We recently blogged about a conceptual photoshoot for the experimental Melbourne Fringe Festival show Old Tech New Decks, where we created promo photos using a prop cello built out of crazy old retro technology.

“But why just do stills photography,” we asked ourselves, “when we can also make a cool teaser VIDEO to promote the show!”

So, once again working with a shoestring budget, we planned & executed a short motion project to make a fun trailer starring a few Old Tech items and the nostalgic sounds featured in the show (cue Super Mario brothers coin blip – baWING!)

Produced by Image Workshop
Written & Directed – Sharon Blance
Director of Photography – Miklos Janek
Editing & Sound Design – Brence Coghill
Backing Music – Vanessa Nimmo & Matt Rankin
Special Thanks – David Thorfinn Goh, James Longworth, Michael Kagarise, Siobhan & Max

Our electric 1980’s inspiration

Image Workshop photographer-and-ideas-person Sharon Blance ~~is obsessed by~~ has a penchant for 1980s pop culture and decided to take inspriation from the awesome 1984 film Electric Dreams, where a computer comes to life and takes control of all the appliances in the protagonist’s apartment. (The full movie is currently available on YouTube…go on, treat yourself!)

Inspiration: the super awesome 1984 movie ‘Electric Dreams’ – more retro gold than you can throw a Rubik’s cube at

We developed a story idea centred around a bunch of forgotton-about old tech lying around a dusty garage suddenly coming to life, powered by a mysterious computer virus called “Old Tech New Decks”.

The trailer would introduce the concept of the show and include pertinent details like the names of the show & performers, website URL etc. But rather than just typing the details into a title slide (meh, too easy) we decided to embed the messaging right into the film, using the tech items themselves to spell out the pertinent details (yeah cool!)

Behind the scenes

Location scouting – checking that our planned shots will work in this awesome location.

We found the perfect old garage to shoot in, tracked down some additional props and got a Commodore-64 wizard to write a custom C64 screen emulation for us (yay for online retro computer coding geek forums!)

Image Workshop collaborator and filmmaker-at-large Miklos Janek (“Electric Dreams? I love that movie!”) came on board as DP to wield the BlackMagic camera.

After a day of shooting, a few days in the editing suite and many layers of delicious foley we had a completed video – fab!