Auckland’s thriving screen industry has a dedicated team to help local and international productions film here smoothly and successfully. 

Tātaki Auckland Unlimited’s Screen Auckland supports the day-to-day business of screen productions, whether a feature film, a visionary animated gem, or a television drama, documentary or commercial.

It’s also our screen team’s job to promote Auckland to screen professionals around the world, and attract more international production to our region’s screen and digital sector. 

Our team has a mandate to:

  • facilitate permits for filming in public open spaces
  • provide relevant, up-to-date information to the screen industry
  • develop the Auckland Film Protocol and help production teams understand those protocols
  • advocate for the screen industry
  • promote Auckland and New Zealand as a premier destination for filming. 

Screen Auckland’s efforts – in collaboration with government agencies and sector partners – help ensure our regional film industry has strong capacity and excellent capability to host major international and domestic productions.

Through our promotion of the region as a filming destination and growth in the local production industry, the screen sector contributes significantly to Auckland’s overall economic growth.

Find out more about what Screen Auckland does.

 

Connecting you to the wider screen industry.

Screen Auckland works with a number of valued partners to connect you to other regional film offices in New Zealand.

Our local and international associations also work to keep the Auckland film industry up to date with global best-practice, trends and services.

Partners

  • Film Auckland
    Film Auckland is an independent organisation that supports and advocates for the Auckland screen industry.
  • New Zealand Film Commission
    The New Zealand Film Commission is a crown entity working to grow the New Zealand film industry.
  • Regional Film Offices New Zealand
    RFONZ is a network of film offices across New Zealand that help with locations, film permits and other business support.
  • Department of Conservation.
    DOC manages permits for filming on New Zealand’s conservation estate

Associations

Tertiary institutions with screen or digital-related courses

Current projects and initiatives include

Auckland’s newest screen production site and complex, Kumeu Film Studios totals 27ha (67 acres) and includes expansive facilities located just 25 minutes from the city centre.

Studio features include:
  • stage area: 4036m2 (43,448ft2), 9m-11m (30ft-36ft) in height
  • workshop and manufacture space/secondary stage area: 6160m2 (66,305ft2) 
  • production offices area: 1215m2 (13,084ft2) with fibre connection and Wi-Fi-fit out  
  • 2 water tanks – Underwater Dive Tank and Ocean Surface Tank – the only tanks of this size in New Zealand
  • permanent green screen wall: 70.6m x 13m (231ft x 42ft) with a surface area of 920m2 (9900ft2)
  • 2 sound stages: 2336.3m2 (25,000ft2) each
  • 12ha (30 acre) forest backlot.

Watch the walkthrough video.

Find out more about Kumeu Film Studios.

During the 2015/16 year, we helped facilitate many of the numerous productions based in Auckland. These included the second season of hit Australian TV series 800 Words – a co-production with Auckland’s South Pacific Pictures, the country’s largest production company – and the second season of Executive Producer Rob Tapert and Starz Entertainment’s cult TV show Ash vs Evil Dead

Auckland-based animation company HuHu Studios is working on the 3D movie Beast of Burden, a co-production with China Film Animation.

The BBC filmed a new season of Wanted Down Under around Auckland, with British families considering immigrating being shown what a new life in Auckland could be like.

The filming of Warner Brothers and China’s Gravity Pictures feature film MEG, which finished in late 2016, was a massive boost to Auckland’s screen industry.

Our screen team helped the production come to Auckland, where it was shot at Auckland Film Studios, a specially constructed site in Kumeu, and on location in the Hauraki Gulf out from Gulf Harbour, and the Tamaki Strait at Waitawa Bay on Auckland’s south-east coast.

If you’re of a sensitive disposition, the gruesome horror props dreamed up by Auckland special effects workshop Main Reactor are far too lifelike – or rather, deadlike. But this macabre realism has proved to be the company’s calling card for screen producers, spinning a success yarn of its own.

Husband and wife team Roger Murray and Felicity Letcher and their 20 technicians have provided props, costumes and stage sets to a long list of feature films and television shows – The Shannara Chronicles (MTV and Sonar Entertainment) and Ash vs Evil Dead (Starz Entertainment) among the latest. The company is a key contributor to Auckland’s screen production industry.

We helped Main Reactor achieve its growth ambitions and is connecting the workshop with potential overseas markets for an exciting new venture – using its world-leading prosthetics in the medical industry and emergency training.

Watch the Inside the World Ash vs Evil Dead video

Tools and resources
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