Lights, camera, action
Victoria is a film location scout’s paradise. Australia's most film-friendly state, it offers moody cityscapes, rugged coastal beaches, subtropical rainforest, humongous mountains, kitschy country towns and acres of rolling countryside – all within easy reach of Melbourne.
Dramatic scenery is used to haunting effect in Picnic at Hanging Rock, which put rural Victoria (notably Macedon Ranges and Spa Country) permanently on the international map. Victoria's Legends, Wine and High Country is also cinematically worthy, providing stunning backdrops for movies like The Man From Snowy River. And the rambling country roads of Pyramid Hill in the Goldfields featured handsomely in The Road to Nhill.
Victoria's dramatic coastline stole the show at the Mornington Peninsula town of Sorrento in Hotel Sorrento and in SeaChange at Barwon Heads, which also copped a thrashing when Ava Gardner drove through it in On the Beach.
Victoria's coastline also preludes death scenes in Mad Max at Black Rock, while Russell Crowe’s menacing Hando in Romper Stomper popped up in front of a busload of tourists at Point Addis on the Great Ocean Road (in reality, a nudie beach).
Directors in need of gritty, warts-and-all settings head for Melbourne's CBD and surrounding suburbs. Think Michael Hutchence and Nick Cave in Dogs in Space (the house is still standing), Alex Dimitriades in Head On and Eric Bana in Chopper.
By contrast, Melbourne is a (mostly) cosy home to Neighbours and former hit, The Secret Life of Us. The Royal Botanic Gardens and Arts Centre were muses for Hugo Weaving, who played a blind photographer in Proof, while the Kerrigan clan revelled in the daggy serenity of their Castle in and around Brunswick and Tullamarine.
In fact, the Victoria list goes on an on:
- Classy Collins Street in Melbourne's CBD smoked and gaped from missile attacks in the apocalyptic On the Beach
- Melbourne University and Fitzroy's Brunswick Street made appearances in Love and Other Catastrophes
- Mick Jagger, as Ned Kelly, made his last stand in Glenrowan in the Legends, Wine and High Country region (Heath Ledger recently reprised the role in Clunes about 150km northwest of Melbourne)
- The Yarra River was used to striking effect in Angel Baby.
