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105.7 ABC Darwin
November 10, 2005
Seven metre croc stalks actors
No doubt about it, there are some monstrous crocs in this part of the world, but how would you fancy coming face to face with a seven metre behemoth in Kakadu? One would hope you'd packed a spare pair of undies.
Such a beast is currently under construction, using silicone, rubber and lots of animatronics, at John Cox's animal workshop in Brisbane.
John has created all sorts of creatures for a range of Hollywood hits, including Babe, Racing Stripes and Pitch Black. His latest work is to be used in the filming of "Rogue", a $20 million movie about a wild croc which stalks a tour group in the Aussie outback.
"We've had to do a fair bit of research on them to find out what happens when they get over about four metres in length ... he's there as a presence on set to give everybody a feeling about how big this thing really is," says Mr Cox.
He says the full size one will have some hydraulic parts in it to get his head and his jaws "going as fast as the real ones do".
Acclaimed director, Greg Mclean, is still on cloud nine with his latest film Wolf Creek debuting at number one at the Australian box office. In this flick he brings together actors Michael Vartan, Michael Vaughn [sic] and Radha Mitchell and is hoping for another hit.
Filming is currently underway out at Yellow Waters and Red Lily Lagoon in Kakadu.
"When shooting at a location like this it can either go one of two ways, you can either have a sort of bunch of namby pamby actors who are wanting to go back to the hotel the whole time or have a bunch of actors like we've got who are spending the whole time having their minds blown by the privilege of going to the kind of locations they are going to," Greg McLean told 105.7 ABC Darwin's Julia Christensen.
He says they are feeling the heat, and compares being on set to spending hours in a sauna with sweat pouring off you.
"No-one's complained really about it, they're just taking it as part of a big kind of adventure which it is for all of us," he said.
Mr McLean says thankfully, the crocs are performing as required.
"We had a couple of amazing days at Yellow Waters, some of the material we have shot of crocodiles interacting with the boat which is amazing, we had one crocodile perform for about an hour, just cruising around eyeing off the camera and looking where he needed to look ... he was very curious about what we were doing so we were lucky enough to have the camera rolling.
"I'm sure he somehow got a look at our call sheet and knew what time to appear for his shot," he said.
The movie is making use of a number of locations across the Territory to create the setting of a mythical national park.
Next week the set will pack up and head to Katherine Gorge to continue filming.
They're unlikely to encounter any crocs, but will be disappointed to learn the feeling of being in a sauna will follow them.
© Australian Broadcasting Corporation 2005
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