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The Matrix (1999) Filming Locations – Shot-for-Shot – Sydney, Australia [video]
- FirmwareBurner 1y agoSeeing the movie as a kid I totally expect it to be filmed in New York, Chicago, Toronto, Vancouver, but Sydney never crossed my mind since the shots looks too "North America" to be anything else. Probably because in my mind Sydney is a beach with the opera house and an outback with kangaroos and giant spiders.
- keepamovin 1y agoHeh :) Sydney downtown is very beautiful and very city vibe.
- FirmwareBurner 1y agoSounds like something a giant spider would say ;)
- keepamovin 1y agoAh yes us sydneyspiders - I mean Sydneysiders - we're always looking for delicious - I mean gullible - I mean curious tourists in Sydney, and their dollars. We really don't have enough hehehe! :)
- dylan604 1y agoEspecially the sound of the crosswalk signals. Orbital introduced me to them in the 90s, so when I heard in person the first time I had a knowing smile and started to groove to the rest of the track that my brain filled in for me
- ajxs 1y agoWe call them 'pedestrian crossings' down under! It's been sampled in a few songs actually. The sound is so ingrained in our psyche that you recognise it instantly.
- dylan604 1y agothe only one ingrained deeper for is Blade Runner's "walk now"
- worthless-trash 1y agoI was surprised to see the pedestrian crossing button right in the centre of the woman in the red dress scene.
- bitwize 1y agoThe one that really baked my noodle was seeing Melbourne play the role of Boston in Knowing (2009), which it did fairly well if you don't look too closely.
- keepamovin 1y agoLike that film, but holy shit I did not know that was Melbourne! No way. Have to go back and watch. Classic Cage hahaha :) also nice Matrix reference
- wkat4242 1y agoThat's why Sydney was so popular. The CBD has a really American feel but prices and wages are Australian. Fox studios had a huge campus there. Not sure if they still do.
- tim-- 1y agoIt's now Disney Studios (https://disneystudiosaustralia.com/ https://disneystudiosaustralia.com/) after Disney's acquisition of Fox. There's 9 large sound stages. A large amount of movies are filmed there. The lease of the land at the time was controversial. > The rental was $2 million, payable over 40 years. However, the payment date was not specified, and the deal proceeded with an initial $1 per annum peppercorn rental, in return for which the government was obliged to spend $75-80 million on site works for the benefit of Fox https://archive.cpa.org.au/guardian/2004/1201fox.html https://archive.cpa.org.au/guardian/2004/1201fox.html
- wiether 1y agoIIRC that topic was discussed in an episode of Utopia https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3163562/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3163562/
- dehrmann 1y agoParamount also used to have a presence there.
- throwaway992673 1y agohttps://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sydney_funnel-web_spider https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sydney_funnel-web_spider The males like to wander around aimlessly looking for mates.
- jeffwilcox 1y agoPlus the Wachowskis have Chicago street names throughout.
- magarnicle 1y agoYou have to go a long way to get to the "outback" from Sydney, though Hollywood has other ideas. I laughed in Mission Impossible 2 when they set up their base in the desert for their operation in Sydney Harbour. Just a short 500km (at least) helicopter ride away.
- Wololooo 1y agoYou remind me of a movie that I can't remember the name off but it was a low budget American spy movie that was shot in Europe through European subsidies targeted at getting work in Europe for cinema crews. One shot is supposedly happening in an American city, but it's shot somewhere in Brussels, where they discuss people hiding, then you got a transition shot where now they are supposed to be thousands of km away with said people hiding, and the second shot is filmed in the building across the street. Many other shots were also combination of places that I knew extremely well, which really was funny at times because once you locate everything it makes the whole situation much more comedic.
- throwaway422432 1y agoThat can make for a very weird viewing experience. "Oddball" was filmed in an Australian town I grew up in. There was a chase scene that combined and compressed multiple locations. In one particular scene you are looking at an extra with a backdrop of part of the main street, but the location he is looking at (supposedly directly across the road) is actually about 1/2km away.
