On Location: Cloudstreet
Tim Winton’s much-loved Australian novel Cloudstreet has been adapted for the small screen two decades after
it was first published. Laine Lister visited the West Australian set to document the ride.
When the screen rights to Cloudstreet returned to Australian ownership, Tim Winton devotees celebrated the great coup; the quintessential Australian story was finally coming home.
Years earlier, Hollywood producers had snapped up the Cloudscreet screen rights after hearing of its broad commercial appeal. The novel has been translated into 25 languages and gained literary acclaim through the Miles Franklin and NBC Awards. It has even found its way into the hearts and imaginations of thousands of Aussie kids after it was added to the senior secondary English curricula in many states.
Despite this, the story sat idle in the US until a holding deal matured. It was then that Australian patriot Des Monahan of Screentime swooped in and brought it home.
In February 2010 with assistance from the West Australian government’s Production Attraction Fund, the Showtime-funded, six-hour mini-series began shooting in Perth.
Encore was invited to Dalkeith, an affluent suburb in Perth’s south west, the setting for both the miniseries and the novel.
NO PLACE LIKE HOME
Cloudscreet chronicles the lives of two working class Australian families, the Pickles and the Lambs, who come to live together at One Cloud Street. Underlying the plot is a strong sense of nostalgia for a time where there was a greater sense of family and home – which is why it was so important to return to WA to film the mini-series.
“One can’t imagine it being shot anywhere else,” says Brenda Pam (Underbelly), producer of the Screentime series.
“The light is just divine here, there’s something different about Perth’s light,” she adds.
Director Matthew Saville (Noise, We Can Be Heroes) agrees: “It’s things like that which Perth has that you couldn’t shoot this anywhere else”.
He felt a responsibility to reveal Perth to an audience that had seen very little of the city on screen.
“The book is an ode to the city, or what the city once was and there is a responsibility to show this unique landscape,” he says.
The crew underestimated the difficulty of portraying 1940s-50s Perth for the mini-series, given the level of urban development that has taken place since the first mining boom.
“Doing a period piece is always a challenge. But doing it in Perth is quite difficult because there have been so many mining booms here that everything gets knocked down and brand new ones go up in their place. It’s a very contemporary city,” says Saville.
Extensive location scouting proved unsuccessful as a result, and most of the sets including the house had to be built.
The house went up in about eight weeks, and despite a few glitches along the way, it’s exactly as you would imagine it to be after reading the book. Production designer Herbert Pinter says: “The house had to be quite substantial; we couldn’t cut too many corners in construction”.
Pinter used Winton’s novel and old photographs of Perth for inspiration for the house design and followed engineer recommendations during the build.
Nevertheless: “We had a storm one afternoon andthe whole house was swaying and we realised the foundations [were inadequate] and all the carpenters said ‘oh my god we’re going to lose it’”. Fortunately the house survived the storm and Pinter and his team of “mostly unskilled local labourers” finished the job, creating something really special.
Saville adds: “We’re trying as to honour the book and as much as we can and to create a universe that resembles what you imagine when you read the book”. In the ‘universe’ of vintage cars and extras dressed in vintage-inspired clothing, it’s easy to forget about Dalkeith’s multi-million dollar mansions surrounding One Cloud Street.
WINTON SIGNS ON AS SCREENWRITER
While the setting and tone of the mini-series was solely informed by the text, it’s not a photocopy of the book and the story has undergone some substantial changes. Most obviously, the timeline has been truncated for the mini-series, which takes place over a span of 10 years rather than the book’s 20-year period.
“That was logistical in terms of ageing cast and how many redresses [we required],” Saville explains. But fans of the novel will be reassured to know that author Tim Winton wrote the screenplay along with Ellen Fontana, so any changes to the script are in keeping with the original story.
“The characterisations are the same and the setting is of course the same, it has the same feel and still pursues the same themes,” says Saville. “But there have been changes, that if another writer had made them, I would have taken issue with them,” he says.
Winton was rarely on set, and is a “very private man”, according to producer Pam. He worked closely with Pam’s co-producer Greg Haddrick (Underbelly) during the writing stage, “staying very privately away”.
“But [Winton] is happy to let us get on with it and make the show we want to make,” says Pam. For many of the cast and crew the opportunity to work alongside Winton was a huge drawcard. Actor Kerry Fox (Bright Star) who plays one of the lead roles as Oriel Lamb, says Winton’s book and story impacted her life.
“There was no choice for me about doing it,” she
says.
Fox’s co-star Hugo Johnstone-Burt (Underbelly: The Golden Mile) who plays the adult Fish Lamb was equally decided about working with the literary great. “He didn’t look anything like what I thought he’d look like; he has long hair, thongs on… He’s a gentleman, and a really Aussie bloke, a really nice guy,” he says.
BEST IN THE WEST
Winton, a West-Australian, leads a heavily WAcentric cast and crew, including lead actress Emma Booth (The Boys are Back), who plays the adult Rose Pickles.
There is a deep talent pool in the West and the WA screen funding and development agency, Screenwest, is keen to promote this to other filmmakers from around Australia and overseas.
Screenwest played a significant role in attracting the $10 million project to Perth, and Pam insists the state is very ‘film friendly’.
“The West Australians have been very supportive; everyone is thrilled that we have brought Cloudstreet back to its home,” she says. Director Saville agrees: “That’s been one of the joys for me working on this show, because I’m from the east coast”.
Despite this, filming in WA has had its challenges, which Saville describes as “happy accidents”. Most of the challenges were caused by Perth’s unpredictable weather patterns, which can bring aberrations such as a 40 degree Celsius heat wave one day and destructive winds the next. “We had a hail storm here with hail stones the size of golf balls coming down, it looked like it was snowing,” says Saville.
Rather than halt shooting, Saville and his “adventurous” DOP Mark Wareham used the natural event to the mini-series’ advantage. “[Wareham] is one of those guys I really like working with because he enjoys the chaos of the film set; he really enjoys chasing after the happy accidents, because they tend to be better than anything that you plan,” he says.
Saville and Wareham used Sony F900 HD workhorse cameras to film Cloudstreet, because they “look terrific and are easy to work with”. Luckily, one of Saville’s ‘happy accidents’ unfolds during filming on the day Encore visited the set, when actress Emma Booth burns herself in a kitchen fire scene.
The OH&S officer watching from the wings rushes to Booth’s assistance obstructing the camera frame while the camera is still rolling. Lesser directors may have yelled in anger, but Saville screams in delight: “that’s method acting, I love it!”
Cloudstreet will premiere on May 22 on Showcase.
what a sensational mini series. Loved fish. Loved all the characters. I hope there’s more to come. I’ve nit read the book
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