Walking the dog around North Head and Cheltenham Beach, I pass several locations where we filmed Russian Snark. Most of what we shot was for the film-within-a-film, Misha’s studies of human figures against rock forms. It was a real revelation for me, when I started looking for locations for the film, to find so many geological marvels literally on my doorstep here in Devonport. The walk around the shoreline of North Head reveals fissures and swirls and gobs of hardened magma, some shapes almost organic in appearance. While the other end of Cheltenham Beach brings you to the sandstone cliffs that continue all the way to Takapuna. Over the millenia the horizontal striations have been pushed up by continental drift until they are almost vertical. All in all great backdrops for my actors to do their stuff against. And one thing I’m proud of is how much of Auckland’s natural beauty we managed to include in the film.