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Miller films to move into CarriageWorks
Commercial bays will be leased to the filmmaker George Miller while he makes Happy Feet 2 and Mad Max 4, Fury Road.
The State Government will lease the facility to Miller's company Kennedy Miller Mitchell for a year, and in future may hire it to other production companies.
The studios would not be in competition with Fox Studios because of the size difference, and it is hoped the new facility may attract other animated or creative projects to Sydney.
David Heazlewood, co-director of Pacific Film Logistics, has worked on big-budget films for more than a decade. He said there was a place in Sydney for both Fox and the CarriageWorks studios, especially as they had very different capabilities.
''Having two studios is just going to make it more attractive,'' he said.
The chief executive of Fox Studios Australia, Nancy Romano, said Fox supported initiatives to keep NSW the Australian destination for film-making.
''Any additional industry-related development will definitely complement the many state-of-the-art film-making facilities that this city hosts and will further add value to marketing this city as a one-stop shop."
The Premier, Nathan Rees, has announced CarriageWorks would be used as a base for a motion capture studio for Miller's films. But a development proposal for Kennedy Miller Mitchell to convert vacant bays into a digital film studio is still being considered.
Miller said production agreements had been a long time in the making.
"Big movies like Fury Road and Happy Feet are rare and competitively sought after in all the film-making regions of the world," he said.
The Carriageworks studios would not compete with the world-class sound stages at Fox Studios, said Anupam Sharma, of Films and Casting Temple. He is head of the Australian production company bringing a Bollywood film to Sydney.
''When we do work with people from the Asia Pacific, just the name [Fox] gives them stars in their eyes,'' he said. ''The importance of Fox can never be underestimated.''
