About 20 years ago my friend Ivan and I thought we’d like to make a documentary about the Barron River, which flows across the Atherton Tablelands and enters the sea just north of Cairns. We didn’t get very far, partly due to the difficulty in finding detailed information on the river.
A couple of months ago I revisited the idea. Unfortunately, Ivan has since moved to Brisbane so I would be on my own for the filming with some support from my wife, Roz. The Internet has changed the way we can find information. It’s easy to search for data about the river from my desk, and Google satellite view allows us to look all along the river to find potential locations for filming.
Another thing the Internet has done is make distance largely irrelevant for many things such as collaborating on video projects. I have a friend in England who is an excellent writer and has a good speaking voice. I was extremely pleased when Deborah said she would be willing to join the project as writer and narrator.
Roz and I have been making trips to various places on the river, making notes and doing some preliminary filming. We will be going back to most of these places several times during the year or so the project will take to film looking for the best conditions. In tropical Australia, we only really have two seasons; the dry season and the wet season. The river changes drastically between these seasons as it slows during the dry and floods during the wet.
Click here for all articles on the Barron River documentary project.
Pheasant Coucals at Kamerunga