— is being shot and everyone is talking in whispers. Perfect conditions, in other words, for the melatonin to kick in.This is no ordinary studio though. It’s the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre, and it’s the first time the complex has been used to make a movie. And producer Paul Currie thinks it’s unlikely to be the last. “It’s been fantastic,” he says. “We’ve got at least two more productions we’re thinking of bringing here over the next year.
Ordinarily an independent movie like his - even one with a $42 million budget - wouldn’t be able to afford MCEC, which charges big dollars for short tenancies to multiple clients at any one time. “But they’re thinking of things differently,” Currie says. “You’ve got to adapt.” “For the past decade the biggest problem we’ve had has been fitting it all in,” says MCEC chief executive Peter King. “But our business just stopped dead in the water from mid-March.”
Among the others are hosting virtual conferences and setting up an obstacle course for guide dog training. But with the core business unlikely to bounce back for at least three or four years, the convention-centre-as-studio concept definitely has legs.
Source: Entertainment Trends (entertainmenttrends.net)