THE PICTURE ON FRONT PAGE
The picture you have just seen on the front page of my website relates to an incident in the early 1980's that happened in Exeter in ( New South Wales - Australia ) Just before I moved to Exeter in 1986 my next door neighbour told me about it. On the road opposite the Rail line from Ringwood Road where we were is Bundanoon Road. In the (then) Invergowrie estate close to Wilsons lane early one morning at about 4-5AM there was a thunderstorm. And a lightning bolt that came down and directly on top hit a massive 80 year old Pine Tree. The tree exploded into a million pieces. It had been drenched with Rain and was a prime conductor. - It blacked out the district (as the high tension power lines travelled past the tree) and left bits of pine tree in a lot of peoples yards ! Not to mention that it woke everyone up !
Mind you Exeter is the Highest Elevation on the Sydney-Melbourne Railway line . There are a lot of Lightning strikes there.
Hi. I'm Phil and I specialise in Lighting.
I'm 57 Years old and I have two young guys working for me. Pat who has been with me for 11 Years and Steve who has been with me for 4 Years. Both very capable and keen. We are interested in outdoor lighting - in the Highlands.
Design - Supply - Installation of Exterior and Garden Lighting.
Floodlighting of LARGE trees and Buildings.
Properly done.
After Sales Service and Assistance.
IF you're not happy neither are we.
Your project is our reputation.
We want to be able to say we did your project - and recommend people to see it - or more to the point - we want people to see the job we have done for you and say " where did you get that done ! ? "
You're only as good as your last job. ( old industry saying )
I started out in 1966 lighting my school social dance with lighting I had made myself from improvised lighting effects that I had built from mechano sets - electric radiators - display shop rotating motors - coloured paper and Ultra Violet Fluorescent tubes. As well I had secured some Neon 15,000 Volt Transformers and Neon Tubing - Very Dangerous ! but at the time ( for me ) very interesting. My teachers at school were very alarmed ! ! As I went to school at Chatswood in Sydney my first show was as the U.F.S. Dispensary hall in Victoria Ave Chatswood in December of 1966. This hall has since been demolished and is now the entrance to the Chatswood Chase shopping mall. I then lit halls in Chatswood such as the legendary Catholic Hall ( now demolished ) at the rear of the Our Lady of Dolars Girls school ( now the Mercy College ) and the old wooden Willoughby Town Hall on Victoria Ave ( built in 1903 and Demolished in 1972 )
( and again demolished in 2009 to make way for a yet another new Town Hall ! )
( Picture BELOW of the OLD Willoughby Town Hall ) - The one I did lighting in.
I did the whole lighting design - supply - installation - operation - for the ( Legendary ) Fairlight Music Festival at Easter in 1971 at Mittagong. I lit over 200 Hectares with generators after the local power supply company at the time ( Berrima County Council ) took out the high tension power supply to the whole site and left our Festival in the dark so to speak. I managed to salvage the festival despite the Police and the Power Supply authorities who tried to sink the festival - Amazing as it may seem the old DMR ( now the RTA ) placed road signs on the Hume Highway ( the expressway was not not built or even planned then ) to warn drivers of the event " SLOW DOWN FESTIVAL AHEAD " were the small warning signs placed on the highway - The Hume Highway was single lane winding road each way in those days. The police tried to enforce the event but were basically right out of their depth ( for the time ) and the Festival went ahead with all sorts of "unusual" things and as you would expect for 1971 there were a lot of strange things happening.
Picture above is typical of the bushland at the Mittagong Festival Site.
There were no noise laws in place and people in Bowral were hopping mad about the noise. Betts P.A. from Wollongong did the sound and it was for it's day a big sound. Peter Betts was way ahead of his time and had an amazing PA system for 1971. It was very loud. We hired lighting equipment from Strand Electric and Me and Phil Salmon and John Gunton put the lighting system in place. Afterwards Me and Phil and John had to pay the $200.00 dollar lighting hire fee to Strand after the promoters were ripped off and could not pay us . $200.00 dollars in 1971 was a fortune and we were lost for words. The Hendersons who ran the festival were ripped off badly by "bad people" who saw them coming a mile away. Like us. We had stars in our eyes and were young and well.. we got ripped off. Not much more to say ! Those were the days !
BELOW - On Stage.
BELOW is my advertisement in the pop mag "Go Set" from April 1971. I used the name Mac after my art teacher at my school Col McDonald or "mac" as he was called. He was my hero when I was at school.
I have continued to do Outdoor Lighting in the Highlands to this day - I did the lighting for many events - concerts at Bowral Memorial Hall - ( run by John Stafford ) and in Mittagong and Moss Vale Halls - up to the present day.
I have been doing Lighting since 1966 - While I was still at school. PICTURE BELOW is a typical shot of a small band in action at a community hall / school of Arts / church hall - the Pic. below is a band "Green and Yellow" - 1966 - notice the light bulbs above the band. In those days the room was lit with coloured lights and the band was (usually) ignored. The sound system was a small self powered unit along with the stage equipment. All the lighting was powered by one standard power point. In this room coloured paper was put over the ceiling lights - and the addition of ultra-violet fluorescent tubes and flashing coloured bulbs completed the lightshow. We usually had to convince the hall caretaker that the white room lights had to be turned OFF - This sometimes caused problems as most halls had caretakers and they had NEVER turned off the white room lights before ! We had to reassure them that the coloured lighting would be enough to light the room.
I have been involved in lighting from an early age. I was born in 1952 so in the 1960's I was in High School. The picture BELOW is what a band looked like in the very early 60's
The Elvis Presley Era had begun - followed by the Beatles Era. In those days lighting for the bands was not thought of. White lights over the band were the Norm. We were the trendsetters for the times and we had to convince artists that Coloured Lighting was the way to go. It was difficult. The performers had never been lit in coloured lighting and many of them thought it was "strange" to light the performers in colours other than white. So we lit the room with the dancers in coloured lights and left the band on stage lit in white light.
As the 50's changed into the 60's some bands began to appreciate coloured lighting shone on them. Mind you it was a real big thing to put coloured lights onto bands. Most bands would object to this - but the "pacesetting" bands of the era liked it.
BELOW - Waiting backstage for the gig to start.
As the 60's moved into the 70's it became more and more that bands wanted - and even expected coloured lighting - by the mid 1970's many up and coming rock bands wanted and expected this.
By the late 1970's MOST bands demanded special lighting effects.
I have been involved in many many projects like the Sydney Olympics - Lighting of the Opera house - Many five star hotels - Countless other projects. I love to light up the night with colour. The nighttime is a magic time - and so much can be done to paint a magic picture with lighting on Trees - Buildings - Objects - Open fields.
If your project looks bad SO DO WE.
I'm a Lisc. Elect. Contractor Lisc. NSW EC 25776.
Qualified Supervisor.
My Guys have Full Certification.
to have a good look at me - Phil Cullen - see the link below
http://www.electricsunshine.com
Phone me ( Phil Cullen ) DIRECT on 0418 28 38 48
Exeter - Phone 4883 4111
EXETER - FAX 4883 4444
email me - phil cullen phil(at)yl-dot-com-dot-au!
(This is a spam proof way of writing my email address!)
P.O. Box 126 EXETER NSW 2579
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last update - September 2010