- alex1138 1y agoNeo fights giant Kangaroo Smith
- Calwestjobs 1y agoi would watch neo nazi vs kangaroo fight.
- caz2000 1y agoThere's roos (or at least Wallabies) that graze on a big golf course on the other side of Sydney Harbour. They've been known to make it onto the highway and cross the bridge into the city - just near where the red dress scene was filmed.
- dehrmann 1y agoWhen I visited Sydney, it felt like NYC with LA weather and cars on the wrong side of the road. I knew it was filmed there, but hadn't put together that it was filmed around the corner from where I stayed, and I walked by multiple filming locations.
- femto 1y agoThe giant spider is actually a thing. Earlier this year, the "Newcastle Funnel Web" was identified as a new species: bigger and deadlier than the Sydney Funnel Web Spider. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-01-14/researchers-prove-three-distinct-species-iconic-funnel-web/104814368 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-01-14/researchers-prove-thr...
- jazdw 1y agoI used to catch them in my backyard as a kid, never saw one that big though!
- cjrp 1y agoDidn't they have to reverse the footage of cars (like when Neo is climbing outside out of his office building) so they look like they're driving on the right-hand side?
- Andrex 1y agoAll that work and the elevator still says Lift.
- Jedd 1y ago(Sydney-sider here) I have a vague memory of people being asked to drive around with a passenger, with the driver holding the wheel down load (twenty to four?) - while the passenger held their arms up high, as if they were holding a wheel.
- caz2000 1y agoThe Wachowskis have said they chose Sydney specifically because it reminded them of Chicago, which is where they wanted to film. That said I think it surprised everyone in Sydney how it ended up looking on film.
- wkat4242 1y agoI'm surprised they used two real locations for the hotels. The "Heart O'The City" one at the very start, and the "Deja Vu" staircase. These hotels look really delapidated in the film. I thought they were studio sets. I wonder how they managed to make them look so bad, tbh with late 90s tech (green screen mostly and limited CGI) it sounds like it would have been simpler to just build a delapidated staircase in a studio than to make the actual thing look rotten.
- loloquwowndueo 1y agoCGI was not as limited as you think in 1999. Look up films from that year and you’ll see.
- nico 1y agoFor reference, Terminator 2 is from 1991
- DidYaWipe 1y agoIndeed. The compositing tool of choice for this movie and any other effects-heavy movie from the late '90s well into the 2000s was Shake (by Nothing Real, later bought by Apple). The only competition was Nuke, the in-house tool at Digital Domain. It is the last one standing today, since Apple gave up on the high end. Interesting anecdote I heard: Shake was up for an Academy Award, but Apple pissed off the wrong customer when they discontinued the Windows version (which was used for The Matrix). I won't name the post house, but the owner reportedly sat on the academy's technical committee and tanked Shake's nomination as punishment. Kinda sucked for the team, who of course were blameless.
- caz2000 1y agoThere was a surprising amount of set dressing done. Some people have pointed out before that they must have put down fake tiles as the direction of the tiles in the film are diagonal (I think) instead of checkered. But as other people have said, Sydney was very run down in the 90s and many buildings were genuinely just like that. It's come a long way.
- comrade1234 1y agoI thought they filmed scenes in the east bay? Oakland maybe? I swear I met (biblically) girls back then in s.f. that had been in some rave scene.
- Drunk_Engineer 1y agoThat was the second one (Reloaded). Filmed in downtown Oakland and Alameda Naval air station.
- andrehacker 1y agoSorry man, there never was a second “Matrix” nor a third.
- to11mtm 1y agoEh... I feel like they have aged better over time than a lot of 'trilogies'. They do not measure up to the original but they aren't truly terrible, at least if you're looking at them from a more philosophical standpoint.
