Riverfire from the Roof

I spent several years working as a contract Audio Visual tech, which I thoroughly enjoyed. Anything from camera operator, camera and vision switching, rolling out mountains of cabling, LED screen installer and operator, and an awful amount of projection installation and operation. And one of the most unique places to operate a projector? On a roof in the CBD for Brisbane Festival and Riverfire.

Not the tallest building in the city, but enough stairs to know you’re a long way up, as the lift didn’t go all the way. A hidden back lane entrance leads to a lift, then the above-mentioned stairs up and up, through several ghostly abandoned floors lit only by emergency light, through maintenance access, out through more decommissioned rooms, onto the roof, up ladders, and out onto the perfect spot to project a 10-storey high image onto a neighbouring building.

The crew had already set up the rig, and I feel for them, as lifting those projectors up those stairs and ladders would have required a nap. I was run through the setup: rack mounted PC's, 2 x Sanyo 15k projectors blended, just fire it up and off you go.

We had set times, all controlled over radio by the show director. I would turn on the rig, hit play at the start time, sit back, and freeze my ass off, as I was unaware just how much colder and windier it would be up on the roof compared to the ground. At another planned time, I’d receive a radio call: “kill the projector”, which goes on vision mute so we don’t need to warm the projectors up again. The Riverfire show runs, me with one of the best seats in the house, and at the end of the show another radio call: “ok good to go”, and projectors back off mute and run for another few hours.

Once the night was over, shut the whole thing down in the correct order, isolate power, and cover the entire rig in tarps and ropes to protect it from the weather. I did this on rotation with other crew for the entire month.

After the first night of almost turning blue and realising the opportunities I had with a camera up here, I rocked up the following nights with my trusty Everlast bomber jacket and a whole stack of cameras. Digital and 35mm. Honestly, this is the first time anyone has seen these, as I just took photos for the fun of it, never to show or exhibit anything. All experimentation.

The digital images were still in unedited RAW format, and the film tucked away in storage folders, never printed. The colour is odd on the film. Kodak Portra 160, which is really for daylight portrait shots, not long exposure evening experiments in a vintage camera, but hey, it’s just for fun. Also, old cameras are very difficult to assess light and exposure with at night without a proper light meter, and that’s the length of my excuses. To be honest, I really like the look anyhow. It captures the eerie feel of the abandoned levels.

I also shot 1200 frames of full-res long exposure timelapse (above), which was still in frames and never viewed until I put this together, taking up masses of hard drive space. I also finished off a roll of Kodak EBX Elite Chrome Extra Colour 100 in the Canon EOS 1N.

The abandoned levels

Ghostly as they were, lit only in emergency light, several levels of the building were left abandoned. An international education company was running there and, for some unknown reason, ceased to operate, leaving everything packed in boxes and desks pushed into corners. No one around, just the constant hum from the building itself.

We had to walk through these levels at the top of the building, as it was the last stop for the elevator and then into the stairwell for the rest of the way to the roof. I tried to capture the feeling of these levels and, even though I felt quite uncomfortable the first few times, after spending time taking the photos it became less eerie and kind of sad to know this was once a busy business, with many students coming and going, to what it is now.

The Square

Part of the time waiting on the roof, as there was a lot of waiting, I spent people watching. There is a lot going on in the streets below, and several events in Reddacliff Place in front of the Brisbane Square Library. Markets on one night, Latin dancing on another. Latin music funnelling up the towering building walls. Families walking, and crowds heading home after the evening’s events. You almost want to be down there and be a part of the festivities.

Old Brisbane

After a few days of sitting up here you start to notice the hidden skyline. The old Brisbane now buried beneath the skyscrapers. Original rooflines that are only visible from this elevated position. From street level, it’s all covered by awnings, and from a distance it’s blocked by the ever-expanding construction. It wasn’t that long ago that Queen Street was a street and not a mall, and roads once filled what is now King George Square.

What was a simple AV tech gig paid much more than just an hourly rate. It became time for reflection, photographic experimentation, and an insight into parts of the city I didn’t know existed. I had never seen the old Brisbane hidden in plain sight, and I was also unaware that there are quite a few empty floors throughout the city, just sitting there abandoned. Out of all the AV gigs I did, this had to be the most unique, and one of the most memorable experiences I had in the industry.

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