“Hi, I need to film in an empty childcare centre and I need to own that childcare centre for a week. Can you get that for me?”
My time at Qld Film Locations is spent scouting for seemingly impossible locations, maintaining an ever-increasing database of over 1,100 homes registered as film locations or time onsite at film shoots managing everything on location from parking the crew to mat hire to stray neighbours wandering onto set.
On one film set we blocked off a whole suburban block for the whole weekend. To keep the residents ‘on-side’ we recruited most of them as stunt drivers and background extras. It was also handy that one of the residents was a tow truck driver when we needed to remove a parked car from shot. We made the local newspaper that weekend too.
Oh and by the way, I did find that empty childcare centre.
Next time you watch TV commercials, look at the number of houses, rooms, backyards, streets, shops, warehouses or beaches etc it took to film those scenes. Maybe your Place would look great on TV."