Creative Differences is a media production company in the US that raised the possibility of a TV series. This was their “Dr Shock” promo pitched to US Discovery Channel. The plan was for 13 half hour episodes.
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I was invited to perform in the auditions of Australia’s Got Talent in Perth, Western Australia which screened on May 10th Channel 7. These are the videos of the show.
The setup and details are on the separate Australia’s Got Talent Setup page.
Here is a 7 second animation of the 2 minute act.
Below is my publicity and performance from the official site. Dr Electric if you please…
Below is the performance from my hidden video camera (used for safety monitoring). It includes the original sound track and lots of other stuff not seen in the televised show.
The performance had major problems however and the audience and judges had to wait for 6 minutes for me to get going.
Firstly I had left the power switch off, then there was the more complicated technical problem of my spark gap motor not self starting. Hence, power applied and no action. The problem was hidden under the skirt of the coil. Now this is dangerous because there is huge pressure to fix things fast and a risk I won’t realise power is applied and it suddenly starts.
All was well in the end, however.
I got passed through the next round but was eliminated after that. I must have been one of the few contestants that didn’t want to go to the next stage in Melbourne in view of the time and cost and a lot of technical issues.
Below is my recording of whole show. Almost a complete flop …. See how it panned out and how the Gods were not pleased. It’s a long clip (8 mins) and not that action packed. Perhaps skip this one.
View the Wikipedia entry for Australia’s Got Talent 2011.
Jump to the Australia’s Got Talent video official site
Link to the gallery photo on Australia’s Got Talent.
Audience 1.7 million for episode 1 rising to 2 million for some later ones.
Above shows the main two stunts I did. Left shows how to burn CD’s and a wooden rod that I am holding goes up in flames. The right shows sparks onto a metal cage that surrounds me .
The music is an original soundtrack done by my son, Michael Terren who (was then) an 18yo pianist and composer studying at the West Australian Academy of Performing Arts. The music has a pounding industrial theme and runs for 2:17 mins.
Resonant Air-Core Transformer (Australia’s Got Talent) by Michael Terren
Interestingly, I appeared in almost all of the promos for AGT including other episodes and even the second round which I wasn’t in. The sparks onto the cage can be very brief but striking.
All in all an interesting experience. I learnt a lot electrically as well.
The setup and details are on the separate Australia’s Got Talent Setup page.
Photo date: March 23, 2011