VHS Cassettes unearthed at my family home
In 2021, being forced to remain in South Australia whilst Victoria (where I live) was undergoing brutal COVID lockdowns, I excavated a box left at my parents house from one of my many moves interstate and overseas.
I came across two VHS cassettes that I had forgotten about. Both pertained to a period earlier in my life that my later artistic career superseded: the period when I was pursuing bodybuilding and competing.
On further investigation, I learned that bodybuilding DVD company GMV Productions had footage of another of the competitions I had participated in and had never seen.
I decided then that it could be a good thing to make a mini documentary about this period. The competitions spanned one year only: 2001, and I embarked on pulling together the elements necessary to make a short film.
I did some serious work on the project in December of 2024, and as a result the film is in the early stages of completion for an early 2025 release.
The unearthed tapes: Barbarella and the Midsumma Physique Event
I was invited to be in a hair show (in the days when I still had hair!) that had Barbarella as a theme, and someone associated with the event filmed it.
Even though this sequence predates my competition year by about 4 years, it is included in the film because I see that in retrospect this is where the inspiration for competing began.
The Midsumma Physique event in Melbourne was captured on a handheld cam and in reviewing it I found that it held up as a forgotten piece of my history. It also transferred well to digital.
I was just inside my 30’s for Barbarella and approaching my mid 30’s for Midsumma, and the footage has given me an insight into the person I was then, some 24 years ago.
GMV footage
I was aware that GMV had filmed the World Fitness Federation Universe event where I competed for the Mr. Fitness Worlds title in Baden[1], Austria and I think I purchased a VHS of the event (now lost) back then.
I was not aware – or maybe had blocked it from my mind – that the qualifying competition in Melbourne where I won the Mr. Fitness Australia title was also filmed.
I purchased the download and viewed my part in the competition with considerably more favour than I recall doing so at the time.
I found my two trophies and pulled them out of dusty storage for placement on my mantlepiece in my painting studio.
Ever since, I have been contemplating what artistic project I would engender for this somewhat hidden-to-most period of my life.
Experimental documentary or something else?
My usual approach to my films is experimental, and I played around with many scripts and ideas. How can I show the influence this period has had on my paintings? Do I make a completely new thing with flashbacks to the footage I uncovered?
I struggled for nearly an entire year over this. But during my COVID thwarted stay in Adelaide at Xmas 2024 I had a dream that lead me to look into the events of 2001 and the years following when I had moved overseas.
I found a very well-presented documentary of just 2 years later to that period of two lads 10 years younger than me going for the (then newly formed) Musclemania competition crown.
I knew one of these men – he worked for an ex-boss (and friend) John Melich[2] who had established himself as the Australian distributor of prestigious supplement company AST Sports Science.
The documentary inspired me to tell a more straightforward and less convoluted story than I had originally planned.
In other words, it was about the competitions and factors relating to it without any artistic overlays.
That aforementioned documentary conveyed the joy and passion for the sport which I also possessed then too.
Being a painter by necessity is an isolated affair, but reflecting on this period has given me a kick of inspiration as a new year unfolds.
[1] A small village city not far from Vienna
[2] I worked for John and his brother Paul at Maidstone Sporting Club, one of the happiest, nicest places I ever worked in over my entire fitness career. The club was fitness royalty in that it had been previously owned by Sport Aerobics Champion Sue Stanley
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