Not surprisingly, the community is a little wary of a production company that is setting up to shoot an entire series in their town. The perception is that, while the Mining Museum and Copper Beach Estates rake in filming fees, the community puts up with the inconvenience and never sees a dime. When Hope Island has finished re-building this town, the quaint sets will be attractive to future film companies for years to come. But something has to be done to get the community on-side. Hope Island has already agreed to pay a monthly fee to the Britannia Beach community Centre and to pave an old dirt road that could divert the local traffic around the filming.
Numerous locals are part of the construction crew.
The location department will do all the usual things to satisfy a community that we film in. The producers seem to know that since this was going to be a long term thing, it is in the production company s best interest to be a good neighbour. We are having a location survey with our first director. He calls the production designer over and asks him what his thoughts are about the big brown dirt playing field directly adjacent to our sets. The production designer replies that we must never see it.