The Australian regions stepping up - and cashing in

When the Sydney Harbour Bridge was shut down in early 2023 so Ryan Gosling could film a stunt on it for his latest movie, The Fall Guy, all eyes were on the handsome leading man – and why not? But did you stop to think of the Aussie company that provided his lunch that day, the makeup artist who got him looking just right, the supplier who provided portable loos for the day’s filming, or even the helicopter crew tasked with helping shoot the adventure scene?

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Australia has long been a popular choice for Hollywood to film their blockbusters – The Great Gatsby at Manly, The Pirates of the Caribbean on The Whitsundays and Gold Coast, The Matrix in Sydney and Wolverine in Parramatta, to name a few. Most recently, Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, directed by George Miller, was shot on location in Broken Hill. And behind the press conferences that congratulate the government for bringing such productions down under and the media snippets that catch glimpses of the leading man or lady caught walking our streets, it’s small businesses that benefit.

Since 2018, 39 international movie productions have been filmed in Australia – predominantly the east coast states of NSW, Victoria and Queensland – which has generated more than $3.3 billion in private investment and provided more than 24,100 jobs for local cast and crew, according to data from the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications and the Arts.

A report titled Creative Industries Ripple Effect by UK-based consultancy Olsberg SPI found that 63 percent of the expenditure derived from making a movie or film went to businesses outside of the film industry – to the construction, catering, hair and makeup, real estate, tourism, hospitality and countless other businesses that benefit when an international film production company rolls into town.

The town of Hay in south western NSW was struggling last year after months of COVID state border lockdowns decimated their Sydney to Adelaide drive-through tourism. When a big budget Hollywood action film (that cannot be named) chose the Riverina town to film, it was a lifeline.

“The impact was immediate and tangible,” says the economic development officer for Hay Shire Council, Alison McLean.

“There was $7 million in economic activity just from the cast and crew being in town. It was also incredible from a confidence-boosting point of view for our businesses; all of a sudden there were 400 extra people spending money in the region and the businesses really stepped up and took a lot of pride in providing excellent service.”

The regional town of Hay has seen a $7 million boost from being used as a film location.

She said the most obvious impact was on the accommodation sector which had suffered a 60 percent downturn in revenue and as a result of the filming in town, there was a 72 percent increase.

For The Whitsundays in Queensland, it is hoped the long term benefits of movies like Pirates of the Caribbean and, more recently, Ticket to Paradise starring Julia Roberts and George Clooney will translate to tourism dollars.

Julia Roberts and George Clooney starred in Ticket to Paradise, shot in The Whitsundays.

“After the movies are released, we reap the tourism rewards as our stunning region is up in lights,” says Tourism Whitsundays CEO Rick Hamilton. “If you Google Ticket to Paradise, you’ll find it was filmed at Palm Bay Resort and Hamilton Island, both island resorts that are bookable by visitors.

“The beauty of The Whitsundays is that it’s hard to disguise. Hollywood can change the location, but it still looks like The Whitsundays.”

Locations manager Jeremy Peek — who has worked on Mad Max: Fury Road (2015), Alien: Covenant (2017), Peter Rabbit 1 and 2 (2018 and 2021) and Three Thousand Years of Longing (2022) — says international film production is a growing sector. He says COVID shone a spotlight on Australia as an ideal filming location and the effects of that have continued beyond the opening of borders.

“Early on when COVID hit it was felt that we were just about the only country in the world who could keep going and the world looked to us as a safe haven to film in,” Peek says. “(Netflix series) Pieces of Her, for example, was due to start shooting in Vancouver when COVID hit, they’d built sets and everything, but they moved the shoot here. And Three Thousand Years of Longing, which was originally meant to be shot in Sydney, London and Turkey, was re-scouted to Sydney because there was confidence in Australia being a safe place to work.”

Peek says the government incentives and rebates are important now that the COVID scare has passed because they show Australia can compete on a world stage.

It’s for this reason Ausfilm CEO, Kate Marks, believes the incentives the State and Federal Government offer to attract the likes of Disney, Universal, Marvel and Netflix to our shores need to be increased.

There is the Location Incentive grant, which is a merit-based offer that entitles an international production company to a grant worth 13.5 percent of their production expenditure. A secondary offer, the Location Offset Rebate, provides a 16.5 percent tax break. When used together, they result in a 30 percent carrot dangling in front of production companies. But only the Location Offset is permanently legislated.

“On its own the 16.5 percent Location Offset is not going to stay competitive for Australia on a world stage for too long,” she says. “Ideally, we would love to see a 30 percent Location Offset incentive as it’s the best option to provide ongoing certainty for companies.

“There are studios who are coming back again and again; NBC/Universal have done 13 film and television projects here, and studios like Disney and Warner Bros also keep coming back.

“We need to see that continue.”

And it appears the Federal Government has listened, announcing an increase to the Location Offset from 16.5 per cent to 30 percent for eligible productions in the recent budget.

It’s a move Peter Davey, co-CEO of law firm EMT, who specialise in entertainment, media, sport and technology advice, has welcomed.

“With the offset established, Australia will remain a highly attractive location for international productions and the investment in talent and jobs here will continue to grow,” Davey says. “In the details of the Government’s announcement, there are also requirements for international companies to, for example, commit to training and to work with Australian digital, visual effects and post production companies.”

Film and television producer James Hoppe adds Australia needs to expand its studio space, evolve the foundation of film technology and increase the local labour force in order for international film production in Australia to grow.

“The labour force can only handle so much and when an international production comes in, they suck up all the labour pretty quickly,” the owner of Maker Films says.

