Move over LA, Hollywood’s new screen revolution is in the City of Churches

Move over City of Angels, it’s the City of Churches’ time to shine. Hollywood’s coming to SA and it’s bringing big bucks and big shots. So where are our new blockbuster gigs?

Move over Hol­ly­wood, it’s Adelaide’s time to shine. With six maj­or screen productions curren­tly under way, local prod­uct­ion houses working on inter­national blockbusters and the expansion of the animation industry, the City of Churches is looking more like the City of Clapperboards and CGI.

And it’s great news for South Aussies wanting to get into film and television, with the six productions alone employing more than 400 cast and crew and opening unprecedented career opportunities.

Current productions in progress include the Netflix-commissioned young adult drama Gymnastics Academy: A Second Chance! which is shooting at the Adelaide Showground with more than 100 local cast and crew, and the new Rolf De Heer film The Mountain, which has just wrapped shooting in the Flinders Ranges.

Other works in production are vampire series Firebite, shooting in Coober Pedy and the SAFC’s Adelaide Studios, the Taryn Brumfitt feature documentary Embrace Kids, the ABC Kids series Beep and Mort, and the second season of docu-series Aussie Snake Wranglers.

SAFC chief executive Kate Croser said film and TV were now significant contributors to the SA economy.

A still from the locally-produced ABC Kids show Beep and Mort. Picture: Supplied

“The SAFC has delivered a consistent pipeline of screen production for SA, which not only creates jobs and training and skilling opportunities for screen sector workers, but also creates employment for South Australians across many other sectors including tourism, hospitality, services and trades, generating significant economic impact for the state as a whole,” Ms Croser said.

At visual effects company Rising Sun Pictures, digital artists are working on everything from Hollywood epics such as the upcoming Marvel film Thor: Love and Thunder, to Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis Presley biopic starring Tom Hanks.

What exactly is Rising Sun doing on these movies? Well, they can’t tell you just yet, but given their work on classics such as Thor: Ragnarok, Gravity and Wolverine it’s bound to be exciting.

RSP’s head of business development Jennie Zeiher said 2021 had been a huge year for the 25-year-old company that employs more than 200 people in Adelaide.

“This has probably been our busiest year to date,” Ms Zeiher said. “We’re having to hold the doors shut as we’ve just been too popular.”

Rising Sun has recently finished working on Netflix series Cowboy Bebop, Marvel pic Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, horror flick Candyman, Disney film Jungle Cruise, starring Dwayne Johnson, and Tom Hanks sci-fi drama Finch.

Ms Zeiher said there was a combination of factors – including the demand for content during the pandemic – driving this busy period.

“Before Covid we already saw that demand was increasing,” she said.

“Then when Covid hit things shut down and we were really lucky that Mortal Combat was filming in here in SA and were a lead member on that. Then as things opened up Australia was seen as a safe destination and a lot of things came to shoot here.” Ms Zeiher changing viewing habits – with consumers watching a lot more from home – had also changed what RSP worked on.

Chris Hemsworth as Thor – Rising Sun Pictures has worked on a number of Thor films. Picture: Supplied

“We started series more series work come into the equation, with Marvel and Disney and Netflix all developing lots of series work,” she said. “Where we were once predominantly a feature house, now were about 50-50 features and series.”

If film and effects production are going to part of South Australia’s future the industry will need skilled young people to step into roles, and that’s where CDW Studios comes in.

This week Premier Steven Marshall opened CDW’s new facility at the top of the Myer Centre, an expansion that more than double’s the art school/production studio’s footprint. And in a vote of confidence in the industry, the facility has allowed for significant future growth.

Character artist Alexander Owen in the CDW’s new facility in the Myer Centre. Picture: Naomi Jellicoe

“Our production team is about 15 people, but we’ve built out space for 110,” CDW head of studio James Marshall said. And he said if CDW’s new animation production Moonsinger gets picked up by a streaming service – a possibility he thinks is quite likely – he thinks he’ll need to fill at least half of that space immediately.

“We’ve taken all of level four and fitted it out with half for student usage on the educational side of the business and half for artists in the production side of the business,” Mr Marshall said.

“The key point of difference with CDW, and the reason we keep ranking so highly on international charts, is that all of our teaching staff come from industry. Some are still working in industry, and those that aren’t are involved in our production studio.

“That means that what they’re teaching is relevant and fresh – the latest industry knowledge from people who are actually doing the job.”

Young actors Jada Lee Henry, Stella Shute, Zoe Burns, Akira Van, Luciana Valdez Tirdao, and Eva Grados in the Adelaide-produced Netflix series Gymnastics Academy: A Second Chance. Picture: NETFLIX

Mr Marshall said that once international borders reopened he expected there would be strong overseas interest in the course CDW runs in partnership with Flinders University.

“We’re consistently ranked in the top 50 schools in the world according to the (respected media and entertainment school rankings) Rookies,” he said.

“But if you take our course it will cost you around $30,000. If you compare that to the same course at a similarly ranked school in the US then you’re looking at coming out with half a million dollars in student debt.

“We’re looking at how we can market that more aggressively.”

Adelaide animation stalwarts Monkeystack are also toiling away on several projects, from virtual reality features to corporate animations.

“Things are flat out,” Monkeystack’s executive manager, marketing and partnerships Rhys Sandery said.

“We are just about to premiers Thin Ice VR – which was supposed to be launched during Illuminate by was cancelled because of the lockdown – corporate animation, a series of animations for Flinders University, an animated series, and we’re working with the council on some augmented reality trails through the city. There’s a lot going on.”

Mr Sandery said Adelaide had been quietly transforming itself into a screen media hub.

“Two years ago it was South Australia looking outside for opportunity,” he said.

Philip Mayes, CEO of Mighty Kingdom. Picture: Tricia Watkinson

“But the pandemic – and our ability to move around thanks to good governance – has shifted the focus interstate and overseas to ‘what is there in South Australia for us?’

Video game developer Mighty Kingdom took their company public in April this year, and managing director Philip Mayes said they’d never been busier.

“The really exciting thing is that we’ve doubled in size in the last year,” Mr Mayes said.

“We’ve gone from 70-odd people to just over 140 on the back of that process.”

Mr Mayes said strong government support and a wealth of talent coming out of courses like those being offered by the Flinders Uni-CDW collaboration made Adelaide the perfect place to do business.

“We feel very strongly that this is the best place in Australia to make games,” he said.

“We’ve had 32 people come through our graduate program in the last four years. An ecosystem is being created, and we all benefit from that.”

RISE OF THE MACHINES

ART and technology continue to come together in exciting ways, with researchers from the University of Adelaide’s Australian Institute for Machine Learning joining forces with Rising Sun Pictures to create visual effects for Marvel Studios’ latest blockbuster, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings.

A team of technologists from AIML came together with RSP’s creative team on the film to develop a novel technique using AI to replace the face of stunt performers with those of key actors in combat scenes.

Simu Liu in Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings.

So successful was the project that the uni’s Dr Ben Ward and Dr John Bastian have both been snapped up by RSP and are now part of their visual effects team.

Dr Ward said: “Rather than the traditional 2D and 3D face replacements typically used in high-intensity action scenes, the team used an AI deep fake method. An ‘identikit’ of both the stunt doubles’ and actors’ faces was learnt against a shared ‘dictionary’ of facial features. The faces of the stunt doubles were then detected in the film plates, and the machine then rebuilt the image using the identikit of the intended actor.”