Dan F

We're continuing almost daily updates - there's been various updates amongst Character Profiles, Locations, and the Episodes section recently, along with an update to the Credits Centre today. And of course Ryan is currently uploading the results of our 2010 MPC Poll which can be discussed in this thread.

Whilst its obviously not an exact replica, it does bear similarity and they evidently took the shape of the house into account when designing the set. All I've done below is rotated the staircase, and knocked down a few walls to open it up a bit more, and you've got the onscreen version. The living/dining/kitchen areas are basically the same, and the bathroom is in the same place. Before they added the bedroom at the bottom of the stairs it would have been even more similar with the boatshed remaining as it is in reality. Obviously its nowhere near to scale - the right hand wall needs to come in considerably now

The original Beach House location page has now been updated, with screencaps and the other pics that were promised

As yes it was Barry's car, that's the one I meant in 2006. Belle took that from outside the surf club and the near-accident was on good old 'Old Yabbie Creek Road' - and yes it was Macca I had a look at the scene you mentioned Alex, and whilst it was correct with the details, we didn't actually see Diana looking at the house - just Irene mentioning it and then Chloe going outside to meet her on the beach (not Clareville beach though). The search continues!

I knew there was something I forgot to mention when writing up that page, will have to add that now I've been unable to find out about the real interior of Summer Bay House as yet - you can slightly see the walls in the burnt out picture but its difficult to say how it differs from on-screen - I remember there was once a newspaper article with a few pics of Kate Ritchie walking around the remains, but again it was difficult to compare anything. I don't imagine we'll have seen the last of the townhouse, after all it's still in Nicole's name...

The Townhouse has now been added to the site

Both of those car ones were in the middle of nowhere too - I'll probably upload the page with mentioning last week as the first external scene anyway, can soon change it if I manage to track another down! Hopefully I'll have the Beach House update up at the weekend, have just heard back from the photographer who has kindly given permission for us to upload the photos onto the site - they're quite extensive, showing the main living area from all angles where it's quite easy to make a comparison to the onscreen counterpart - there's also pictures of the rear of the house and the main bedroom above the boatshed

Oh I don't remember that at all.....will have to do some investigation..... the only car mishaps I remember with Belle were when she took Irene's car (which was 2006, before the townhouse appeared) and when she was run off the road during the development site storyline (which was in the middle of nowhere) Does anyone else remember something along those lines?

I'm pretty sure 'new' Beach House shot is indeed the front of the house, there's another (rarely seen) stock shot which appears to show a bit of the kerb in front of it. Aerial shots of the old location would indeed be great, but I imagine it could be pretty impossible given all the trees surrounding it Just some of Clareville beach itself could be good though. Mistified - that has been mentioned before, though there's certain other staff members catching me up in that department following my teachings in the art Though my general knowledge is actually pretty good..... In other news, the next location I'll be putting up (probably tomorrow as we've already had a few updates today) will be the Townhouse - figured it was the ideal time for that one, with its first ever exterior scene being shown in Aden's final episode - after nearly 3 years of just stock shots!

Ah thanks for that, I should hopefully have that episode so I'll have to have a look to see if I can get a cap - I didn't realise they'd used it that late on, so it does sound as though it was probably the last time. Obviously the one scene that everyone remembers is when Saul kidnapped Selina on the way to her wedding. The location was on the market a couple of years ago so it should have new owners now - Seven should certainly knock on the door and see if they're interested! I remember that scene now you mention it - they don't bother with that sort of scene now do they lol what does the current house look like they are using for the beach house? I've only seen it briefly in a couple of stock shots, but not properly. I wonder if the interior would actually fit into it!? I guess it can pass in a stock shot, but if you look at it for any longer you start to realise that things don't really match up - another Leah situation with there being no room for the room at the bottom of the stairs (unless the right hand doors lead to that), and of course it doesn't help when they show the nighttime shot and you can clearly see the interior of the real house. Still, if they were that desperate to change locations, they could have done worse I guess - just doesn't have the same feel as the old one...

