South-East Queensland – a true on-screen chameleon providing adaptability, convenience and impact.
Encompassing the Brisbane, Gold Coast, Darling Downs, Scenic Rim and Sunshine Coast regions, this geographic jewel offers a myriad of urban, rural and natural landscapes while boasting two world-class studios and exceptional local expertise.
The Gold Coast, Sunshine Coast and Moreton Bay are home to some of Australia’s most enviable beaches. Expansive white and golden sands, tropical coastlines, breezy seaside towns and palm tree-lined urban beaches, can transport audiences to what looks like the islands of Hawaii, Miami, the Caribbean, Thailand or the Bahamas.
Lush, dense rainforests with waterfalls and bubbling streams can be found on Mount Tamborine, Maleny and Buderim, easily standing-in for ethereal tropical paradises, African jungles or even landscapes of another world.
For a country, yesteryear aesthetic, reminiscent of America’s southern states, the Scenic Rim and The Darling Downs offer a variety of rural sites. This area is rich in dirt roads, sleepy towns, colonial houses and dry grasslands as well as green meadows and meandering brooks.
Sprawling metropolitan Brisbane with its skyscrapers and modern structures can easily represent any contemporary cityscape such as downtown Tokyo (as used for Pacific Rim: Uprising), San Francisco (used for San Andreas) or futuristic megacities. Similarly, the Gold Coast is an ideal stand-in for glitzy, up-market coastal metropolises.
Brisbane, Ipswich and Toowoomba have exemplary heritage architecture originating from the 1800s right through to the 1950s. Municipal buildings, stately homes, railyards, churches, theatres and more can take audiences on a journey back in time.
South-East Queensland has several totally unique sites, from oil refineries to industrial monoliths, old forts and prisons.
The cast of Australia’s first Netflix original series Tidelands, produced by Hoodlum Entertainment, talk about the incredible locations experienced in Queensland while filming the series. From farming cane fields to the stunning beaches of North Stradbroke Island and lush rainforest of Mount Tambourine, Queensland provided the perfect backdrop for the story of the Tidelanders.
This trailer for Paramount Pictures’ Dora and the Lost City of Gold shows the diversity of locations in South East Queensland including urban city scapes, jungle, schools, airports, historic settings such as the Old Museum, as well as the capability for complex sets, constructed and filmed at Village Roadshow Studios.
South East Queensland is home to two key screen studios including Village Roadshow Studios on the Gold Coast and the Screen Queensland Studios in Brisbane.
Village Roadshow Studios is the largest studio facility in the southern hemisphere and boasts five years of back-to-back productions including:
- Unbroken
- San Andreas
- Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales
- The Shallows
- Kong: Skull Island
- Thor: Ragnarok
- Aquaman
- Dora the Explorer
- Godzilla vs Kong
- Reef Break
The Village Roadshow Studios offer world-class film production facilities with nine sound stages with an overall floor area of 15,380.7m2 (156,775.21 sq ft) complete with air conditioning, extraction fans, steel grids and catwalks, as well as three water tanks, ten production offices, editing suites, wardrobe, makeup, construction, paint and carpentry shops.
Village Roadshow Studios also works closely with The City of Gold Coast who is the only Council in Australia to provide a Film Attraction incentive program. These incentive grants are based on the value of production undertaken on the Gold Coast and are in addition to State the Federal attraction grants. The Council has also invested in a fibre optic cable network as part of its Digital City program which provides some of the fastest internet services in Australia.
Screen Queensland Studios is Australia’s third largest film studio and is located in Hemmant, Brisbane and opened in January of 2019. Paramount Pictures were the first client to move in for the feature film Monster Problems. The studios are operated by the state’s screen agency, Screen Queensland, and are located 11 kilometres east of the Brisbane CBD and 15 minutes from the Brisbane International Airport.
Screen Queensland Studios are a dry-hire facility well suited for low to mid-range budget feature films, television and subscription video on demand drama series, and offers:
- a total area of 15,241sqm total | 164,052.76sqft
- two sound stages (3,000sqm | 32,000sqft each)
- two warehouses
- one multi-use building
- production office
- 200 parking spaces
Additionally, South-East Queensland has a network of affiliated film-friendly councils that support visiting productions, cutting red tape and streamlining approval processes for filming as well as connecting productions with on-the-ground businesses and service providers.
For more information, contact:
Gina Black
EVP – Production Incentive and Attraction
Screen Queensland
[email protected]
+61 7 3248 0504
Derek Hall
Head of Studios
[email protected]
+61417 417 320
Photos courtesy of Screen Queensland