- sokoloff 1y agoReloaded may have been passable as a standalone film (if not seen as a disappointing sequel by comparison to the original). Revolutions was (IMO) terrible standalone or as a sequel. It felt like more of a CGI-heavy cash-in on the series than anything else.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- globular-toast 1y agoI thought Reloaded was amazing at the time (I was a teenager). I saw it three times in the cinema. I was so excited for Revolutions. Had all these theories about what the architect said, why did the kid give him a spoon etc, are they still in another level of the Matrix? Then when it came out I saw it once and pretty much never talked about the Matrix again. Massive let down.
- reassess_blind 1y agoMy favorite of these shot-for-shot style videos is how well Last of Us 2 recreated Seattle: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uukShs2qgCI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uukShs2qgCI
- ajxs 1y agoVery cool! I knew all of them, except for the two hotel locations! Sydney's inner city has changed a lot in the intervening years. It's surreal revisiting that Castlereigh St shot in the film, and seeing how undeveloped it looks in comparison to today.
- mattigames 1y agoI still believe the Matrix Online videogame had a lot potential, it just needed a better game loop, I think some new Matrix game taking ideas from games like Helldivers, GTA V and Cyberpunk could become a hit, where there are 2 parallel worlds, the Matrix and reality, and some things you do in one can help you in the other, e.g a way to discover from the matrix where the sentinels are in reality, the overall aim of the game would be to gain territory on "reality", and you would gain "exploits" that help you gain territory faster, meaning destroying robot bases and liberating human farms, plus recruiting some of them. On the monetization side the publisher can of course just do the popular thing and sell skins (that only show in the Matrix of course), for both cars and characters, maybe paint jobs for your ship would work fine too.
- neilv 1y ago> On the monetization side the publisher can of course just do the popular thing and sell skins (that only show in the Matrix of course) A perfect fit. If that didn't already exist in gaming industry, it would've been invented for a Matrix game.
- heraldgeezer 1y agoThis really is old men rambling huh. WoW was already dominating. Nobody played it. >it just needed a better game loop This car would be good, it just needs a better everything... Games are for gameplay!
- jeffwilcox 1y agoLove it - was walking with a friend near Martin Place they pointed out the "Reflection" sculpture that was in the movie during the red dress training exercise.
- ttmb 1y agoI was working in Sydney and the instructions for dropping off the off-site backup tapes said "turn left at the Woman In Red fountain".
- fellatio 1y agoEver see the military choppers doing their exercise? Amazing and scary.
- squigg 1y agoYes! We lived in a penthouse apartment in Surry Hills (the old hat factory) for 2 years from 2010 and the first time the choppers came in and dropped troops off on the rooftop opposite I was terrified! Became a regular source of entertainment, to sit on the terrace watching them be dropped off
- tetris11 1y agoI was hoping to see the subway location, but I guess this was just a set piece
- ajxs 1y agoLots of sources online say it was shot on the disused platform at St James, but that was the subway scene in the second film. Some sources say it was shot at a freight siding at White Bay. If that's true then the actual station must be a set piece. You can find some behind-the-scenes footage online[1], and you can see that the staircase down to the platform is real, so that makes me doubt it was White Bay. Whatever the case, it's not at St James. You can find lots of pictures of the disused platforms online[2], and you can see the roof is totally different. I'd love to know what the actual truth is! [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2f79nuDTcCA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2f79nuDTcCA [2]: https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Disused_platform_St_James_railway_station_Sydney.jpg https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Disused_platform_S...
- ajxs 1y agohttps://www.uer.ca/locations/viewgal.asp?picid=88851 https://www.uer.ca/locations/viewgal.asp?picid=88851 I think this confirms the White Bay answer. I doubt this location exists anymore. The entire Glebe Island Silos area has been heavily redeveloped since the 90s.
- caz2000 1y agoThere was a film studio out at White Bay they filmed some of the movie at too which was demolished shortly after which likely explains the general location. The movie certainly benefitted from filming in Sydney right before all the urban renewal kicked off. Doubt you'd be able to commander a train and a disused platform space today on their budget.
