Camera rolls on war film
Blockbuster heads to Qld
THE producers of a blockbuster Vietnam War movie are preparing to film large-scale battle scenes near Kingaroy early next month.
Australian production Danger Close, featuring Vikings star Travis Fimmel, starts filming at a paulownia tree plantation near the South Burnett township of Wooroolin on May 15 for two weeks.
Producer Martin Walsh said he found the site about halfway through last year, which served as a quiet alternative to the main filming location of Nerang.
“The problem is (Nerang) has neighbours nearby so we couldn’t do a lot of the big battle scenes there. There’s veterinary and horse agistment and some very expensive racehorses nearby,” Mr Walsh said.
“We would have loved to do the whole film here but unfortunately as soon as you go out of a 30-minute window from people’s home bases you have to pay per diems, transport and accommodation costs, it would have added millions of dollars that we don’t have. Most of the battle scenes will be filmed in Wooroolin,” Mr Walsh said.
“There’s going to be a couple of big days with the large North Vietnamese attacks and a couple of days we’ll do all the artillery explosions.”
Mr Walsh said it had taken 14 years to get the $25 million film financed.
“I’ve given up a couple of times, but the story is so big, with the scale of the battles, that it requires a big budget, a higher than average Australian film budget, to do it justice,” he said.