The World Premiere!

As people piled in to the Haydn William's lecture theatre on Tuesday night, gradually changing the unform grey of the seats into a sea of colour, my nerves raced! The night had finally arrived. It was time to reveal for the first time the film I'd been working on for the past 3 years.

The world premiere of 'Where Do Eagles Dare?', the film which follows my journey to satellite track adult Wedge-tailed Eagles in Australia for the first time (i.e. the first part of the project documented on this website), saw nearly 500 people attend one of two screenings at Curtin University's Haydn Williams Lecture theatre earlier this week. Both evenings began with a fabulous Welcome to Country performed by Nyoongar elders Marie Taylor and Robyn Collard from the South West Aboriginal Land and Sea Council. These welcomes included a fantastic Dreamtime video which you can see on their website here. I then screened a short film about the successful use of a nesting box by Carnaby's Cockatoos, before I presented special gifts to all the people who I've had the fantastic assistance of in making the film. They included my partner Gill, my good friend Judy, field assistants Mick, Jeff and Mike, my bird banding supervisor Neil Hamilton, and especially the girl behind all the film's music, Storme, a singer-songwriter from the Perth hills.
 
Then it was time to show the film, which runs for 1 hour and 15 minutes. It was certainly a great thrill to sit back and watch the reactions of the audience to all the sequences I'd spent the past 6 months building in the edit suite. One of the highlights was having 2014 West Australian of the Year and former Chief Scientist Professor Lyn Beazley attend, who I had the pleasure of giving a guest seat.

Thanks to all the wonderful people who supported this event by attending one of the screenings, and to the people who couldn't make it but who kindly sent their words of encouragement. Keep your eyes out for the DVD, which will be available very soon in the New Year!

Professor Lyn Beazley and her husband Richard were special guests to the Friday screening.