Underbelly

23 November 2009, 14:55

Underbelly: Production Facts
The inception of Underbelly
Casting Underbelly’s actors
Underbelly's Locations
The Drug lab and the Pill Press
Staging the murders
Costumes

Underbelly: Production Facts
A landmark in Australian drama, the production scale of Underbelly was massive.  After surveying 450 potential sites, 150 inner urban locations were used, incorporating 50 commercial properties and 53 municipal locations. 80 traffic pedestrian plans were generated and more than 200 documents were exchanged between the production office and location providers.  A crew of 200 full-time and casuals worked on the series, which featured 220 main and support cast and 1,300 extras.

Shot entirely on location in Melbourne, Australia, filming commenced on 2 July 2007, concluding 17 weeks later on 22 October 2007.

The inception of Underbelly
For a long time, Victoria’s population had watched in disbelief as a gangland war, every bit as brutal and compelling as the mobster wars that had once raged in Chicago, took place on the streets of Melbourne.

The inception of Underbelly had its origins during Eddie McGuire’s tenure as CEO of the Nine Network. McGuire along with Nine’s drama department, opened discussion with crime journalists, Andrew Rule and John Silvester, whose meticulously researched account of Melbourne’s underworld war, Leadbelly, was published in 2004.  

Around the same time, Greg Haddrick the head of drama at Screentime, one of Australia’s most respected television production companies, began his own research on the gangland wars. Haddrick sought out members of the Purana Task Force and Victorian Police to try to understand exactly why such an avalanche of violence and revenge had been unleashed.

Both Screentime and Nine agreed from the outset that the object of the exercise was to capture the essence of what had occurred over the nine years in a thirteen part series – in other words, a dramatisation of the story, not a documentary.

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Casting Underbelly’s actors
The casting process was driven by the nature of the people being portrayed, and not by opting for actors who bore a blatant physical resemblance. Where we did cast actors who bore a likeness to their character, it was only because the right actor, happened by good chance, to bear a physical similarity.”

“What tends to occur,” explains Haddrick, “is that if you’re looking for actors who embody a particular person, you end up with actors who can, with wardrobe and make-up, finish up looking like them.”   

Underbelly's Locations
As the events depicted in Underbelly had taken place in Melbourne, the series was shot entirely on location in and around the city.  Over 82 days of filming, 150 inner urban locations were utilised and 450 locations surveyed.

One of the first tasks performed by the show’s hard-working research team was to verify what had really happened, especially where it crossed paths with the script. All available court materials, news footage and forensic photos were scrutinised and several members of the Purana Task Force were interviewed to ensure that the police visuals created for the series were as accurate as possible. The research team also checked where many of the story’s chief protagonists had lived, in order to gain a feel for their daily environment, which included the routes they drove to work, the style of houses they lived in etc.  The production design team were then able to match homes, driveways and streets with a fair degree of accuracy.

All the domestic interiors were filmed in actual owner-occupied houses, but they were all 100 per cent treated and altered to suit the production’s needs.

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The Drug lab and the Pill Press
One of the uncredited stars of Underbelly was the fully operational pill press that was sourced for the series. Reardon explained:  “Initially we were going to build a modified, simplified pill press, but we ended up making contact with a former Victorian police member who runs a security service that supplies pill presses to legitimate pharmaceutical companies. So with police approval, we did a deal whereby we actually used a real pill press. It turned out to be easiest option, but involved an awful lot of red tape, as these machines need a high degree of security because they’re sought-after by criminal gangs. Therefore our pill press needed a 24-hour armed-guard and was under heavy fortification at all times. We also required special dispensation to actually move it, but by the end we were manufacturing pretty authentic looking ecstasy tablets with the aid of glucose!”

Art director Ben Morrison spent many hours researching amphetamine labs and ecstasy labs – which are quite different from each other. He started by examining forensic photographs of various drug labs that had been seized, with former members of the drug squad serving as advisers. With the permission of Victoria’s St Kilda Road police complex, the art department then concocted authentic looking apparatus that contained an array of suspiciously real, but fake, chemicals. They also learned that there are two sections to a drug lab. One is the precursor chemical section where the chemicals to be pressed are prepared, and the second is the pressing area. These two sections are normally never housed in the same space for reasons of economics – that being if the location is raided, it’s better to lose just one section, rather than both!

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Staging the murders
Another challenge presented by a series depicting numerous murders was the need to ensure that each slaying had its own identity and impact – whilst trying to portray them realistically within a factual context.  They also had to stay within the censorship boundaries of Australian series television. Therefore, the art department’s most taxing task was the replication of authentic blood spatter patterns on both the victim and their immediate surroundings. And the cleaning required after each killing almost rivalled that of a real crime scene. By the end of the series, production designer Paddy Reardon’s American textbooks on forensic blood spatter and his copy of Principals Of Blood Pattern Analysis were extremely well-thumbed.

