In exciting news this week, The Project is hitting the road and taking the show to Perth, for a week-long, live broadcast from Western Australia. Perth’s own Carrie Bickmore, plus fellow hosts Waleed Aly, Lisa Wilkinson and Peter Helliar, will eagerly head west to present the show’s first live outside broadcast since the pandemic began.
Ops Manager, Rod Kurita has been working tirelessly over the last few weeks to secure the set up on ground as well as coordinating crews to some of the many iconic locations in WA. We caught up with Rod in-between briefing quokka’s and knocking back a couple West Coast Cooler’s.
What is your role and what does it entail?
I’m Perth’s Camera/Edit Supervisor as well as Tech Supervisor, supporting legends Chris Jones and Voula Kobolis.
I’ve spent the last two weeks checking out possible locations for Perth’s The Project studio, providing local crewing, IT tech, and camera and link ops.
I’ve also been organising remote camera crews for Rove live in Ningaloo/Exmouth, Rottnest Island and Margaret River, as well as Lisa Wilkinson in Broome.
What do you love most about what you do?
I love working with such an amazingly talented and passionate team.
It’s a mammoth task doing a show like The Project on location for a week. How much work is involved and where do you start with the planning process?
The planning was well under way before I was involved.
Tourism WA, The Project crew and our sales department worked tireless to get the deal done, plus an enormous amount of work from our GM, Paul Townsend.
From there, it was weeks of meetings, planning and test approvals.
And all of last week was spent bumping in the studio – which is a huge job.
What does it mean to have The Project in Perth?
To have a production like The Project in Perth is a huge opportunity to showcase WA and also my Ops team to the Network.
I’m so lucky to have such a great local team of Ops/IT Engineers.
Also, I’m finally getting the chance to meet and work with crew I’ve only ever heard over talkback comms for many, many years!
It’s an incredibly talented and amazing team from Melbourne and Perth.
No doubt we’ll see a huge spike in WA holidays at the end of this week. What’s your Top three ‘must-see’ destinations for us tourists?
- Coral bay / Exmouth – Swimming with whale sharks, manta rays and turtles. Fishing is the best in this area and the sunsets are unbelievable.
- Margaret River / Contos Springs – Camping caves, surfing and wine.
- Denmark / Albany – Giant trees, beaches and the history of whaling and war.
