Australia cinema.

Personally I am incredibly proud of Priscilla, a film which in the early 1990′s pushed gender and social equality with a frank and realistic insight into our own culture (not implying that Australia is known for its Drag Queens, but simply suggesting that the treatment of them in that film appears brutally honest, it’s not buttered up to make our culture appear kinder or more accepting than it is).

The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert – Trailer

And let us not forget when an international hit the film was! Taking both New York’s Broadway and London’s West-End by storm.

I wonder how they would have reacted to the new TV series I Will Survive, which follows the journey of the Priscilla bus from Sydney to Alice Springs, in search  for Australia’s best triple threat, (apparently the best way to find someone who can sing, dance and act is to judge them as drag queens…makes sense right?) Even if the method of the show seems slightly flawed, it does show that even 20 years after its release Priscilla is still a popular and iconic film, both within our society and projecting our entertainment industry overseas.

I always find that Australian films are at their best when they remove themselves from the glamor of Hollywood. Iconic Australian films are those that utilise Australia’s vast and differing culture, films that do this are always unforgettable – including Rabbit Proof Fence, The Castle, Kenny, Animal kingdom, Gallipoli, Candy and Black Balloon just to name a few. These films give a confronting, but accurate commentary on our way of life, which is always going to be fascinating (at least to us).

• On a side note the Americans that criticized Priscilla later took their 13 year old daughter to a Lady Boy show in Chang Mai – ironic?