- keepamovin 1y agoNo, that subway was definitely real as well, on what used to be the city circular line. The guy missed a few of the locations such as the Oracle apartment, which is actually an apartment building in Redfern.
- fellatio 1y agoI worked in that area a while back. It is (was then) a quiet part of Sydney just commercial offices and business that supports it. Despite being a fairly central location. It's a beautiful place to hang out you can walk to harbour views.
- causality0 1y agoI love these types of videos. The ones for Jurassic Park and Jaws are also good. The problem with this type of content is that nobody has the time or money to do more than a couple of these videos so the body of work is spread over hundreds of different creators, making it next to impossible to find and watch a significant fraction of what's out there.
- keepamovin 1y agoThere’s some really good ones for Terminator one and two as well. It’s fantastic to see the locations in Los Angeles and California. Different channel.
- keepamovin 1y agoThis one: https://youtu.be/i1xPujRzWks?si=bmIBjlA-9GYDaOEM https://youtu.be/i1xPujRzWks?si=bmIBjlA-9GYDaOEM And for the OG: https://youtu.be/C8BC0VuF8Ys?si=E8VRiGht-guW_DUC https://youtu.be/C8BC0VuF8Ys?si=E8VRiGht-guW_DUC
- aranchelk 1y agoIt’s wild how much the green color grading used in the film made the daytime location shots look un-Californian.
- globular-toast 1y agoThere's actually a bit of a controversy over what the original film actually looked like. There are 35mm scans out there with no colour grading at all (e.g. https://youtube.com/watch?v=Ow1KDYc9XsE https://youtube.com/watch?v=Ow1KDYc9XsE). Some people claim it never had the green and it was added later for the DVDs. The sequels definitely had it but turned up to 11. Trouble is nobody can really remember what they saw in the cinema in 1999 and there's a bit of Mandela effect going on thanks to retroactive grading and sequels.
- crtasm 1y agoFrom a quick look there's at least one CAM[corder] recording from when it released - is that any use for settling the debate? short clip from it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k71faZm6P1A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k71faZm6P1A
- Melatonic 1y agoI saw an original 35mm print at Cinespia somewhat recently and it's definitely not the green tint. That was added later. The original look was a bleach bypass film process which was very colourful with blown highlights. There should be quite a bit of info on this online I would think. Coolest part of this whole experience is that the Cinespia venue is at the Hollywood Forever in LA - it's a giant old cemetery with a huge lawn and massive screen. During the final scenes when Neo is about to fight Agent Smith in the rain it actually starts raining in real life (obviously rare for Los Angeles). People started leaving but I thought it was pretty damn amazing.
- t1E9mE7JTRjf 1y agoMan, I loved this.
- imp0cat 1y agoWhat's fascinating is that they still have phone booths in Syndey (re: the last shot). Do they actually still work?
- femto 1y agoYes, and they provide free nationwide phone calls. https://www.telstra.com.au/exchange/payphones-free-for-calls-australia https://www.telstra.com.au/exchange/payphones-free-for-calls...
- _kb 1y agoAnd free wifi. https://www.telstra.com.au/exchange/free-wifi-telstra-payphone-usage-2024 https://www.telstra.com.au/exchange/free-wifi-telstra-paypho...
- optimalsolver 1y agoHere's one for There's Something About Mary (1998), if anyone's interested: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=naqW_uPlCH0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=naqW_uPlCH0
- zoklet-enjoyer 1y agoThe Occupy Sydney protest was held in front of the federal reserve in the same plaza as the scene with the woman in the red dress. I didn't find that out until after the protest. While there, I thought the place looked familiar but couldn't pinpoint where I knew it from.
- _qua 1y agoIt really shows the artistry in the movie that those mostly unremarkable locations were made to look like they did in the film.