Starring South Australia
Our mild climate and wildly diverse landscapes have helped make South Australia a popular destination for filmmakers.
We covered some of SA’s filming locations a few years ago in 8 SA destinations captured on film. Here’s a second collection of local spots that have heard the ‘clap’ of the clapperboard.
1. Escape from Pretoria
South Australian history enthusiasts (and ex-cons) will undoubtedly recognise Adelaide Gaol in the apartheid-era prison break drama, Escape from Pretoria. Doubling as the exterior of South Africa’s infamous Pretoria Central Prison, the historic Adelaide landmark was just one of several local sites featured in the movie. Scenes depicting the interior of the gaol were filmed at the decommissioned Holden plant at Elizabeth.
Adelaide Gaol’s exterior stood in for Pretoria Central Prison. Image: RAA
2. Jaws
This 1974 bitesize horror classic was set in the fictional New York town of Amity Island, allegedly off the coast of Long Island. But most of the town scenes were filmed at Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts. Although great white sharks are occasionally spotted off USA’s north-east coast, the real sharks – not Bruce – featured in Jaws were filmed by divers Ron and Valerie Taylor at Dangerous Reef, offshore from Port Lincoln. The Jaws shark was meant to be a whopping 8m long but the Spencer Gulf great whites were a mere 4m. So for scale, a short stuntman in a small shark cage was to be used for underwater shots. When 150cm-tall stuntman (and non-diver) Carl Rizzo arrived at the location, he was terrified of the monsters swimming around the boat. Before he had a chance to board the cage, a shark leapt onto it and thrashed around so violently that the whole shebang broke free from the boat and plunged to the seafloor. Not surprisingly, Carl never ventured into the water, but Ron Taylor’s footage of the mayhem was so dramatic that director Steven Spielberg used it in the film. Richard Dreyfuss’ character, oceanographer Matt Hooper, was supposed to die in the cage, but because it was empty during the chaos, the script was rewritten to include Matt’s escape. (Main photo: Great white shark off the coast of Eyre Peninsula, Rodney Fox Shark Expeditions)3. Stir
Inspired by the 1974 Bathurst Prison riot, this 1980 head-buster, starring a young Bryan Brown, was filmed at the historic Gladstone Gaol in Clare Valley. It was rebadged Gatunga Prison for the movie.
Gladstone Gaol doubled as the fictional Gatunga Prison. Image: RAA
4. Picnic at Hanging Rock
Film buffs would know some scenes in the 1975 atmospheric mystery, Picnic at Hanging Rock, were shot in South Australia. Most notably, Martindale Hall in the Clare Valley starred as the fictional Appleyard Girls’ School. Fans of the Aussie flick may be unaware that scenes showing the Victorian town of Woodend were actually filmed in Albyn Terrace, Strathalbyn.5. Pitch Black
Sci-fi fans will know Pitch Black as the first of the films that follow the adventures of misunderstood fugitive Richard B Riddick, played with menacing charm by Vin Diesel. Like many before them, the filmmakers were wooed by the alien landscape of Coober Pedy, seeing it as the ideal spot to unleash hordes of deadly creatures upon the movie’s hapless protagonists. The crashed spaceship, Hunter Gratzner, that delivered fresh victims to the hungry ‘bioraptors’ was left behind when filming finished. It can be viewed on the grounds of the Opal Cave shop on Hutchison Street.
Pitch Black spaceship prop at Coober Pedy, Flinders Ranges & Outback. Image: KaZKaptureZ
