Creating a Tasmanian town for new Netflix drama The Survivors
The beachside atmospheric murder mystery The Survivors has hit the screens, showcasing iconic southern Tasmanian locations from sea cliffs to pubs, cafes and beaches.
It's a huge month for the state's screen industry, with the finale of Alone Australia season 3 airing, the second season of Bay of Fires coming out on Sunday, and the six-part SBS drama series Moonbird dropping later in June.
The Survivors location manager Kate Fox hopes the spectacular scenery on display will draw more screen production work to the state.
"We have world-class crews. Now that over the past decade as the screen industry has evolved, [we] can offer pretty much world-class production," she told Helen Shield on ABC Radio Hobart.
Ms Fox had been working in the industry in Sydney and returned home to Tasmania in 2014.
She fell into specialised location work on supernatural thriller The Gloaming and ABC feel-good comedy Rosehaven.
She then worked on black comedy Deadloch, which was filmed in Kingston and Cygnet, and The Tailings and Bay of Fires, which took her to Tasmania's west coast.
But, The Survivors had been her career highlight, she said.
The series is based on the Jane Harper novel by the same name, and takes place in the fictional town of Evelyn Bay.
A tragedy 15 years ago still haunts the protagonist, Kieran, who was rescued from a sea cave during a storm that killed his brother, Finn, and friend Toby.
During a trip to his home town, a young woman is found dead on the beach, while questions are raised about the disappearance of another girl years prior.
"There was just such a huge creative element to it for the locations department," Ms Fox said.
"You're crafting a complete township.
"It's made up of streets, beaches, houses and businesses from Eaglehawk Neck, Geeveston, New Norfolk, Taroona, Kingston, Fern Tree, Blackmans Bay — you name it."
Ms Fox said viewers could see a character leave the pub, which is in Fern Tree at the base of kunanyi/Mount Wellington, then drive along the coast, which is the Tasman Peninsula, and then end up in someone's driveway in the Hobart suburb of Taroona.
There's also a snippet of coastline near Dunalley.
It all comes together to create an imagined township.
"That's just so fun to see that come together on screen and pretty seamless. I think we do that really well in Tassie because it is so diverse and it has everything, but you can be almost anywhere," Ms Fox said.
The Survivors was filmed over three months in Tasmania in 2023.
Some scenes were shot at Hinsby Beach, a popular Hobart swimming spot, during summer.
The production involved about 80 people and a lot of equipment.
"There were days when parking near that beach was quite problematic," Ms Fox said.
"We had to try and squeeze ourselves in as well as making sure the locals had access to their beach and we didn't take it over."
Ms Fox said before filming at a public location like Hinsby Beach, the crew had to put up lots of signs and letterbox drop residents to let them know what was happening.
Some residents were paid if the crew needed to use driveways and lawns during filming.
Sea caves and cliffs feature prominently in the plot of the show, and the iconic dolerite cliffs of the Tasman Peninsula, which can reach 300 metres in height, are on display.
The crew initially planned to film the dramatic cave scenes on location, and Ms Fox said the Remarkable Caves at Port Arthur were "toyed with".
"We went pretty hard in with Parks and Wildlife to see if it would be possible but, at the end of the day, safety is number one," she said.
"We'd have a window of about 20 minutes before the tide changed to get the shot and get our gear in and out."
She took producers down to the caves, and they all got drenched by the wash on the viewing platform, confirming that shooting on location would be too ambitious.
"The caves we filmed in for the show were actually constructed in a set in Melbourne," she said.
"The production designer and the key creatives in that department basically mapped out the tunnels and caves around the Remarkable Caves and reconstructed that to be as close as possible to the real thing.
"The cave and the dangerous water around it are basically the main characters."
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