Back From The Road

Queensland Perfect One Day, Bending Over Backwards To Help The Next
My road trip involved taking Japanese producers and Executives to Production facilities in the Goldcoast and Wellington. The Goldcoast leg of the trip took us to Movieworld Studios and the facilties there.

The executives and producers are looking to shoot a Ninja movie in the Southern Hemisphere during the Northern winter; their star actor is only available during the deepest winter, but the picture has many ocean scenes. So it was off to these lovely facilties to see just what was possible. The picture is already green-lit, with director, studio and distributor also set. With some luck, I'm set to to be one of the prodcuers should the project be shot in the Southern Hemisphere. Yep, a multi-million dollar feature film with Ninja action.

Movieworld Studios is a lot bigger now than it used to be and is equipped with 3 possible water tanks for shooting underwater sequences. The semi-circular outdoor tank and the latest massive water tank are very deep and very inviting prospects. They aaslo have on-site At-Lab for processing, Panavision for camera support and Photon, for Visual Effects. The only problem with a Queensland location shoot is that the landscape is so sub-tropical Australian. That is to say, with its gorgeous golden sand on immensely long beaches with Australian flora a plenty, it's just not going to be a convincing location for a medieval Japanese rural location.

So while it may not happen on this shoot, Queensland left a deep impression on the Japanese delegation as a shooting destination.

Wellington
Things got more interesting in Wellington, because they just have more of everything there. It's hard to explain how that is possible, but it comes down to one man's name: Peter Jackson.

Peter Jackson's films have enabled Wellington to essentially leap to the top of the list in terms of quality facilities available down under. Yes, Movieworld is bigger than Stone Street, but you just can't beat the strength of having both WETA Workshop and WETA Digital just down the road; and when it comes to Park Road Post, there is nothing else like it on Earth. It's an amazing facility - it's a facility made by a film-maker for film-makers and that says it all.

The other thing Wellington has that Queensland doesn't, are these massive pine forests, which happen to look just like pine forests in Japan. Indeed because NZ is volcanic, even the sand on the beach looks similar. Just to locations had the Japanese delegation really excited. Then of course we went to the WETAs.

Remember Narsil?
Yes you do. That was Isildur's sword that was shattered, and was reforged. Well, I held it. Actually, I held the action prop that WETA Workshop created for the LOTR films, but who's quibbling? I have held Narsil in my very hand!

Anyway, I also got to meet Richard Taylor who built all those wonderful things, and gawked at him because I recognised him from all the DVD extras. He is one amazing man. he talked us through how he would appproach shooting the shark sequence, outlining how he would buildd a modern day Bruce. That was a lecture to behold.

WETA Digital
The amazing thing about doing things digitally is that it's so bloodless. The sort of faffing around and endlessly adjusting things that are all too often unrepeatable, with ananlog set ups simply get replaced by repeatable processes. The guys aat WETA Digital talked us through how the crew might work on a Dry-For-Wet shoot and how that might be put together. It's a fascinating solution to a difficult problem. To be honest, I'm a big fan of simpler, repeatable processes, so this was very promising.
Again, the folks at WETA Digital were very impressive.

So What Now?
Hopefully, the Japanese execs decide on what they want to do in the next month. Then I think it will be time to set up the shoot. Should be exciting if they do choose to do it down under.
And if they don't... Something tells me their interest in the Southern Hemisphere is piqued. Stay tuned. :)