When Australian drama is being hawked to the international market it doesn’t hurt its chances if it features liberal doses of sun, sand and buff teenagers. It’s a formula that has served long-running soapie Home & Away very well indeed and it’s also something the producers of Blue Water High are banking on.
In the world of Blue Water High, “it’s always a sunny day and it’s always Saturday”, jokes director of photography Russell Bacon. Filming began in September 2004 with the cast (and their doubles) decked out in summer wetsuits and rash vests. Kiely jokes that most of the fellow surfers in the chilly spring surf looked like “black seals” by comparison but the use of polarising filters that Bacon says “blue up” or “Haymon [Island]-ise” the sky completed the summer look.
By Fiona Williams, Encore.