Ken Block wanted to shoot Gymkhana Nine, his latest stunt video, to be shot in Australia — mainly because it was being done in conjunction with Forza Horizon 3, a games that’s actually set in Australia.
Sadly, the Australian Police said no. They wanted none of it.
But they went ahead and shot the thing elsewhere.
And this is the making of that video.
Why post this on Kotaku? Well, it’s pretty cool for one. Secondly, it’s actually based on stunts you can do in Forza Horizon 3.
Personally, I think we’ve all been robbed. Would have loved to see some of these wild-ass set-pieces shot and filmed in noteworthy Australian locations. I’m sure the police had their reasons but boo. I am booing this decision.
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20 responses to “The Making Of That Forza Horizon 3 Video The Australian Police Shut Down”
I’m still calling shenanigans, they could have filmed it in 900 Australian locations other than Sydney.
Yeah, my thoughts exactly.
Sure, the harbour bridge is iconic, but certainly not the only iconic Australian landmark. Beyond that, the final video could have been shot anywhere, so why couldn’t it be shot somewhere else in Australia?
Mate Sydney is basically all of Australia. Duh.
You can’t expect them to film at other locations that aren’t busy business locations, that highly unreasonable of you.
Or, after receiving their filming permits, and then slowly having them revoked or restricted one by one until they could use some space near warehouses with no view of anything iconic below the speed limit, or cockatoo island, they decided “why not shoot somewhere that actually wants us instead of just wasting our time and money?”.
somewhere else like the rest of Australia?
Honestly with Australian propaganda centred around the word Hoon, and every state on an anti hoon war, I doubt Hoonigan Productions have a guarantee of not being screwed around by our nanny state anywhere something iconic and recognisable to the world could be a backdrop.
Targa Tasmania, Clipsal 500, Melbourne GP, Gold Coast 600. All car events that happen on closed roads in Australia. A lot of cities will still happily accept money to close their streets down for film shooting. It’s just you aren’t allowed to have fun in Sydney anymore.
But why?
They needed recognisable Australian landmarks.
Where else in Australia would foreigners actually recognise? (Not counting Ullaroo, too expensive)
So why bother coming to Australia when all you have left is sand and beach, can film that anywhere….as we can see
do you recognise any landmarks in the final film?
That would be the point….
If you can’t make it recognisably Australian, why bother spending all that money and effort shipping the crew and equipment half way around the world?
that’s the original point I’m calling shenanigans on. So many places other than Sydney to film in but no one from overseas wants to try.
Feels like I’m going around in circles here, perhaps a different question…
Where? Remembering it requires global recognition….
@namiwakiru
My main gripe is it doesn’t require global recognition, I’m sick of OS creatives thinking Australia is just the harbour bridge and the Opera House.
but to tackle your argument. I’d argue Melbourne has plenty of global recognition being a host of Formula 1 GP, Moto GP and Tennis Open.. and you know Sydney apparently isn’t even in Forza Horizon 3? Why not film it in Surfers Paradise? At least then there’s a strong tie-in to the sponsor.
Did they ever intend to film in Australia, or did they choose on locations that they knew the police would reject and end up getting some extra publicity?
Mad Max series has been done here. I’m guessing they either wanted to shut down the Harbour Bridge in peak time or their safety wasn’t up to our laws
it’s been over 30 years since a Mad Max was filmed in Australia, so not really comparable.
Plus the key here is iconic backdrop. There’s no Sydney harbour bridge, opera house, Uluru, etc during high speed scenes or stunts in mad max.
if that was a key point why did they end up filming it in the arse end of Buffalo NY?
Because they were denied access to iconic landmarks in Australia…
Why waste all the money coming down here to film, when the only places you’ll be allowed to film aren’t iconic? Australians are a small part of their audience. If most people aren’t going to realise and say “Oh that’s in Australia” then there is no point spending all that extra money. It needs to blatantly obvious that it’s in Australia.
You said in a different post that there are 900 other locations that could have filmed in. But that’s just incorrect. There are few globally reconisable landmarks that we have.
The Opera house, Harbour bridge, Uluru, Great Barrier Reef are our main GLOBALLY recognisable landmarks. Think about stuff you would see on fridge magnets, post cards etc
you should read the rest of my comments then, I call shenanigans on needing globally recognisable landmarks especially when there are other landmarks available that actually feature in the game that is sponsoring the video.