27.06.2008

somewhere else, close to home

A couple of days ago I went, for the first time, to Central City Studios for a rehearsal and wardrobe call for a guest role in a television series which I’m doing in a few weeks. These film and television studios are in Docklands and, as if the name Central City Studios wasn’t glamorous and other-sounding enough, the location is incredible. Almost as soon as I passed under the railway lines which divide the old city from the new, and passed by Telstra Dome, I felt like I was in an new and unknown place. It was exciting. I drove through a landscape of high-rise buildings, palm trees, trams and asphalt, all of it encircled by the Bolte Bridge.

Once security let me in to the site, I could see there were a number of huge buildings, kind of like aeroplane hangars, and these are the studios. As I wandered around, trying to work out where I was going, I caught various different and beautiful angles of the in-construction Melbourne Eye. Don’t know if anyone will ever go on it, but it is an oddly humanising element amongst all the industria. So was the sight of a lone bicyclist, riding along the bike path down there next to the water, hundreds of cars and trucks roaring through the sky behind him.

There must have been a film shot there very recently which was set in a forest, because I kept coming across skips filled with tree trunks, large stumps lying against the buildings, and lots of branches everywhere. And so much activity! Trucks and cranes and all sorts of equipment coming and going, it was fabulous.

Found where I was going eventually and spoke to wardrobe and then rehearsed the scene with the other actor, the director and the line producer. We had nearly two hours and when we were done I felt like I knew the scene, what was going to happen and also had established a bit of rapport with the director and the other actor. That was great because the scene involves a kiss, amongst other things, and obviously that level of intimacy can be awkward with a stranger!

Then today we had a read-through of the whole episode with most of the cast, and so I got to drive down there and see that beautiful foreign landscape all over again. Today I really wished I’d thought to take my camera. And who knows when I’ll see it again, because the scene is being shot on location, not at the studios. The read-through was fun, partly because there’s a number of people I’ve worked with before in the cast, so it was great to catch up with them, and also because people laughed at our scenes but also found them moving. Which is how they're meant to be. It's great writing.

Returned home after a detour via Prahran for a casting for a commercial, and had a brief rest on the couch in the afternoon sun, feeling like I’d come back from a quick little trip to somewhere else.