In total, the art department splattered their way through more than 20 litres of artificial blood – much of it imported from Hollywood, as the blood produced there is renowned for possessing the consistency and transparency of the real thing. There are also different kinds of blood to mimic the blood of different body parts, such as blood to replicate that that gushes from veins and arteries, blood for the eyes that doesn’t sting, and more palatable blood for use in and around an actor’s mouth.

With so many murders, several funerals needed to be staged. And in terms of historical accuracy, they were also treated with great attention to detail. “It was like having a death in the family every 10 days,” chuckled art director Ben Morieson. “The trappings for each event, such as the caskets, flowers and cars, were all very different. Plus we had to equip the large press contingent that attended each burial. When you’re staging a funeral and supplying props for between 20 to 40 press, it’s quite a day for the art department!”

Many of the deaths were staged by fitting squibs (a charge with a blood pack) beneath the actor’s garments which, for safety and visual accuracy, needed to be made from natural fibres such as cotton, silk or wool so that the fabric would allow the squib to explode outwards without burning the fabric or harming the pertinent actor. Given the speed of filming and the preparations involved, each death needed to be captured in one take, and because, scenes were often shot out of sequence, three sets of identical clothing were required each time; one for the death, one for scenes set earlier but yet to be filmed, and one spare.

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Costumes
Sunglasses, it seemed, were a pre-requisite of gangster life, which given the show’s extensive cast, necessitated sufficient numbers to stock several department stores. And given the numerous murders staged over the show’s 13 episodes, the costume department worked closely with the special effects team to ensure that the would-be victims were dressed appropriately to meet their maker. 

Many of Underbelly’s chief protagonists, such as the Moran brothers, maintained low public profiles, which meant that pictorial references illustrating their sartorial style were scarce. Therefore, costume designer, Louise Wakefield, relied upon script references combined with information that the research department had gleaned from contemporaries, media and police. “Mark Moran had a reputation for being a rather fashionable dresser,” recalled Wakefield, “so I gave Callan Mulvey, who portrayed him, several clothing changes, strong dashes of colour and spivvier suits so you’d notice that he was wearing something new. In dressing Les Hill, who played Jason Moran, we opted for a completely different silhouette. Judy Moran, portrayed by Caroline Gilmer, had a very distinct look and as there were many photographs of her available, it seemed silly not to use them as a guide."

With regards to the Carlton Crew, Alphonse Gangitano (played by Vince Colosimo) was known to be a flashy dresser who favoured a European gangster style, which was reflected in his array of distinctive suits. In dressing the older members such as Lewis Moran (Kevin Harrington), Graham “the Munster” Kinniburgh (Gerard Kennedy) and Mario Condello (Martin Sacks), the audience needed to know that they were part of a group, but it was also necessary for them to be individually distinctive. For example, Wakefield was aware that Condello wore Wayfarer-style sunglasses, liked double-breasted suits, dark colours and preferred fine, European tailoring to local styling, whereas Lewis Moran was a more casual dresser who preferred comfortable clothing, suitable for a man of his age.

Would-be king of the underworld, Carl Williams, and his wife Roberta, both enjoyed a high media profile so visual references were plentiful. “In the early when Carl was very much the gofer in the background, we dressed him in low-grade track-suit pants, hoodies and generally dull colours,” said Wakefield. “But as he prospers, we introduced a few colours that we’d seen the real Carl wear, designer style tracksuits, and a little more bling.”  In keeping with his fashion make-over, the make-up department gave Gyton Grantley, who portrayed Williams, a dull, suburban hair-cut for the early episodes, whereas by series end, he’d had his hair coloured and styled in a more sophisticated fashion. Likewise, Roberta’s look evolved as Carl’s star rose, with a range of expensive tracksuits, more jewellery, designer handbags and one-off pieces that emphasized her increased prosperity.

Underbelly’s police characters underwent subtle changes during the course of the series. Their colour palette became increasingly decisive as they received the support that culminated in the formation of the Purana Task Force.  By that stage, Wakefield was dressing them in darker suits with crisper lines to emphasize that they were gradually gaining the upper hand in their fight against crime. The Purana Task Force were also issued with their own tie, although apparently the real Task Force members didn’t wear it religiously, whereas their fictional counterparts did, as in a dramatic sense, it emphasised their bond and increased confidence.

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Last updated: 19 February 2010, 13:02