In 2020, Palatine Productions were invited to work on “Aussie Gold Hunters” Season 6, for one of Australia’s foremost television production companies, Western Australia based Electric Pictures.
“Aussie Gold Hunters” was the most watched program on Foxtel in 2020 and airs on screens around the world on Discovery Networks.
COVID-19 travel restrictions meant Electric Pictures were looking for new talent and new destinations. South East Queensland region was chosen and new Gold Hunters were signed up for the show.
Director/Camera Ian Withnall and Producer Sharen Kenny were brought on board to set up the Queensland shoots, break in the new talent and organise a very challenging set of logistics.
Sharen arranged all Palatine Productions service provider contracting and resources and assisted Electric get a huge camera kit from Fremantle Western Australia delivered, stored and sorted. She also arranged additional crewing and coordinated travel and accomodation over the shooting period.
Shooting on location in the wilderness areas of SE Qld, Ian had to take a crash course on gold prospecting, get to grips with the history and geography of the gold fields and also master the camera kit and shooting style and format for the show.
Palatine Productions worked on three huge shooting blocks here in Queensland, with the third being moved up to a new gold hunting location, about 1000km to the north west of Brisbane. We’ll tell you the exact location when we can.
Needless to say that the going was hard both in the field and back at PP HQ. These are enormously complex shoots and require a huge effort to pull off.
Electric Pictures were extremely happy with the results and it looks like Queensland might stay on the list of preferred locations for the show.
We’d like to extend our gratitude to the team at Electric for making our journey into Gold Fever country a great experience!
Premieres on Thursday, April 29th 2021 on Discovery Channel ANZ.