Channel Seven has been forced to film Home and Away in the Blue Mountains as the ongoing coronavirus pandemic continues to impact their production schedule.
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Producers had initially planned to travel to the Northern Territory to film dramatic scenes, which will air this week, but when travel restrictions were imposed they had to get ‘creative’.
Speaking to The Sunday Telegraph, series producer Lucy Addario confessed that in order to make the storyline happen, crew were forced to film in the Blue Mountains – about an hour from Sydney.
She said while the virus meant they couldn’t travel to the Top End, it didn’t mean they had to abandon the storyline completely – they just had to put their thinking caps on.
“Corona isn’t going to get in the way of us telling beautiful stories to the audience,” Lucy said, before adding that it’s imperative the show goes on – even more so during the pandemic.
She went on to say that it’s a privilege to be able to provide entertainment to fans so they can relax – especially during a time when there is so much fear as a result of the virus.
The storylines that will play out in the Blue Mountains this week centre on lovebirds Bella (Courtney Miller) and Nikau (Kawakawa Fox-Reo) who are on the run from the law.
Hot on the couple’s tail are Nikau’s uncles Ari (Rob Kipa-Williams) and Tane (Ethan Browne), who are both caught up in a love triangle with Mackenzie (Emily Weir).
While the Blue Mountains is vastly different to the Top End, producers were seemingly pleased with the end results, which Lucy said provided a nice contrast to the usual beach locale.
“We were disappointed at first but then it is about this beautiful story so as long as our young star-crossed lovers were in a love bubble somewhere, it didn’t really matter where it played out,” she said.
While it can be a very costly exercise to film on location, the series producer admitted that it was worth the price tag to make this special storyline come to fruition.
“As long as it felt ‘away’ from Summer Bay, we were OK and I guess the Blue Mountains was a lovely contrast because it was so cold compared to the hot sands of Summer Bay,” she said.
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