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LMGI COMPASS
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Winter 2018
Fair Dinkum
by Nancy Mills
Duncan Jones Locates a
Superhero Universe Down Under
T
hor: Ragnarok posed many challenges for loca-
tion manager Duncan Jones, but the biggest
was turning Brisbane, Australia's third largest
city, into New York. "The producers were considering
sending a crew to the States to film in the real loca-
tion," Jones says. "Trying to duplicate a city like New
York is not the easiest to do. There's no place quite
like it. But we ended up filming in Australia, which
was a wonderful achievement for everyone involved."
Here's how they did it: "We negotiated the closure
of several main streets in Brisbane for five days,"
Jones says. "That was particularly difficult given it
was a fully functioning inner city, and there was a
lot of paperwork. We had to permit people to come
and go from their businesses. Students had to go
to university. The bus system still had to operate. In
amongst all that, we had filming."
"Securing Brisbane city in the middle of the work-
ing week was a big challenge," Thor: Ragnarok UPM
Jen Cornwell adds. "We have shot in Brisbane city
before, but only ever on weekends. Duncan man-
aged to shut down busy city streets during the
working week. He spent months negotiating with
hundreds of stake holders, everyone from the cor-
ner store through to high-rise building managers,
police and council. From both an art department
and location point of view, there was quite a lot to
be done to change traffic lights, street signs and
traffic direction."
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