This is not a sentiment I’d like etched on my tombstone, but it has to be said that my career has been littered with highly unfortunate events.
There was that time I was filming interviews at the ARIA Awards and a sudden downpour of rain caused my precariously taped hair extensions to slide off my head and fall at the feet of Australia’s musical icons, laying on the red carpet like a sea of perfectly highlighted, recently deceased rats.
Or there was the time I arrived at a rural property to do a profile on one of Queensland’s most prominent farmers and his rabid donkey proceeded to chase me around the yard (please note, I did nothing to provoke him. It was just uncalled for, vindictive behavior) before cornering me on atop a water tank. Where I stayed quivering in fear until the man’s eight year old son laughingly led him away.
And if we’re now just throwing caution to the wind and getting into the real nitty gritty realm of unfortunate work-related incidents, there was also the day I was talked into taking an undesirable sex toy into an interview with the cast of The Real Housewives of Sydney, and all hell broke loose.
(Actually, lets not talk about that one. Since it’s the reason I will never again be allowed to step foot into Fox Studios…)
I could fill an entire book with stories like this, but let’s just say when your spend your entire career interviewing interesting people in unusual situations, a little colour and drama is always going to be thrown into the mix.
Although, that’s not always the case when you step into the highly controlled world of Film Press Junkets.
That world works a little like this.
Just before a movie comes out, you’ll get an invitation to attend the media day, where you’re treated to a little bit of (high controlled) face time with the celeb in question, so they can talk about the upcoming flick.
Now, I’ve never been a card carrying member of the Australian Defense Force (a shocking revelation to you, I’m sure, given the opening paragraphs to this story…) but I’m pretty sure I know how all of their events go down, because a movie junket is carried out with a similar style of military precision.
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A tiny village is erected on one of the top floors of a swanky Sydney hotel. Blocks of rooms are taken over by the production company, with some acting as offices for the media teams to work out of. Others are used as holding pens for highly caffeinated journalists who all pace about like caged, nervous performing monkeys about to be pulled into the Big Top.
Voices are hushed and harried because filming with the Big Name Star is happening just beyond the adjourning paper thin walls, and clocks are watched closer than a toddler attempting to take their first steps, because inevitably the whole situation is running quite behind schedule.