Creativity meets tech at BlackBox
What demonstrates the inner workings of complex projects, allows project managers to monitor massive sites in real-time, simplifies communications among teams – and provides some incredibly cool footage for the casual observer?
BlackBox Timelapse and Site Security in Loganholme mixes project management with creativity, visually brilliant videos and important communications tools.
Founded by brothers Michael and Ashley Roach, BlackBox began as a fulltime business just a few years ago. Today, it’s the biggest provider of its type in Australia – offering timelapse, construction site security tracking and communication services to government and large-scale construction and mining companies.
In fact, the real-time BlackBox dashboard is processing 3 timelapse images every second. That’s 11,000 per hour and 132,000 per day – not bad for a team of just 15 that has also recently expanded into drone technology and video production.
Michael, whose career background is in marketing and business, says he and Ashley previously ran a photography company that gradually morphed into BlackBox as they received more and more requests for timelapse services.
‘I think we just love solving problems and that’s what we enjoy about this work,’ he says.
‘The tech all exists, it’s just about how best to fit it all together to suit what the client needs.
‘The first time-lapse project we did was on airport link tunnels, and it was what we call a dumb system, run on a battery; we had no way to know if it was working in real time. We had to set it up, walk away and then check again in a few days, knowing if it hadn’t been working we were in trouble. It was quite a stressful experience, but we learned a lot from that!
‘Now we have developed software and hardware that allows us and our clients to monitor in real time. Our dashboard and client tools are streamlined to make it as easy and possible, and as user-friendly.
‘We have tools our clients can use for their stakeholder engagement. They can create videos on demand to demonstrate a milestone on their project, for example, as well as get weekly or monthly videos from their dashboard.’
The BlackBox team is, at any one time, generally working on between 200 and 300 projects, managed from its Loganholme head office – a location that was strategic for the business.
‘It was actually my wife who suggested Logan – we were initially going to set up In Southbank, but when you factor in the commute, traffic, costs and location, this location is much better,’ Michael says.
‘Where we are in Logan is central to everything and our premises is twice the size for the same price.’
For more information about BlackBox and to see some of their incredible videos, head here: Blackbox Australia – The leaders in timelapse and site security (black-box.com.au)
