This week provided us with our first 'lucky break' in terms of weather and, after enduring the first rain in three months in Longreach, the skies finally cleared allowing us to film scenes set in a small Outback town in high summer. With the sun came the flies and searing high 30s heat, suddenly the Longreach Outdoor Shop found itself selling fly hoods faster than it could order them in. One of the crew hit upon the bright idea of going to the saddlery and buying jars of fly repellant cream, reasoning that if it works for horses' backsides it'll do for humans too.
For the scene where our heroes stop to buy petrol, our art department built a beautifully grungy service station, complete with "sheperds pie" (sic) on the menu board.
This week is set entirely on the road and around the van so we have spent most of time away from the bright lights of Longreach and discovering there are towns smaller and dustier especially when we drove the 177km to our final destination on the shoot, the town of Winton (which stands in for Mount Isa in the script). Winton has 800 people, one main street, 4 pubs, a billion flies and is famous as the place where "Waltzing Matilda" was first sung, you don't get more Aussie than that!
We have been filming out in the claypan, a desolate spot even the flies avoid, with the temperature in the high 30Cs and a high wind that brings small whirlwinds, locally known as willy-willys, ripping dust and debris through the set and threatening to blow the shade tents away. But the mood of the crew has improved in the drier heat, the blue skies and stunning psychedelic sunsets every evening.
We are now filming scenes where the tension between the characters is quite palpable; jealousy, suspicion and anger all being vented in the desert landscape. Yesterday we were lucky to complete a big confrontational scene before a 20-minute dust storm blew in, resulting in some spectacular behind-the scenes footage and filthy crew members.
That leaves us only 3 more weeks to sample all the delights that Winton has to offer and if it's anything like Longreach we are in for a fine time!
