"Indiana Jones and the Snake Pit"

In 1994 "Scienceworks", Museum Victoria's science campus staged a huge interactive exhibition on special effects in video and movie making. Our brief was to demonstrate the use of "Trompe l'oeil" back drops in film-making.

The work is on the amphitheatre floor and photographed from the balcony directly above. The floor has a drain in the middle of it, so we turned it into a pillar that you got some-one to pose on. As in the movie, Indiana hangs off one of the statues swinging his whip across to rescue his faithful sidekick. You could stand a child in the corners or sit them on the drawn steps (see detail below) and the optical illusion worked perfectly.

The piece took 4 artists 7days to complete and lasted the full six months of the exhibition.