Melbourne can double for just about anywhere in the world. From the crowded streets of Bombay in Shantaram, to the bustling metropolis of New York City in the upcoming feature film Empire City. Increasingly, producers are choosing Australia’s cultural capital, Melbourne, to bring their screen projects to life.
Produced by NBC Universal, All Her Fault, stars Australian actor Sarah Snook in the principal role of Marissa Irvine and is set in present-day Chicago with filming taking place in Melbourne and surrounding regional Victoria.
Executive Producer Gareth Neame explained the production faced an early predicament on where to shoot:
“We had an interesting location conundrum on All Her Fault: which US city did we want the story to be set in, and which Australian city were we going to shoot in? Melbourne has an interesting combination of being both a Victorian city but also, it’s had a huge wave of high-rise buildings and skyscrapers over the last 25 years. Similarly, Chicago is both a 19th century city with very confident late 19th century architecture and a huge number of skyscrapers… We found that Melbourne was a very good double for Chicago.”
The eight-part novel to screen adaptation is a tense drama/thriller about a child abduction and the devastating impact this has on a family and community. For Supervising Location Manager, Drew Rhodes, themes of motherly guilt – as the series’ provocative title suggests – and the unrealistic expectation of ‘having it all’ were critical in establishing the look and feel of this story world.
“The locations were a key part of realising the series’ themes.”
Drew Rhodes, Supervising Location Manager
Rhodes recalls: “We built the world in the early episodes so that the child was a needle in a haystack, lost in the metropolis of Chicago. In later episodes, the story narrows to the impact that these events have on a family, and we turned to the small – the eyes of the world looking in on their private lives and the claustrophobic feeling of the walls closing in.”
The Irvine house acted as a central location for the series:
“In selecting a very high-end estate home in a Hamptons style, we grounded the Irvines at the top of their social cohort,” Rhodes explains. “Marissa seemingly has it all, which makes her descent into despair and self-doubt all the more dramatic. It also asks the audience to consider what decisions and priorities she made in her life that led to this series of events.”
“The home itself was located on Melbourne’s fringe in the beautiful Mornington Peninsula, a playground for the privileged. This area shares many similarities with the lakeside homes out of Chicago and formed an ideal proxy for us to build the world of the Irvines.”
Drew Rhodes, Supervising Location Manager
“The central character of Detective Alcaraz, who doggedly investigates Milo’s disappearance, required a home base [Police Precinct Headquarters] in the downtown cityscape,” Rhodes continues. “The views, including the shiny glass buildings of the city, reflected a constant reminder to those police looking for Milo of the enormity of their task.”
Except for a handful of establishing shots, the show was shot entirely in Victoria and is set entirely in Chicago. “The script called for us to find a diverse set of locations, from interior and exterior domestic houses of widely varying socio-economic levels ($30M mansions to apartment bedsits), to lakeside Lake Michigan locations, which we filmed beside Port Phillip Bay.” Rhodes explains.
“[There were] driving sequences which called for the reversal of normal traffic conditions, and large-scale street closures for the depiction of the Chicago Marathon, which we filmed in Melbourne’s Central Business District. In total we filmed more than 50 locations across Melbourne.”
Drew Rhodes, Supervising Location Manager
The most climactic scene in All Her Fault involves a double car collision, which acts as the series’ inciting incident. “Set at night and filmed at a location near an airport that we completely closed for rigging and filming, we tied in driving plates for Chicago, virtual production from Unreal Engine and practical stunt footage on set to depict the car accident that sets the events in motion,” Rhodes says.
“[This particular scene represented] a true reflection of the complexities of choosing the right location for all of the essential production parameters.”
All Her Fault was supported to film in Victoria through VicScreen’s Victorian Screen Incentive.
To learn more about Victoria’s incentives contact VicScreen’s Head of Incentives, Joe Brinkmann.
