After waiting forty minutes, my patience finally pays off as the Minister and his entourage arrive via a golf cart, to rescue me from an icy death on the windblown back lot of Fox Studios. Well, maybe my film script is not quite as exciting as that of The Wolverine, nor are there any side burns in sight to rival those of Jackman – so it makes perfect sense they would be delayed on set by the mutant super-hero Wolverine.
Simon Crean, Minister for the Arts, has just been on a tour of the The Wolverine set at Fox Studios talking to Hugh Jackman, James Mangold, the US director (Knight and Day, 3:10 to Yuma, Walk the Line) and key crew such as Ross Emery (Bait, I,Frankenstein), the Australian DP who scored the gig after the original American DP left due to creative differences. Crean used this example of Emery being in the right place at the right time (Emery was originally second unit DP) to highlight one of the many benefits that flowed from the $12.8million grant provided by the federal government to entice the production of The Wolverine to our shores.