PERFECT STRANGERS – THE LOCATIONS The West Coast is the wildest part of New Zealand’s long coastline, and the most turbulent is the isolated Southern West Coast which runs in a thin narrow strip the length of the South Island. The people are a breed apart, having arrived in Maori migrations to collect precious jade (pounamu) and in later rushes of European and Chinese to find gold, then coal. But there could be another new rush on the Coast – the film industry has arrived. Meybille Bay, just north of Punakaiki on the isolated West Coast of New Zealand’s South Island is the main location for Perfect Strangers. It’s here that GAYLENE PRESTON sets her story, in the landscape of her youth. PRESTON scoured New Zealand’s Southern coastline as far as Stewart Island looking for the world of her film only to find that it was all on the doorstep of her childhood home on the wet West Coast. Greymouth provided the exterior pub location, and the fishing docks, while interiors were found in Westport. The wild and treacherous coast off Constant Bay near Charleston provides an astonishing seascape underpinning the raging psychological ebb and flow of this story of obsessive love, and it was at Meybille Bay just North of the well known Punakaiki Pancake rocks and over the road from the home of cinematographer ALUN BOLLINGER and its costume designer HELEN BOLLINGER, that the shack, the principal location for Perfect Strangers was found. Part of the Paparoa National Park, Meybille Bay offers an exotic, dramatic, powerful and idiosyncratic land and seascape. Covered in luscious native forest, home to Nikau palms, cabbage trees, many varieties of tree ferns, ancient beech trees, podocarps and other native species, the coastline is stunning and treacherous, romantic and dangerous. Spectacular sunsets are often seen as the sun sinks over the wild Tasman Sea. PRESTON says, “The location in Perfect Strangers is a moody companion, it cries, it moans, it shines, exuding a strong presence which amplifies the action. The treacherous beauty of the wilderness, the way the rain falls, the sea pounds, the clouds move, reflect the protagonists’ moods, their exultation and their deepest fears.” The production office, cast and crew were based near the main location in the small village of Punakaiki, famed for its bizarre pancake rock formations and impressive blowholes. Finding their homes in little baches along the beach in the middle of winter the Perfect Strangers film crew often awoke to earth shaking booms as king tides battered the pancakes sending geysers of water meters into the sky. Southern West Coasters (often just referred to as ‘coasters’) are a breed apart in New Zealand national mythology. Economically undeveloped apart from logging and a very diminished coal industry, the West Coast of the South island is geographically isolated from the rest of the country by the high mountain range of the Southern Alps. It still isn’t easy to get there, and they are used to making their own rules. This isolation has bred in the community a fierce independence and distrust of outsiders. The saying goes “You can’t fool a Coaster,” but in fact for over a hundred years the trains have been leaving full and coming back empty. But it was these isolated communities who embraced the production. A wealth of local skills and creativity were harnessed in the meeting of what was a demanding schedule. Many locals enjoyed being extras in the small town scenes, the operatic society loaned costumes and council staff cleared the way for unusual requests. “We were shooting a night scene outside Revingtons, - incidentally the hotel where the Queen stayed in Greymouth in 1953 when I was just little - anyway, there we were, with our backs to the railway line busy laying camera tracks and fiddling with artificial rain – a sensitive point to some residents who are a bit defensive about the perceived wetness of the weather down there. The production received a call from the Station Master. He didn’t want to bother us because he knew we were busy, but he was holding a Christchurch bound freight train which was ready to depart. He wouldn’t let it leave until we gave him the nod because he didn’t like to think it’s lights might ruin our shot. It wouldn’t have, but that kind of community support is most unusual and very certainly appreciated.” Constant Bay near Charleston on the coast between Punakaiki and Westport, provides that dramatic sea entrance to the imaginary island featured in the story. In the local pub at Charleston there is a wall of old photos, most taken over a hundred years ago when sizable schooners entered Constant Bay bringing people and supplies to the gold fields. Among these old images there are plenty of wrecks and the shoreline has more than one memorial to those lost at sea. All coastal activity on the West Coast remains challenging to this day so an experienced marine team was required to take on often risky maneuvers. Considerable planning and expertise went into the Constant Bay sequences taking ‘Dauntless’ (the man’s boat) and ‘Marauder’ (Bill’s boat) to and from the island. Fortunately Seaworks personnel were well prepared having recently worked on remote Fiji island locations for the Tom Hanks film Castaway. It’s too dangerous to have actors on boats on the West Coast so for these sequences the production moved to the calmer waters of Puketea Bay, in Kenepuru Sound, part of the South Island’s superb Marlborough Sounds. Some filming also took place near D’Urville Island offering expansive seascapes. Filming wrapped in the small town of Blenheim the heart of Marlborough’s wine growing region. The town provided facilities necessary for some special effects water sequences, including an ancient traction engine called Lucy which was used to heat the diving pool used for the storm at sea. Although vineyards weren’t required for the shoot they proved to be handy and timely for the wrap party. Perfect Strangers post-production took place in Wellington, New Zealand’s film friendly capital city. Oscar nominated editor JOHN GILBERT worked with PRESTON at Oktober, a state of the art post production house linked by fibre optic cable to Auckland and Sydney. The storm at sea was accomplished by senior compositors on The Lord of the Rings trilogy and was the first film Oscar winner Weta Digital has contributed to apart from Jackson work. The team who made Gollum contributed physical special effects providing the model man – a facsimilie of SAM NEILL - which now resides at Weta Workshop where it was made, startling visiting dignitaries by it’s realism.