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MEDIA RELEASES
Major BBC mini series to shoot in New Zealand
(22 November 2000)
A BBC television adaptation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's The Lost World is to shoot in New Zealand from February 2001. The large-scale tale of dinosaurs and empire builders will be predominantly shot in New Zealand over a period of around two months.
Directed by Stuart Orme (The Sculptress), the two part miniseries will use remote locations around Rotorua, Tongariro and the upper West Coast of the South Island. "Originally, the creators thought that they might emulate a Brazilian rain forest," said Jane Gilbert of Film New Zealand. "We pitched different, dramatic New Zealand landscapes as being a genuine lost world, a primordial place where it is easy to imagine dinosaurs roaming freely and where European explorers step into another time and place".
Film New Zealand is a non-profit organisation which markets New Zealand as a location for foreign-based production.
"We are absolutely thrilled that a BBC production team has decided to come back to New Zealand," said Gilbert. "We've been working with the BBC for several years now, and their most recent production out here - Walking With Dinosaurs - was a marvellous showcase for the originality of our landscapes and the skill of our crews", she said.
Other countries, including Australia, were considered as a production base. "We settled on New Zealand because of its marvellous location potential and because we knew that New Zealand has an established film industry with an excellent talent pool", said Lee Morris, the BBC production representative.
The shoot is expected to generate up to $5 million into the New Zealand economy, and provide jobs for around three dozen crew and cast members.
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