By Laura Mills, The Greymouth Evening Star
A large base camp supporting 200 cast and crew from the blockbuster Hollywood series of Narnia movies, has been set up in an old quarry near Lake Moeraki, in South Westland.
The film crew arrived at the weekend in a fleet of 40 trucks.
The scarcity of accommodation in South Westland means some are having to stay in Wanaka for the next week, a five-hour round trip from the film set.
Essential staff are helicoptered in to the set on Department of Conservation-managed land at the mouth of the Moeraki River. Numbers are capped at 60 people.
Publicist Ernie Malik said filming got under way yesterday after some rain.
Better weather is forecast.
As the film employs four children, two of them minors, they can only work certain hours.
However, filming should still be wrapped up in about three days. In a few weeks’ time, everyone will move next to the Czech Republic.
“On February 21 we were filming in Auckland. Four days later, on the 25th, we’re in a remote area in the South Island,” Mr Malik said.
“It’s quite a feat –we’ve some 40 vehicles that had to be driven from Auckland, on to the ferry and across Cook Strait. It was all up and running by Sunday morning.
The base camp in the quarry might be remote, by Mr Malik said it had all the conveniences of home.
“It’s like a little city—we even have wireless internet access. We’re sitting in the middle of a rock quarry.”
There was a food tent big enough to seat for 200, although some food was being flown in to the set. A truck carried portable toilets and there was even hot water on tap, he said.
This is the first major film to be shot in South Westland—Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson did not shoot any scenes from the trilogy in Westland.
Prince Caspian, the follow up to The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, is being directed by Auckland film-maker, Andrew Adamson. In this movie, the four children—Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy—find themselves back in Narnia.
The first film had a budget of about $US180 million and grossed an estimated $739 million worldwide. According to the Internet Movie Database, it was the 22nd highest grossing movie of all time.