Tuesday, 5 June 2007
Week 3: It Ain’t Over Till It’s Over...
They (whoever they are) claim that if f you stand in one place long enough the rest of the world will eventually pass by.
That may or may not be true, but recent experience suggests that if you stand on the edge of the movie set long enough, you’ll encounter most of the population of Bowen and a substantial number of out-of-town visitors, as well.
Pamplona continued was the theme for the start of Week Three, and while the cattle were headed out of town by week’s end, their continued presence provided plenty of motivation for people to turn up in anticipation of the running of the bulls and frequent opportunities to spend a lengthy period talking to people I hadn’t seen for (in some cases) years....
And if there’s not much happening, at least there’s usually someone to talk to.
As usual with such things, when it came to the running of the bulls, a sort of pattern emerged fairly quickly. The herd completed a couple of laps of the circuit early in the morning before the cameras were sent elsewhere to film other sequences. Once the crew broke for lunch the speculation about a repeat performance would start, and towards the end of the afternoon some sort of action would ensue, though towards the end of proceedings it was rarely the sort of action the spectators were hoping for.
After the previous week’s incident when a single silver car parked near the corner of Herbert and George Streets on Thursday afternoon prevented the mob from doing a lap or two, it was hardly surprising that the barriers stayed in the positions used for bovine exercise rather than being moved to allow a better view of proceedings for spectators and a better chance of motorists finding a parking spot close to the middle of town.
And the actions of the stubborn gent who refused to move his car earlier in the week probably ensured that things stayed that way until the bull-running sequences were well and truly out of the way Well done, that man (not).
However it would be impossible to leave the subject of downtown Pamplona-By-the-Sea without a word of praise for the cattle minders.
The prospect of seven hundred head of cattle moving through the streets of town was probably regarded as a serious incident waiting to happen in some quarters, and the fact that those activities passed almost without incident reflects great credit on the stockmen who supervised the herd as they went through their paces.
As previously intimated, the filming has brought all sorts of people out of the woodwork, and on Wednesday afternoon I got an interesting perspective on the Pamplona thing, as well as a few other issues, from the guy who used to run the newsagency closest to the movie set.
He’d been anticipating problems as the herd went round the block, and suggested that the lack of any serious incident was due to the number of times the herd had gone around. And from his comments I gathered he’d had a bit to do with mustering somewhere along the way. Observations like Some people only muster every year or two, but we found that things went a lot smoother if we mustered every six months or so tend to indicate some degree of experience.
Departing from the Grand View with a couple of schooners under the belt, I had to move a bit more quickly than I would have preferred as the herd came round the corner to have another go at the sequence that was being filmed.
As the herd moved into position, there were several spectators taking advantage of their relative proximity to the cattle to take a few photos. I suspect that they were a little too close to the herd for someone’s comfort because suddenly Mr Jackman appeared, heading towards the crowd outside the Westpac bank, and prompting a change of focus for the aforementioned photographers.
There you go: The celebrity as decoy....
Once Hugh had disappeared and the excitement had subsided slightly, I was able to catch up with one of my fellow Volunteers who would prefer to remain anonymous, so I’ll just say that I’ve known this particular lady for twenty years and her son captained one of my school cricket teams.
If you’ve known someone for that long, you’ve probably seen them in any number of moods, but I don’t recall anyone being quite as excited as someone was on Wednesday afternoon.
It probably had something to do with the fact that Hugh apparently made a beeline for the nearest person wearing a Volunteer shirt (and guess who that was? he asked rhetorically) and then used her pen to sign a number of autographs.
After the event, the implement in question was being fondled as the incident was recalled, leaving me with one image that it will take some time to forget. Have you ever seen a pen being sniffed in the same manner that a connoisseur might savour the aroma of a high-quality hand rolled Cuban cigar?
Once Hugh had departed, we were able to benefit from a brief course in Celebrity spotting for beginners - not that the instructions were too difficult to predict....
First, You’ve got to be out and about. It’s no good sitting around at home complaining that you haven’t seen anyone famous, you’ve got be out there, actively looking.......
Second, remember to have the camera, pen and autograph book on hand, just in case. I gather someone doesn’t leave home without them.
Third, keep your eyes peeled and make sure that you can recognise faces, which pretty much takes me out of the picture unless I start reading the sort of magazines that feature wall-to-wall paparazzi sourced photo spreads....
Last, but not least, make sure you’ve got plenty of time.
That last point was reinforced on Friday afternoon.
Once the cattle sequences had been finished and the herd was out of the picture, the crew started converting the set from the 1938 version of Darwin to the militarised 1940 version.
Arriving for my Volunteer stint on Friday morning, I was told that substantial numbers of Year Twelve students from Bowen High had been recruited to swell the ranks of the 19th Infantry Battalion, and had been practising their parade drills on the hard stand outside the Sailing Club.
Since there was some chance that the group would be marched around the set under the watchful eyes of their sergeant-major, the prospect of an opportunity to indulge in a little badinage from the Grand View footpath while members of Hughesy’s Year Four class of 1999 marched past was something I looked forward to with gleeful anticipation.
You can imagine the sort of thing, Get in step Jones (or whoever) you look like a swagman....
Unfortunately when four o’clock rolled past and Madam started becoming restless, we headed away to buy weekend provisions.
And missed Jack Thompson by about ten minutes......
With Week Three sandwiched between the Bowen Seafood Festival at one end and the launch of Queensland Week at the other, one wonders how many celebrity sightings were missed over the two days. Filming was continuing on Seafood Festival Saturday, so it would have been understandable if the celebrities were somewhat thin on the ground.
On the other hand, last Sunday’s Queensland Government-sponsored free breakfast drew a fair crowd to Hansen Park where they were treated to a few words from Baz Luhrmann, who stayed around for what seemed like an hour or so, signing autographs and posing for photos while his wife and children enjoyed the old-style rock & roll coming from the stage, apparently undisturbed by the public and the eleven-year-old Aboriginal boy from the movie wandered round the place doing exactly what you’d expect eleven-year-old kids to do at events like that.
One wonders how many others were there, quietly doing their own thing unnoticed by the rest of the crowd....
