Adelaide takes starring role as film industry expats and international productions roll in
Hollywood is flocking to Adelaide as our local film industry makes the most of coronavirus’ welcome absence.
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Just days after Heath Ryan finished work on his multimillion-dollar production studio in Los Angeles, the US went into hard lockdown and the former Adelaide boy watched as 18 months of work was lost overnight.
It was a brutal blow, which was made even worse by the riots that followed the death of George Floyd.
“My studio’s on Santa Monica Boulevard and I was standing on the roof watching the world burn down,” Ryan said.
As major Hollywood studios indicated work would be on hold until next year, the former Henley High student brought forward his long-term plans to build a “virtual production pipeline” between his former hometown and his new base in LA.
The film producer/director/editor, who set up Pace Pictures with another Adelaidean, Jason Ellson, called on his good friends at Kojo and Rising Sun Pictures and arrived home in September, starting a new role as post-producer.
He is among a host of ex-pats who have headed back to Adelaide to enjoy the relative freedoms and opportunities afforded by SA's COVID-free status.
South Australian Film Corporation chief executive Kate Croser said they have had numerous phone calls from well-established people in the film industry seeking help to move back to SA.
“What we have found since COVID hit, and really since our South Australian screen industry has been so fast to come out of it and introduce safe-shooting protocols, we are just getting constant approaches from international producers and studios,” she said.
Ms Croser highlighted The Unknown Man, starring Joel Edgerton which started shooting in Adelaide last week, as a great example.
“This is a really incredible group of creatives who have come together – two Academy Award-winning companies who see Adelaide as a fantastic place to make films and screen content,” she said. “We are truly getting a lot of attention because of our COVID response.”
SAFC’s dance card was filling up fast, she said.
“From when we reopened in July, we have had projects running one after the other, which gives that consistency of work and production in the state so we can employ people on an ongoing basis,” she said.
“There was a risk that we’d open up with one and stop, and start, but we’ve proven that we can go back-to-back with a consistent pipeline of work.”
Meanwhile, Ryan has been fielding calls from producers from major studios, such as Paramount Pictures, interested in sending work SA’s way.
He said it was due to more than just the state’s COVID-free status.
“You could be COVID-free and have an average talent pool and it wouldn’t change much,” he said. “ (Adelaide’s) got two things – the talent pool is absolutely world class and has been for a long time.
“The work that’s coming out of Rising Sun and Kojo is equal to, if not better than, anything I was doing in America. Combined with the fact that there’s no COVID makes it just ideal.”
