It’s grand, it’s old and some say haunted but it’s proving to be a great place to work. In early November, we moved our studio over one hard slog of a weekend, to the old Glenside Hospital building, now known as Adelaide Studios pictured below.
Like something from a Harry Potter film stands our new home at Adelaide Studios. Photo courtesy of Tricia Watkinson for Adelaide Now.
The building, once Adelaide’s most revered mental health hospital (I saw first hand the old electro-shock therapy gear once used there on my first tour of the building), has received a $48 million facelift and fit-out. The new construction at the rear of the building holds two huge new sound stages and a Dolby Mixing Theatre amongst other expensive toys. Soon to be the site of a bunch of TV series and film productions taking place in the new facilities, the building is also home to the South Australian Film Corporation, a number of independent production companies, the Bigpond Adelaide Film Festival and now PRA. NB. I apologise in advance to the other tenants for the state of the shared kitchen on level 1.
An Artists Impression of the Lunatic Asylum in 1890.
The building was known as the ‘Parkside Lunatic Asylum’ when it first opened in 1870 up til 1913. The fact that its name once had both the words ‘Lunatic’ and ‘Asylum’ in it is pretty impressive. I wonder when today’s terminology of ‘Mental Health Consumer’ will be considered politically incorrect?
Oh, and about the haunted thing… apart from a creepy sounding howling wind that happens every now and then caused by some open windows and unsealed office doors, we haven’t felt anything creepy at all. In fact, we’ve got twenty crew working across three bitchin’ projects right now so the place is buzzing with creative industriousness. Haunted shmaunted!
It is a great place to be working and we look forward to sharing with you early in 2012 some of the work that’s being concocted within the one-metre thick walls of this beautiful structure here in Glenside.
