University of Melbourne, Faculty of Fine Arts and Music: Flashover

The brief

Flashover is an immersive artwork about bushfire, led by CJ Taylor and Dr Robert Walton at the University’s Faculty of Fine Arts and Music. It was inspired by a flashover that CJ, a volunteer firefighter, survived with his crew during Black Summer, and it is pieced together from the memories of volunteer firefighters. Four CFA volunteers appear in the work, each set against a backdrop built from their own experience of fire.

The original brief was a two-minute promo to bring audiences to the show. After ABC’s 7.30 covered the work, we proposed a longer documentary that could explain it properly.

What I did

• Shot the documentary, and interviewed the creative team about how the work was made, from photogrammetry to a 15-channel soundscape, so viewers with no background in art or technology could follow it.
• Interviewed the four volunteer firefighters. All of them had lived through fire, so those conversations needed care.
• Supervised Latitude’s editors and refined the cut at key stages. The film opens with CJ describing the flashover itself, before anyone explains the artwork.

Outcome

The documentary was part of the submission that made Flashover a finalist in the 2025 Lumen Prize, an international award for art and technology. It is published on the Faculty’s channel and the artwork’s project page.

Artwork led by CJ Taylor and Dr Robert Walton. Made for the University's communications team. Production: Latitude Video Production (opens in new tab).