Story By Jim Algey: The Modern Media Alchemist

            To paraphrase that old sage of science-fiction, Arthur C. Clarke:

At a certain point all technological systems become indistinguishable from magic.

Nobody knows this better than Richard Wilson, whose business card

lists his profession as 'modern media alchemist'

Over the last two decades, the native son of Melbourne has traveled

around the world to work his special brand of technological magic as an art

director for Hollywood blockbusters, a creative mastermind behind

multi-media product launches and theme parties, and as a fine art

body-painter, filmmaker, and an innovator in the field of advertising.

He was also the creative director of a dinosaur theme park and mini golf course on the Thai

island of Phuket with an exploding volcano and a T. Rex that comes to life

through animatronics.

     Of all these projects, one of the most controversial ones was working on the

set for Mortal Kombat shot among the crumbling ruins of Buddhist temples in the former

Siamese capital of Ayutthaya, the shoot was plagued with protests and charges of cultural

blasphemy. "Most of the protests were started by one Thai man, who came up

with a different excuse every day for why the shoot should be stopped" says

Richard, who has lived in Bangkok for the last 12 years." One of them was

that the film was blasphemous to Buddhism because there are shots of monks

praying to these computer graphic creatures. But they were Franciscan monks,

not Thai monks"

     'So the shoot went ahead, although it attracted a lot of negative

press in the Thai papers. As it happened, the main protester was a corrupt

official who was upset that he wasn't getting any kickbacks. When the police

investigated him they found that he'd stolen all these precious artifacts

and Buddha images, and now he's in jail. "However if he was protesting that it was

a lousy script he would have had more support" joked Richard

    For the film, Richard's job as a local art director was to paint a

massive, 50-by-70-foot mural (intended to represent delete) of an 'alien out

world sky.' Working with his Thai crew of six, doing most of the painting himself over the

course of five days. In order to paint the top and outer perimeters, they

had to use a 'cherry picker'. Unfortunately, the painstaking details ?

snakes of flame, and streaks of starlight ? are completely obscured by smoke

in the finished film." I think it's on-screen for about five seconds, that's Hollywood" he

says with a laugh.

    The field of theme parties, conventions, and product launches, known

as 'presentation media' allows the 41-year-old Australian to consolidate

his many creative talents and worldly experiences. One of the biggest such events was

a theme party for 380 Compaq computer dealers from France on an incentive

holiday to the Far East. Richard's idea for the party was to recreate Bangkok

in the late 1950s: tea shops, old movie posters, trishaws, and a mock-up of

an opium den, along with theatrical lighting, 50 dancers in traditional

costumes, and even a Thai carnival with boxing matches.

     For the party, held in an old rice warehouse, Richard's team used 3,500 rice

bags in the design and decorated a doorway so it looked like enormous

Chinese- temple doors of red and gold. He also assembled a 14 piece rock &

blues band that starred a couple of well known Australian musicians who also

reside in Bangkok ? drummer Des' Animal' Mc Kenna (from the Hey Hey Its

Saturday ), and keyboard player Keith Nolan of Yothu Yindi fame.

     One thing that Richard likes to stress at these events is making the

audience feel like they're a part of the show. For this spectacular, he had

the French guests don traditional Asian costumes and even the conical hats

that rice farmers wear. At another big party on Phuket for 360 builders from

New Zealand, Richard conjured up a 'Jail house Rock' theme that starred a

famous Thai Elvis impersonator. All of the guests, wearing prison style

clothes, were convulsed with laughter when the chairman of New Zealand's

biggest construction supply companies was brought on stage in handcuffs by

the security guards, strapped into an electric chair, and then primed just

prior to dinner by the evil Southern warden" Do you any last words before you fry, boy?"

      "Having the guests wearing the same kinds of outfits breaks down the

hierarchy in a company, so they can feel more comfortable about talking to

someone they haven't talked to before, or really cutting loose," he says.

     Beyond the hoopla, humor, and hedonism of these events, Richard often

tries to factor in a measure of 'edu-tainment' Now that so much of the

tourism world has been colonized by package tours and prefabricated

entertainment, the lanky, pony tailed Australian wants to give people an

'authentic taste of different cultures that they cant get anywhere else.'

     At a product launch for Australian opals in Bangkok a few years ago,

for example, Richard's brief stated that he had to educate Thai people and

other Westerners as to the historical and cultural influence of these

gemstones from his homeland. "So I did an Aboriginal theme" he says," I

had body painted Aboriginal style dancers uncovering a big cave that opened

up with special effects and video projections on a woman body painted to look

like the dancing colors of opals. And this was all done to, funnily enough,

a Yothu Yindi remixed with opera"

            What the techno-magician strives to create at these events - through

sound, lights, and dramatic action - is a realistic fantasy world that

allows people to escape from their woes for a while.