“There needs to be an implementation by local council so they can handle the influx of an international production. When Marvel took over Fox Studios and Elvis was being filmed on the Gold Coast and Robbie William’s Better Man was being filmed in Melbourne, it sucked up a lot of the labour force and production facilities and it was difficult for other international or local producers to access required resources.”

Lorena Ramos and Carlos Moss live and work about 7,500 feet above sea level in the high-plateau megalopolis of Mexico City. But when it came time to commission a vacation home, they took it up a notch, altitude-wise. They built a home about 2,000 feet higher in an area known as the Corridor de la Montaña, or Mountain Corridor, in the state of Hidalgo.

Ramos, a 35-year-old sales director, and Moss, a 38-year-old executive in the construction industry, bought their steep 1/3-acre lot in 2021 for about $73,000. Then they spent roughly $475,000 to build and furnish a new house, working with Mexico City architect Rodrigo Saavedra Pérez-Salas. His design, using a cantilever, suspends the two-storey structure off the side of a densely wooded slope. From the inside, it can feel like a vast, floating treehouse.

undefined They named the property after their boxer, Oruç, now 11, and initially planned to use the home to entertain friends on weekends and holidays, outfitting the lower level with a funky bar. The three bedrooms—some equipped with bunk beds—and three bathrooms can accommodate up to eight people.

But this summer, less than a year after finishing construction, they had their son, Nicolás. That means they have to make some changes to babyproof the house. “We will have to do something,” says Ramos.

The vacation home is part of the first wave of development on the site of what was once a sprawling private estate. The property sits in Mexico’s Sierra de Pachuca mountain range, part of the vast Sierra Madre Oriental that runs along the east of the country. Their area is marked by atmospheric mists and a lengthy rainy season.

For Saavedra, the architect, the hard choice wasn’t where to place the house—a clearing in the woods, in the middle of the lot, was just about the only spot—but how to access the house once it was built. The most direct route would have meant seeing a house sticking out of the woods, says the 35-year-old founder and principal of Saavedra Arquitectos. Instead, he devised what he calls “a narrative” that leads visitors over a bridge, then down and around a series of winding stairs and through a masonry door that acts as a kind of ceremonial portal to the house. When visitors first arrive on the lot, all they see is tree. As they descend and approach the house itself, they are given a tour of the exterior of the building, while glimpsing the evocative mountain terrain beyond and below.

The couple chose moody interiors to play off local conditions, with lots of exposed steel beams, steel-tinted concrete, dark wood and glass walls that let tree-filtered light stream in. A spare open stairwell and thin inner and outer railings add to the minimalist flare.

All this added atmosphere came at a cost. The couple spent about $94,000 on steel, which includes the bridge and the costly cantilever.

Intent on a sustainable home, they managed to reuse what another homeowner might regard as outright waste. They have stored firewood for the great room in leftover steel girders, fashioned into a Brutalist rack, and they used leftover wood from their board-formed concrete molds as paneling in the primary bedroom. Most recently, they have installed a rainwater collection system, with a cistern placed uphill from the house, and they now use the bounty for everything from washing to drinking.

Though Casa Oruç is surrounded by trees, Saavedra managed to build the whole 2,400-square-foot house by only cutting down a handful. This ship-in-a-bottle effect is apparent in an upstairs deck, which incorporates two oyamel firs, a species native to the mountains of central and southern Mexico. Downstairs, the bar area is built around one of the firs, set off by a glass enclosure.

The open-plan kitchen, which Ramos helped design, was a splurge of about $34,000. The couple spent about the same amount on the glass doors and windows—a cost most apparent in the primary bedroom, which has glazing on three sides.

Being nearly 9,500 feet above sea level means the couple can do without air conditioning, and even though it rarely gets below freezing, heating is a must for much of the year. They spent around $15,660 on an electrical heating system, which, depending on where they are in the house, radiates from either the floor or the ceiling. They also spent some $10,500 on two fireplaces—gas-burning for the bedroom, and wood-burning for the great room’s main sitting area. They use them for heat and for added coziness, says Moss.

The couple have kept their lot as wild as possible, putting their landscaping budget at less than $1,000. And they can tour the area’s rough and wild terrain starting right on their property, which contains a few dramatic rock formations. Though their home is nearly as far above sea level as the taller peaks of Montana’s Glacier National Park, the spot is more bucolic than dramatic. The house is high up, concedes Moss, “but not ridiculously high,” invoking a category that for him starts at about 16,000 feet.

Now, looking ahead to the end of the year, when Nicolás will start to crawl, they are set to invest around $3,000 to babyproof. This will include installing tempered glass to close off the bare-bones railings of their main terrace, located off the upper floor’s great room, and protecting the exposed inside stairwell connecting the great room above with the bar area below.

When the baby came, they hadn’t yet decided on blinds or curtains in the primary bedroom, which turned out to be a benefit. “We get to see all the different shades of light—when it’s getting dark, then when the sun comes up,” says Ramos, who appreciates these subtle changes throughout the day. Perhaps her baby does, too. “I always give Nicolás his first feed while in bed, and he loves staring outside,” she says.

Many new arrivals to this altitude might be gasping, but little Nicolás is doing just fine. He likes to “contemplate the view of the sky and tree tops from our laps,” says his mother.

Foundation and framing:

$169,725 (including masonry)

Steel (including cantilever):

$94,000

Kitchen:

$34,000

Bathrooms:

$18,500

Landscaping:

$780

Fireplaces:

$10,450

Electrical work:

$27,260

Floors (including outdoor decks):

$25,000

Glazing (glass doors and windows):

$34,000

Lighting:

$3,100

The Australian regions stepping up – and cashing in – when Hollywood comes calling

The release of Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga today is just the latest example of Hollywood’s growing interest in Australian locations, offering potentially huge rewards across regional economies

The owners spent $73,000 on the land, plus another $475,000 building their vacation house