“Coober Pedy is a unique location offering arid desert vistas, pock-marked mining landscapes, and a visceral underground world of tunnels and chambers difficult to replicate or find in one place. It’s also an accessible town with a rich filming history and dependable climate.”

— Paul Ranford, producer, Firebite

Going underground

New AMC+ and See-Saw Films vampire series Firebite recently wrapped shooting in Coober Pedy, using both underground and above-ground locations.

Directed and written by Warwick Thornton and Brendan Fletcher, the series was actually created with the town specifically in mind.

“It was: did you know there are a quarter of a million abandoned mine shafts around Coober Pedy, in a town of like 5,000 people? A quarter of a million holes! Wouldn’t it be cool if there were vampires in those holes?” said Firebite writer/director/producer Brendan Fletcher.

“The pitch for (Firebite) was always Coober Pedy, it was always vampires in the mining tunnels, the mining tunnels leading to the towns. What a great concept for a vampire show!”

“Coober Pedy formed the basis for all design elements of Firebite, from the colour palette to tunnel studio sets. The actual landscape itself and the myriad of tunnels and caves elevated our production values exponentially.”

— Rachel Gardner, executive producer, Firebite

“Our lair set, which we shot on location in Coober Pedy, would have been outside of the scope of our budget to replicate in a studio. Likewise, above ground, the uniqueness of the landscape provided us with exterior locations that look heightened and stylised and outside of the scope of our budget to replicate,” said Firebite producer Rachel Gardner.

“Other than the visual uniqueness of the location, the people of Coober Pedy make this a special filming location. The community welcomed us with open arms and bent over backwards to support us in making our series.”

Producer Paul Ranford agrees: “The Coober Pedy and Umoona Community were welcoming to us and to filming on the traditional lands of the Antakirinja Matu-Yankunjtjtjara people of the western desert.”

“Coober Pedy, it’s the most beautiful man-made disaster in the world. It is ugly, beautiful… it’s just mineshaft after mineshaft, treeless plains – so cinematic. If you’re going to make a film about vampires, it’s probably the best place to make it.”

— Warwick Thornton, writer/director, Firebite

Kanku Breakaways and The Painted Desert

Lying 32km north of Coober Pedy, the Kanku Breakaways are colourful low hills so named for having “broken away” from the nearby Stuart Range, and have been featured in films such as Mortal Kombat and Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome.

As the day goes by, the passing of the sun changes the desert colours, creating stunningly surreal scenes.

Further north lies the Painted Desert, where dramatic rocky outcrops of yellow and orange splash purple and black shadows as the sunlight shifts.

“I couldn’t be more impressed with the locations. I really don’t think we could have made (Mortal Kombat) as gritty and as authentic and as epic in visual scale anywhere else. I don’t know where else we would have found the locations we needed in Australia.”

— Simon McQuoid, director, Mortal Kombat

The Moon Plain

About 18km (11mi) north-east of Coober Pedy lies the famous Moon Plain, a stark desert of grey, soft clay dirt dotted with fossilised shells and dramatic cracks that look positively extra-terrestrial.

The unique landscape has been used as a backdrop for many screen productions including Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome, Priscilla Queen of the Desert, Pitch Black and Red Planet.

“South Australia is pretty unique in that you can have a world like Coober Pedy that has looks nothing like anywhere else on the planet, then you can be down the next day in the South Australian Film Corporation’s Adelaide Studios, and you’re working in a state-of-the-art studio environment. I can’t imagine shooting Firebite anywhere else except South Australia.”

— Brendan Fletcher, writer/director/producer, Firebite