Field Notes · a series
The studios of Asia-Pacific, walked rather than googled.
Every studio in the region has a brochure. None of them tell you how long it actually takes to get there on a Tuesday morning, how deep the local crew pool really is, or what the place does not have. This series does.
I visit where I can, and I say plainly when I have not. Each write-up carries the same things: stage sizes and heights, water capability, what post exists on site, who the rental partners are, a door to door travel time I have measured myself, and an honest list of gaps. The gaps are the point. A facility list without them is a brochure with a different typeface.
Every studio in the series also sits on the production map as a second layer you can switch on. Filled markers are places I have stood in. Hollow markers are desk research, and the map says so.
Rebate schemes change, and a wrong figure in a producer's budget is the one mistake that is never forgiven. Where I have not verified a scheme directly with the film commission, the map shows no figure at all rather than an approximate one.
Nothing yet. The first write-up is in draft.
Docklands Studios Melbourne, Village Roadshow Studios on the Gold Coast and Auckland Film Studios are all on the map already as desk research, drawn from each facility's own published specifications. They move from hollow to filled when I have been.
If you run a facility in the region and want it covered properly, including the parts that are not flattering, get in touch.
Quarterly. Ninety seconds. What is shooting across the region, one problem solved on location, and where I will be.