Remember the movie Escape from New York, starring Kurt Russell and directed by John Carpenter? ABC TV have commissioned a series called Escape from the City and the production company FremantleMedia Australia want Rockhampton to be included in the series. You may recall from the movie that New York had become a dystopia; Manhattan Island was a maximum-security prison and Snake Plissken (Russell) is reluctantly sent on a rescue mission to get the President of the United States out of there. (Why was the President even there? You’ll have to watch the movie to find out.) In the TV series Australian capital cities are dystopia’s and Rockhampton is a sanctuary. Well that is my one sentence summary of the production company’s outline of the series. Whether the name for the TV series is intentionally similar to the movie is not known.
The premise for this property lifestyle show is to offer those living in our capital cities, seriously dreaming of escaping to a better life, to come and take a look at four homes they could relocate to in regional centres, like Rockhampton. What an opportunity it could be for Rockhampton, national TV exposure of not only our affordable housing (compared to capital cities) but also the local delights and attractions to help woo the escapees. To get Rockhampton featured as a possible sanctuary location we need to spread the word to those living in dystopia to contact FremantleMedia and say they would like to relocate here and are willing to have a film crew follow them on their 5-day house hunt. They have to be genuine in their intention to relocate but are under no obligation to buy a property.
This is effectively a competition; I’m guessing the initial production run will be about 12 episodes. Thus, possibly only 12 regional centres throughout Australia will be chosen. The difference is that it is not the production company making the choices of what centres will be featured but the people selected to appear in each episode. Will you help get the word out to get Rockhampton on their relocation radar? On the photos of Rockhampton you post on social media along with the hash tag ‘Rockhampton’ add #EscapeFromTheCity. Real Estate Agents could do likewise with their listing photos. Hopefully our tourist and development organisations also see this as a fantastic opportunity and use their resources to spread the word also. Budding John Carpenter’s, here is an opportunity to make short video’s comparing the dystopia of capital city living to the utopia of Rockhampton’s lifestyle. This is a project we could have some fun with that may result in giving our region priceless national coverage to an audience that consists of people serious about escaping from the capitals. We need to hurry though because the deadline for submissions to be in the series is March. Google ‘Escape from the City TV show’ for more information.