Achoerodus viridis,
The Blue Groper
puppy of the sea.
TIM Winton's beloved 1997, young adult novel Blueback is about to be released nationally as a visually stunning, epic new film - with the spirit of the Great Southern firmly at its heart.
There's been a few tweaks - young Abel is now Abby - but Australian writer and filmmaker Robert Connolly, director at Arenamedia, stays largely true to Winton's classic fable: his heroine is a free-ranging child who finds her strength growing up in harmony with nature, battles the invading threat of development and builds a life and career inspired by the ocean that she loves.
Abby Jackson hails from a long line of Jacksons who, with guts and forbearance, survived in a stone cottage set on a patch of land between the national park and the ocean on an idyllic stretch of WA coastline.
- Subscribers have access to download our free app today from the App Store or Google Play
Like many kids growing up in a remote location - in this case the fictional Longboat Bay aka Bremer Bay - for Abby it's a simple, isolated and challenging existence.
But it's also daring and fun.
Among her friends is a magnificent, old blue groper, the titular Blueback - she meets when free diving for abalone with her mother Dora.
"Some days the fish didn't show. Other days he was nervy and distant, but often he was simply bold, even mischievous...'' and for a long time he was their secret.
But as the reef strippers come into the bay, and the fish comes under threat, Abby takes inspiration from activist and environmentalist Dora and takes on the poachers.
In both its iterations, Blueback is a universal tale about friendship, family, connection to the environment and the power of one young person to make a difference.
"It is this sprawling, iconic Australian film, telling a big inspiring family story,'' said Mr Connolly, the film's producer.
"It is a very authentic, emotionally impactful film which speaks about current themes - in this case young activism and marine conservation."
Amid huge anticipation and publicity, the film will be released into cinemas across Australia on January 1, followed by an international release.
It has already been received with delight by audiences at the Perth Festival Lotterywest, where it opened the film season on November 21, at special screenings at Albany and Bremer Bay, where about 500 walked the blue carpet, and then at previews in Melbourne and Sydney in the past three weeks.
It had a world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), in Canada, in September.
It was one of only three WA productions - alongside Arenamedia's feature film Sweet As and the ABC drama series Mystery Road: Origin - and five Australian productions overall selected for TIFF this year.
Mr Connolly, who grew up in the New South Wales Blue Mountains, spent five years developing Blueback with Australian television and film star Eric Bana.
The pair has worked on several projects together over the past decade, including the film of author Jane Harper's first novel, The Dry, and is now in post production for its sequel Force of Nature.
In Blueback, Bana takes a mischievous, slightly salty turn as Mad Macka, the abalone diver, starring alongside acclaimed Australian actors Mia Wasikowska, Radha Mitchell, Erik Thomson and WA's Clarence Ryan and Eddie Baroo.
Despite Abby's fear that he will target her monster fish, the prickly Macca turns out to have a softer side.
"Old Blueback was safe with him."
"That fish. Cheekiest fish I ever saw. Steals everything. Eat the wetsuit offa ya if ya stayed still long enough.''
Along with its living cast of humans and sea creatures, the film's other big stars are its spectacular puppetry and stunning scenery .
To bring Blueback, the wily blue groper to life, Mr Connolly used a specialised team of underwater camera operators, who have worked on major features and documentary series including Blue Planet, in combination with state-of-the-art animatronic puppetry created by Creature Technology Company (which made the arena show Walking with Dinosaurs) and Soundfirm (Peter Rabbit and Paper Planes).
Getting the Blueback puppetry right was a key, said Mr Connolly, who had his own experience diving with the playful and inquisitive blue gropers - "the puppies of the sea'' - at Sydney's Clovelly Bay.
About two-thirds of the film was shot on and in the water - including at Secret Beach, Little Boat Harbour and Native Dog Beach - which meant many of the cast had to learn to free dive.
The effect on the big screen is magical.
Its seascapes are spectacular and real - no CGI was used to bring Winton's visceral coral reefs to life.
"Great, round boulders and dark cracks loomed below. Tiny silver fish hung in nervous schools. Seaweed trembles in the gentle current. Orange starfish and yellow plates of coral glowed from the deepest slopes.''
To add to the authenticity of the cinematic experience, the entire cast and crew of 60 people - and sometimes up to 100 - moved to Bremer Bay for about six months of filming and post production, with side trips to Ningaloo Reef and Rottnest Island.
Mr Connolly said settling in at Bremer Bay - a location chosen on Winton's recommendation - was essential to the film's success in many ways.
And on a personal level, he said, working in regional locations and communities had become a "very big thing for me and my films''.
"It does many different things when you move somewhere to make a film,'' Mr Connolly said.
"It gives the film great authenticity because you are actually filming in a real place.
"A lot of cinema gives the illusion of real places and I don't think it has as much impact on the film if you are, kind of, faking it."
Similarly The Dry was filmed in early 2019 in and around Victoria's Mallee and Wimmera regions - with about 17 regional locations used to help create the fictional town of Kiewarra.
During filming and post-production, Mr Connolly moved the entire crew to Warracknabeal.
Mr Connolly said living and working on location for an extended period allowed the crew to build a significant rapport with the community.
