It’s been more than a year since we were on set at Fox Studios filming Baz Lurhmann’s recent release of The Great Gatsby. Only now do I feel I can release these images without getting arrest by Leo’s goons.

Following on from my violin performances with a number of orchestras in Sydney and London I was asked to pull together a bunch of musicians to perform at the Great Gatsby. It was a fairly demanding 2 day stint that ran from 6am to mid night both days.

Being on set with Leonardo DiCaprio, Joel Edgerton, Tobey Maguire, Carey Mulligan and Baz Luhrmann was a lot more fun what you sceptical anti-celebrity types might think.

We were required to play on set as the background orchestra at the party scene towards the end of the film. I haven’t seen it yet but I’m guessing we’ll show up somewhere nearby the mad conductor. “When Gatsby throws a party he books a full size professional symphony orchestra for his guest.”

imagesBeing on the set was an eye opening experience. Baz is totally mad. Leo and Tobey are like to mates kicking around in a school yard.

The extras, including myself, were like a school of fish caught out of water.

If it wasn’t a forest of full sized ancient trees being delivered, or a crane positioning a few houses, or fireworks, or girls in metallic bikinis diving into swimming pools, or flying cameras, or dancing girls, or mad hatted Egyptian pharaohs or gigantic sound systems going off, or sudden silences from 100’s of people simultaneous going dead quite whilst dancing and looking like they are screaming whilst leo whispers a line, or guns going off, it was something else…

Every 10 minutes I was asking myself. “Is this real???”

All the whilte Baz was in his shorts and running around putting a smile on everyone’s face. He is one mad friendly beautiful affectionate commanding genius.

The experience was a once in a life time opportunity. Next time they ask me to play violin for 8hrs straight I’ll check my fitness before I sign up.