Four seasons in one day
New Zealand is beautiful, spectacular and remote for filming teams based in Europe, so Robert Morgenstern and his team loved the idea of filming in New Zealand so much, they moved there!
The main challenge of filming in New Zealand is its weather.
For almost two years Robert’s largely German team from Atara films were based in the southern town of Dunedin. This gave the Dunedin team the chance to be reactive and spend time capturing remarkable and unpredictable wildlife behaviour and events.
The main challenge of filming in New Zealand is its weather. The country consists of a long thin island chain stretching from the sub-tropics in the north, down to the sub-Antarctic in the south. Its islands are surrounded by some of the wildest seas on Earth, which are in the latitudes of the ‘roaring forties’, infamous for huge waves, high winds and cold wet driving rain.
As a result New Zealand is a land where you need your fleece, your waterproof and of course if you want to be authentically kiwi; gators – boot covers (worn with short, thigh-hugging shorts). New Zealanders seemingly have cold proof thighs of steel able to cope with anything! This changeable and unpredictable climate is especially true for the southern city of Dunedin, which seems to have its own particularly capricious microclimate, even by New Zealand standards.
Dunedin however, is a beautiful city with plenty of stone-built Victorian architecture, terraced houses and gothic churches. Famously lots of Scottish people settled there. It’s an interesting place with half its houses perching on streets as steep as San Francisco. The rolling countryside around it is reminiscent of Cornwall, with many beautiful beaches and a wild rugged coast.
The South island boasts perhaps New Zealand’s most spectacular and famous landscapes, especially mountains. The Southern Alps run more or less the length of the entire island, the tallest peaks reach nearly 4000 metres and there are 3000 glaciers here. These are the glittering highlights of a wild hinterland - New Zealand’s largest wilderness region.
This is the jaw dropping spectacle that lures millions of visitors from all round the world.
There are not only sparkling ice capped peaks, where the glacial valleys meet the sea, they become fiords, huge steep sided canyons with mirror like sea water as floors. All around mighty waterfalls and countless cascades of pure fresh water tumble from the cliffs reminding everyone who visits here that this is one of the wettest places on earth. This is the jaw dropping spectacle that lures millions of visitors from all round the world.
It rains for more than 200 days a year in Fiordland and all the moisture gives some truly bizarre creatures a chance to eek out strange ways of life.