       "As often as I can I use the concept of a color tunnel," he notes,

"to balance people's psyches when they walk into a room by using a special

combination of colors in the spectrum and sounds in the chromatic scale.

For example, we had bird sounds and Australian bush sounds in certain keys

in one area of the party where people walked through. At the other end, we

had Aboriginal sounds in the higher register of the keys. So it's like

you're enclosed in this incredible space and can forget about the rest of

your troubles, or the traffic, or whatever."

     Being a director is nothing new for Richard, mind you. Even at a young

age, he put on plays for his family. And in high school he organized dance

and theater events.

     But Richard's love of calling the shots and running the show did not

endear him to his professors at art school in Melbourne. Disenchanted with

the rigidity of tertiary academia, he left after two years. Only 18, he moved to

England to be reunited with his mother a famous interior designer, where he quickly landed a job

designing a personal insignia for the Sheik of Kuwait to be used throughout

his palace. Then he headed off to the US to live in New York and Seattle and

work as a creative director in fashion advertising.

     On a whim, he went to Europe's most notable music jamboree, the

Montreaux Jazz Festival in Switzerland, where he talked his way into a job

as an 'artiste liaison' in 1980. What he calls 'one of the best jobs I've

ever had' entailed mixing with luminaries like Carlos Santana, Al Jarreau, BB King, Van Morrison, the late

Marvin Gaye catering to their caprices, organizing personal interviews and videos for the press, and

hanging out with them backstage.

       'The stars that made the biggest impression on me didn't have these

huge egos,' Richard notes. "Carlos Santana was just so down to earth. One

time, he asked me, "Would it be too much trouble to ask you for a cup of

tea?" Making a cup of tea for Santana? No problem," he says with a laugh.

'On the other hand, there was Dizzy Gillespie demanding a check for 10,000

dollars before he would go back and do the encore, and I couldn't believe

how grumpy and socially inept Van Morrison was during the day. But watching

him on-stage doing 'Moondance' later that evening , I mean, he was just magic."

     In the early 80s, Richard returned to Australia to set up Biz-Art and worked partime as an actor

on various television shows, feature films, and in commercials." I've always

loved film and I wanted to get a real behind-the-scenes look at how these

productions are made, and the hierarchy, because you can't learn these

things in school," says Richard, who enjoys surfing and snorkeling in his

spare time

     On the 'Star Search' program he won A$14,000 as a spokes model,

although he jokes that he's probably best remembered in his homeland as the

cheeky guy who gets slapped across the face by a woman in a nail polish

commercial that ran for about four years on Australian television.

     These experiences served him well when he returned to Asia to work as

a film maker for everything from tourism and swimsuit videos on

the beaches of southern Thailand to a documentary on a development project

in the jungles and air-space of the Philippines.

     His film contacts also came in very handy when he went to Hollywood

back in 1997. Then he was offered jobs like body painting Yasmin Bleeth from

'Baywatch' and the ultra-models in an Aerosmith video, for US$3,000 per day.

Over the years, Richard's exotic artwork on human canvases has also been

featured in many Thai magazines, newspapers, & tv shows and as the poster for

the recent 'Body Art Asia Festival' in Bangkok.

     There are not too many filmmakers who can claim that their footage was

used for a country's televised national anthem, but Richard is one of the

few. How that came about was yet another strange chapter in the

adventure-packed road novel of his life.

     Back in 1992, he was hired to make a series of 12, two-minute

documentary films for Cambodian television on the return of Prince

Sihanouk. Basically, says Richard, they were propaganda films designed to

instill confidence in the people about the prince's return as head of state.

And the imagery was made up of shots of Angkor Wat, Cambodian classical

dancers, schools and health facilities, and the huge crowds that turned out

to welcome back the exiled leader as he travelled around the country.

      'It was a humbling experience to see these men who'd lost their limbs during the

war waving their stumps around to salute the prince when he passed by. One

afternoon, on the road, I went into a rice paddy to urinate and suddenly noticed there

were huge craters all around me. Then people started shouting that I was in

the middle of a mine-field, so I had to delicately retrace my steps'

      In the end, the footage Richard shot was used for the country's new

anthem, which was played on TV, several times a day, for five years.

Bizarrely enough, it was only a rough test edit to the soundtrack 'One World, One Voice'

starring performers like Peter Gabriel, Bob Geldof, and the Leningrad

Symphony Orchestra.

     With experiences like these, he's in no hurry to return to his

homeland, although he does come back to visit his family and friends on occasion.

      'In Thailand, I just don't feel the same kind of aggression and stress

that I felt back in Australia. I think that's because of the Buddhist

religion, which is very tolerant and compassionate. The people here are

smiley and happy, the women are gorgeous. I don't make as much money as I

could living back home or in America, but that's not the point. Every day is

a new adventure here, and that's how I like to live my life."