The South Island is very well equipped with aircraft and extremely experienced pilots because there is a considerable helicopter tourist industry.
Mission: Impossible - Fallout qualified for the 20% New Zealand Screen Production Grant (NZSPG) and filmed on location in Queenstown and Milford Sound.
25 main unit days in New Zealand
361 crew members in New Zealand- majority were locals
Over 100 New Zealand extras
Screen Incentives
Mission: Impossible - Fallout qualified for the Government’s international screen incentive, the New Zealand Screen Production Grant (NZSPG), which offers a 20% cash rebate on Qualifying New Zealand Production Expenditure (QNZPE). Qualifying costs include most New Zealand goods and services, cast and crew remuneration (including for international personnel under certain conditions) and travel. By choosing New Zealand as the location for key stunt sequences, Mission: Impossible - Fallout brought in over $39million in qualifying spend.
Feature films with QNZPE of NZ$15million or more may be eligible for the NZSPG. Options for television, other non-feature formats and post/VFX work are also available. Click here for more information.
A travelogue
New Zealand is earth at it's most fantastic in terms of the scenery and natural beauty. You get a very different vibe.
Director Christopher McQuarrie says it was hugely important to find new spectacular filming sites for Mission: Impossible – Fallout that gave depth, scale and scope to the film.
"I was relentless with my crew about finding locations that gave depth, scale and scope to the movie," he says.
Leading the quest for spectacular new filming sites were production designer Peter Wenham and supervising location manager Ben Piltz. One of the first things Wenham did when he came on board the project was to pinpoint on a map of the world all of the locations that had already been used in previous Mission: Impossible films. “We didn’t want to repeat ourselves,” he explains. “We wanted the story to go into uncharted waters.”
According to Piltz, McQuarrie was wide open when it came to suggestions for exciting places to shoot, “His take on it was, ‘Find me a cool location, and I will write the scenes for it.’”
New Zealand locations
The hunt for spectacular new filming sites led production to New Zealand, where they were drawn to the South Island's vast mountainous landscapes.
Here they filmed Mission: Impossible - Fallout’s heart-stopping helicopter sequences, in Queenstown and Milford Sound. They also used filmed a large mobile medical camp and a section of a Kashmiri village in The Rees Valley, about an hour-and-a-half drive from Queenstown.
“New Zealand is earth at its most fantastic in terms of the scenery and natural beauty. You get a very different vibe.” - Simon Pegg (Benji Dunn), source: AP
Rebecca Ferguson (Ilsa) was blown away by the location, saying, "It was absolutely flabbergastlingly beautiful."
Epic stunts
Mission: Impossible is all about practical stunts, practical action and real locations with as little green screen as humanly possible.
Every Mission: Impossible film features Cruise performing one unforgettable, death-defying stunt. In Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol, it was climbing Dubai’s Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest skyscraper. In Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation, it was hanging from the door of an Airbus A400M Atlas military transport plane as it takes off. In Mission: Impossible - Fallout it's a heart-stopping helicopter sequence shot in New Zealand doubling as Kashmir.
The first stunt of the helicopter sequence was known as the “long-line,” which involved Tom Cruise (Ethan Hunt) climbing up a rope dangling from a helicopter flying at roughly 2,000 feet and then free-falling 40 feet onto the payload at the end of the rope and bouncing off of it.
The chase sequence culminates at Milford Sound in an especially challenging scene in which Walker begins shooting at Ethan, who has to bank away in a manoeuvre known as a wingover. Cruise’s helicopter then flies low over a lake and dives into a waterfall in a spiral.
"New Zealand was stunning, absolutely amazing and I got the wonderful advantage of viewing New Zealand from the open doors of a helicopter." - Henry Cavill (August Walker), source: AP
Production moved the whole unit by helicopter to access the various locations.
“There were multiple helicopters flying around, 13 helicopters into and out of the mountains on some days. So, there was a lot of detailed planning and a lot of risks we had to try to mitigate.” - Marc Wolff, aerial co-ordinator
Experienced New Zealand pilots
New Zealand’s experienced pilots were a key reason why Mission: Impossible- Fallout chose New Zealand.
The stunts were extremely perilous, with the “longline sequence” in the design, and planning stage for two years, meaning experienced crew was a must.
“We had great pilots experienced in long-line who were responding to the wind changes. We shot a lot more of the sequence than we thought we would be able to.” - Jake Myers, producer
New Zealand has the largest helicopter fleet per capita in the world, and a haul of experienced pilots.
