In late January we began pre-production on the Kāpiti based feature film Poppy. The story of a young Down syndrome woman who refuses to be defined by her disability and decides to take control of her own life. My role was Production Designer and, though most sets were shot on location, there was still plenty of room for character development through the current-day domestic settings in which they inhabited. One of the most exciting scenes we shot, was the burn out competition at the Masterton Motorplex. Wow, what a smoky spectacle that was! The Rapanats provided the authenticity of the event and our team just had to provide the extra florishes. |
We had just dressed our biggest set of the whole shoot when we went into lockdown, so in a flurry of boxes and paranoia we undressed it, re set it back to normal, shifted out of our Kāpiti accomodation and headed back to the city. Once we hit level 2 our film started up again and we were the first film in New Zealand to resume shooting after lockdown. With this came numerous new protocols and procedures which we all diligently took in our stride, and the final week of shooting went smoothly. |