Newcastle Takes Film and Video Production to the World
What do Mad Max, Black Rock, The Matrix, Tomorrow When the War Began, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, and Superman Returns all have in common aside from being successful cinematic films with international distribution? What about music clips by Beyonce, Amy Shark or Daniel Johns? The answer is they all included scenes filmed on location right here in the Hunter Valley region.
Newcastle, Lake Macquarie, Port Stephens, Maitland and the Hunter Valley offer uniquely diverse locations for video and film production. The area is home to an average of over 200 productions shot annually. The diversity of available locations enables film production crews to replicate an astounding number of international locations. In other words, you could be anywhere in the world.
Film production locations
Within a radius of one to one and a half hours, locations can include:
- sand dunes in Stockton
- vineyards in Pokolbin
- a working harbour at the Port of Newcastle
- islands in Port Stephens
- caves in Caves Beach
- wilderness in Barrington Tops National Park
- the largest coastal saltwater lake in the southern hemisphere at Lake Macquarie
- a wide range of city and street scapes that include heritage and contemporary architecture, working class suburbs, terrace houses, luxury homes
- rural scenes
- and spectacular beaches.
It’s an impressive, versatile, and world-class list of locations that made it the perfect home for Rollingball Productions. As a video and film production company that specialises in cinema quality content, producing work with social impact for clients from around the world, as well as independent long-form projects, the diversity of location within the region enables the crew to shoot as if they were almost anywhere on the planet.
Newcastle has easily accessible and under-utilised sets and locations. It’s an affordable and surprising alternative place to shoot outside the metro cities. It’s close to Sydney by road and train, has an international airport, extensive warehouse options and a wonderful mix of colonial and modern architectural spaces. It’s easier and more affordable to close down a street in Newcastle than it is to close one down in Sydney or any other major metro city and we use that to our advantage in our work. We love it here!
Managing Director, April Howard
The location flexibility is a bonus for Rollingball clients and their budgets. It also makes shooting brand campaigns or videos that require a global feel, much easier during the pandemic. There’s no requirement to travel to exotic locations to get the footage required and as we’re all now working on Zoom daily the crew can do the work on the ground and loop the client in digitally.
Melbourne brand commercial series filmed in Newcastle, NSW
The Uniting Agewell television commercial series was filmed in Newcastle but broadcast across Victoria and Tasmania with no one realising that it wasn’t filmed in those locations. Our Producer was able to convince the client due to the similar architecture and cost efficiency of shooting regionally. The client flew in from Melbourne and the rest was done here.
This cinematic magic has meant that Rollingball clients can be based anywhere and really opens up the agency to a global market, but more to the point, it provides clients with a high-quality, cost-effective video and film production option for content marketing and brand campaigns no matter where they are based in the world.
Talk to the Rollingball team today to discuss your next film production or video production project.
