'The Light Between Oceans' - Set images from filming in Port Chalmers, NZ. Pt 1

We'll kick off coverage with some set shots. There's no Fassbender werqing the shit out of some vintage trou here, but as we were walking past anyway, we dropped in on the two Port locations before every barking arsehole in Dunedin was crawling all over them, as will probably happen tomorrow.  We heard some sort of production person lamenting the fact that they could only afford to work on the front of the buildings; luckily Port is a pretty comprehensive anachronism before a bunch of techs and (rather pissy) dressers get their mits on it.

I refuse to read the book and have no idea how a drapery and a bookshop fit into what passes for action in such a farrago of nonsense, but here 'tis.

< 'P.E Mouchemore & Son'.  

This building on Grey St belongs to a lovely local who graciously allowed us to document the transmogrification taking place inside.  A few days ago it was full of rental bikes but lo, it is now an Edwardian-arse drapery full of aged shelving, vintage shoeboxes and various ladies' frippery.

EDIT:  I've had to remove the shots taken from inside the set because of the stupid restrictive secrecy bullshit inherent in the contracts signed with building owners etc.  We don't want to get the very nice local who gave us access in trouble, so these images are redacted until the film is released.  If it wasn't about someone else's liability, we would flip anyone who tried to limit perfectly innocent non-spoiler coverage the big fucking bird, but that's not the case here. Petty, draconian and of course ridiculous, but there it is.  Sorry peeps.  

ABOVE  Wagons parked at the edge of the set.  Grey St was covered in grit for a more vintage look and the immediate difference road seal does make to the modernity of a scene is an interesting phenomenon.  I'd never really thought about it.  BELOW The more or less finished shopfront.

BELOW:  'McPhee Booksellers'.  This mid-Victorian shopfront was a secondhand clothes joint on George St til a week ago; then the props crew moved in.  The exterior is practically untouched since this is a pretty original building but the interior is unrecognisable.  I sneaked these inside shots while the dressers were bitching on the phone out back.  Which is exactly the kind of importunate rubbernecking shit that would piss me off, but whatever.  Tee hee.

LOCAL GOSSIP:  Daniel Craig was here with his boo Rachel Weisz and hit up a local gym for a full hour and a half of touching up his already damn fine abs, before heading back to England to start filming Bond 24.  They ate out in Dunedin, toured Central Otago and were apparently low-key and nonirritant.  Only one or two reliable sightings of Mr Fassbender which is possibly testament to his lower profile, so there's not much to report in that direction. 

Everyone from a hundred mile radius is likely to descend on the place on Saturday for filming and crowds, always so pointlessly opaque, are the enemy of documentation.  Let's hope they agree to lie face-down.

Part 2 of this series *  Part 3  *  Photoessay   *   Best of the Blog   *   Read the Book onsite   *

---