The actors could relax and form friendships in the close-knit Bremer Bay, which has a semi-permanent population of about 500-600 people.
"You use the local community to make the film, for Blueback, we had a lot of crew from Albany and from Bremer Bay and a lot of extras, some locals even played speaking parts,'' Mr Connolly said.
"It becomes a community thing."
It can lead to spine-tingling moments, such as one of Mr Connolly's favourite scenes when Abby, Dora and Mad Macka join a lively salmon fisher's bonfire night.
Many locals - who have been part of such parties for years - plus a few foreign cafe workers and people from Jerramungup came down to sing and dance on the beach and watch Mad Macka's ill-gotten fireworks.
"At the Albany preview, a guy came up to me, he was really excited and he told me 'I have been to so many of those bonfires on the beach. It's exactly how I remember them.'
"It has that authenticity, because it was real.''
The economic benefits for regional communities hosting film crews can also be considerable.
It's estimated that Blueback will pump millions of dollars into the Bremer Bay economy - and provide an even bigger long-term payback for WA's entire tourism industry.
ScreenWest head of production Chris Veerhuis said Blueback involved 164 WA residents, from 52 regional areas, with 158 locals working as extras in the film and provided 12 training opportunities - for associate producers such as Tara Bilston and in the costume and production departments.
It paid for about 5000 overnight stays in the region.
As well as being accommodated at Bremer Bay, the film company invested as much as possible into community businesses - all the food, the caterers, boat hire, dive teachers, even a costume maker were all local.
Shire of Jerramungup president and then Great Southern Development Commission board member Jo Iffla, who met and dined with Mr Connolly and Arenamedia's Robert Patterson while they were on a 2018 scouting trip to Bremer Bay, said the film company went ''a long way to try to get whatever they needed locally''.
"And the community embraced them,'' Ms Iffla said.
"I don't think there was anyone I've heard say it was unpleasant for the town.
"It is a very different experience and quite beneficial because it brings the community together."
The WA Government sees these benefits too and, via the Royalties for Regions program and Screenwest, has been investing significantly in developing the State's regional film and television industry.
READ MORE:
Blueback received practical support from the Great Southern Development Commission and $1.9m in funding through Screenwest and the government's WA Regional Screen Fund, which helped lure the production to the South West.
The $16m, four-year Regional Screen Fund program works with regional development commissions to develop projects which are targeted at regional areas, engage regional communities and are incentivised to employ WA crews and businesses.
WA also has a $20m WA Production Attraction Incentive program aimed at bringing big productions, such as Blueback, to the State, the Elevate short film initiative and a community-based program to help country towns become more "film friendly''.
The State government last month also committed to building a 16-hectare film and TV studio at the new Malaga Metronet precinct at South Perth.
Mr Veerhuis said WA had some of the most competitive screen incentives in Australia - and this was important.
"It puts the regions on screens, presents regional stories to a wider audience and helps offset the additional costs inherent in filming in remote locations,'' Mr Veerhuis said.
For 28-year-old Ms Bilston, Blueback has been a homecoming to WA and a chance to spread her creative wings.
She grew up and went to school in Broome, but moved to Melbourne for university at aged 17, began working in casting, then an opportunity came along to assist on The Dry and then Blueback.
As her experience grew, she became one of Blueback's associate producers - one of several who hail from WA.
"I got to spend three months back in WA during filming, which was so nice,'' Ms Bilston said.
"It was pretty amazing.
"WA can be a bit forgotten or under-appreciated as a State when it comes to film, I think, and there is just nowhere else that you would want to do a beach film than on the WA coast.
"It doesn't look like this in Lorne or at Bondi."
Mr Connolly said having a regional theme was also really good for a movie's profitability.
The Dry, which was released in cinemas on New Year's Day 2021, has made about $20m at the box office and is still being screened in some country towns.
He said rural-based and themed films continually outperformed box office expectations at regional cinemas.
"They speak to what the community knows and understands about itself,'' he said.
"Regional people want to see their stories."
And after the intense psychology of The Dry, Blueback provided Bana and Mr Connolly with a very welcome change of pace, before they turned their attention to their next project - another gritty project in Force of Nature.
"After The Dry, we wanted to make a film for our families,'' Mr Connolly said.
"We wanted to make this sprawling, iconic Australian film, telling a big inspiring family story.
"It is the sort of film that you can take children, parents and grandparents to see and everyone will enjoy it.''
At the fable's conclusion, both Winton's Abel and Connolly's Abby grow up to become a marine scientist, working around the world, while Dora has seen her beloved bay turned into a thriving, protected sanctuary.
Having returned to Longboat Bay to care for an elderly Dora, our hero then stays on to live, work and study the bay, which has grown rich with life.
As Winton writes and Mr Connolly illustrates: the fish stocks have bred up, the seagrass corals and sponges have thrived and abalone are growing like "snails in a garden".
And old friend Blueback is still there to play.
"Out of the shadows, from a crack in the reef, a huge blue creature came swirling at them.
"The fish's head was enormous... Blueback slipped in close to them, fins rippling. His scales shone. His tail fanned. He was the colour of all their dreams.. quivering with life.
With excerpts from Blueback, by Tim Winton.