https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZbCZQEgYcs&feature=youtu.be
While travelling in Queensland shooting for a documentary project last week, two Griffith Film School graduates found themselves amidst thousands of motorists trapped in the middle of the Bruce Highway.
Martin Ingle and David Ridley were totally stationary for almost eight hours as floodwaters rose and eventually receded late into the night.
Stuck in the middle of nowhere in the pouring rain with bumper-to-bumper cars of total strangers, Martin says they decided to grab their camera gear and interview the people around them.
“When you are trapped in the cold, wet and dark with nothing to do for hours on end, where does your mind wander to? This is what we wanted to find out,” he says.
“What we found was that as the hours dragged on, a bizarre community began to form among the stranded motorists.
“By10.00pmpeople were sharing cups of tea and walking their dogs as if it was some kind of strange impromptu suburb had sprung to life in the middle of nowhere.”
The short documentary they made, The Big Wet, is now online.
The duo is currently working on Into the Middle of Things, a project that captures their 13,000km across Australia to spontaneously interview total strangers.
Over the course of the year, one interview is released every week online, for free. And the results are fascinating and diverse: with farmers, hipsters, Aboriginal elders, refugees, a butterfly man, a Buddhist monk, a Vietnam vet, a witchdoctor and even a nudist.
The two graduated from the Griffith Film School in 2011 and found common ground working on several projects together during their studies.
Watch The Big Wet.
Read more about Into the Middle of Things.