Tom Cruise went through intense pilot training that began in Texas with Tim McAdams (chief pilot of Airbus Helicopters) and then continued in Wanaka alongside New Zealand pilot Simon Spencer-Bower, one of the world’s most highly regarded flight instructors.
“Tom excels at low-level flying,” says Spencer-Bower. “He loves it, and he’s very measured and understands the dangers involved. He’s an amazingly quick learner. As soon as he was shown something he was right onto it.” - Simon Spencer-Bower (New Zealand Flight Instructor)
Cruise also worked with Glacier Southern Lake Helicopters pilot Alfie Speight who has captured aerial footage for films such as The Lord of the Rings Trilogy, Vertical Limit and Alien: Covenant who piloted the heliopter in chase for wider shots of both helicopters.
Speight piloted the helicopter in chase (that of Henry Cavill (August Walker) for wider shots of both helicopters.
The pilots who fly through these canyons are local pilots who have been doing it for years, and not many of them can go low down to the surface and handle the twists and turns of the river. Tom had been trained to do this in a relatively short amount of time and was flying by himself.
The chase sequence culminates at Milford Sound in an especially challenging scene in which Walker begins shooting at Ethan, who has to bank away in a manoeuvre known as a wingover. Cruise’s helicopter then flies low over a lake and dives into a waterfall in a spiral.
Production were extremely impressed by the amount Cruise could do in a short time, following his vigorous training.
“Spirals are incredibly difficult to do,” notes McQuarrie. “I flew with Tom and his instructor who demonstrated one. This guy had a lifetime of experience. I couldn’t imagine that Tom would ever be able to do anything like that. I watched over the course of just three or four days as Tom went from being able to do one spiral to being able to do it endlessly.”
Filming the sequence took around a month, with three bases set up in the "triangle" between Milford Sound, Queenstown and Lake Wanaka.
Production also credit the success of the aerial sequence to the strong working relationships between the production, the Civil Aviation Authority, the Department of Conservation, district councils and local landowners.
Filming the sequence took around a month, with three bases set up in the "triangle" between Milford Sound, Queenstown and Lake Wanaka.
Production also credit the success of the aerial sequence to the strong working relationships between the production, the Civil Aviation Authority, the Department of Conservation, district councils and local landowners.
Māori Culture
The experience was a very powerful one for cast. As Ving Rhames (Luther Stickell) recalls, the iwi, cast and crew assembled in front of one of the Kashmiri village sets as the chief called upon the spirit of his ancestors to bless the land production was filming on.
“For them to allow us to use their sacred land adds another element to the film.” says Rhames.
The ceremony was one of the most memorable aspects of the shoot for Michelle Monaghan.
“It was such an honour. Afterward, the iwi presented us with these beautiful sacred stones that I keep in a very safe place.”
Find out more: http://www.kahurumanu.co.nz/our-people/david-higgins
About Mission: Impossible- Fallout
The best intentions often come back to haunt you. Mission: Impossible – Fallout finds Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) and his IMF team (Alec Baldwin, Simon Pegg, Ving Rhames) along with some familiar allies (Rebecca Ferguson, Michelle Monaghan) in a race against time after a mission gone wrong. Henry Cavill, Angela Bassett, and Vanessa Kirby also join the dynamic cast with filmmaker Christopher McQuarrie returning to the helm.
Mission: Impossible – Fallout stars Tom Cruise, Henry Cavill, Ving Rhames, Simon Pegg, Rebecca Ferguson, Sean Harris, Angela Bassett, Vanessa Kirby, Michelle Monaghan, Frederick Schmidt and Alec Baldwin. The director of photography is Rob Hardy. Production designer is Peter Wenham. The film is edited by Eddie Hamilton. The stunt coordinator is Wade Eastwood. Special effects supervisor is Neil Corbould and visual effects supervisor is Jody Johnson. The costume designer is Jeffrey Kurland. Music is by Lorne Balfe.
Paramount Pictures and Skydance present A Tom Cruise / Bad Robot Production. Tom Cruise Mission: Impossible – Fallout Executive Producers are David Ellison, Dana Goldberg and Don Granger. Producers are Tom Cruise, Christopher McQuarrie, Jake Myers and J.J. Abrams. Based on the television series created by Bruce Geller. Written and directed by Christopher McQuarrie.