Oh yes the interior could definitely fit into the real life location. Here's a floorplan of the actual house, and whilst its a bit more open plan - and there's an extra bedroom out back and along the 4th wall where Irene's dining table and TV are - its pretty much the same kind of layout, give or take a few walls. That's not including the pool and garage out the back which I cropped out though I've got some pics of the real interior too which I'll get up onto the site at some point

Ahh that's interesting, was the round boatshed ever meant to actually be seen as part of the Beach House (ie not a boatshed but part of the downstairs) or was it asumed that viewers would see it a a boathouse and therefore not seen as part of the interior? I always remember not long after the first time the interior was updated (to the browns and blues) the bedroom at the bottom of the stairs mysteriously appeared from nowhere lol I don't recall seeing any upstairs in the 90's and very little of it in the following years either. I think it's a pity we don't see all sides of the rooms, as we now do with the new Diner set, it adds a bit of interest I think! Well they never tried to hide the boatshed doors, they were always visible in the stock shots, so I imagine we were to just assume that it was just that. In fact I'm pretty sure I remember them using it at one point for some reason or another....

In reality the round part of the old Beach House is a small boatshed at ground level, with the master bedroom above it - which is in fact the only room on the first floor. I think with the angle they used they could pretty much get away with that though, as you couldn't easily tell that there weren't more upstairs rooms to the rear of the property. I can't recall if we ever saw the master bedroom at all in the 90's....

Ah but the fun comes in guessing whether the guy in the red shirt will be with his lady friend, or just wheeling his bike! Certainly agree about the location though, not to mention the fact that the interior would be physically impossible to fit into that new house.... Same goes with the Beach House - why they ever changed that is completely beyond me, especially since they've never even used it for an exterior scene since it changed a decade ago. The only scene shown which was supposed to be outside the Beach House was when Irene was being threatened by those guys in 2000 - and even then they didn't use the correct location, just a random road next to the beach. And I'm still looking for that darned house in the stock shot....some scenes there could help considerably If they're only ever going to use a stock shot then why not use the original one in Clareville to do just that.

It's only this week on air that the scenes were shot that far apart - usually they're only a week apart. To use these weeks as an example: Week commencing 30th Nov: Interior shots for Week 14 Exterior shots for Week 15 Week commencing 7th Dec: Interior shots for Week 15 Exterior shots for Week 16 *production break* Week commencing 25th Jan: Interior shots for Week 16 Exterior shots for Week 17 So no, that has no bearing on the lack of exterior scenes at the houses. Whilst the exteriors of most of the current houses are actually within a short distance of each other (the farm and Angelo's now non-existent house being an exception), I imagine it's logistically far more difficult to film at houses as opposed to just on the beach etc. where they have ongoing permits - all that can go through the council whereas with houses they need to talk things with the homeowners which takes more time.

Incidentally, in a slightly related note, this week's interior scenes mark the first to be filmed in 2010 - and subsequently the first to be filmed in the new studios in Redfern. There is actually a 7 week gap between the filming of location scenes (filmed before the production break) and interior scenes from this week.

Of course it was on location during the Campbell era, and the replica they made for the studio is indeed impressive.

Indeed it was Bobbin Head, and the gates that Miles pulled up at were at Apple Tree Bay just up the road

A slightly older location today from 2005 - Diana Fraser's house

We've recently completed photography of all the Summer Bay High locations (the ones still standing anyway), along with a reshoot of the correct part of Macquarie Uni, so I'm hoping to get these up on the site in the near future. Ah! Awesome! Thanks very much! Having recently located the latest building they're using for the school hall (we think!), we've put the school updates on a hold until we can add a photo of that to the existing photos we have of that location - hopefully it may be within the next month or so - and that way we can upload all the school locations within a few days of each other. Another update today, a location from 2009 which appears to have been forgotten now. Big thanks to QA as ever who's been taking the majority of these pictures - we're having trouble keeping up with her! (not that I'm complaining!)

According to our guides the first time we see the Surf Club interior is in Episode 382 (August 1989) for the Surf Club dance - I'm sure Ryan will be able to tell us whenabouts that will air on 7TWO. In storyline terms it's a couple of weeks after Dodge is exposed as the one who started the store fire, and around the time when when the Fletchers decided to adopt Sally, before her Uncle Ross turned up.

Thankyou. More episode updates and a news update today.

The new one is practically identical to the original, built on the original foundations with only a couple of minor tweaks, but the roof colour is obviously the exception They've even gone to the trouble of reproducing the pattern on the canopy above the front door using old photographs. Admittedly it looks a bit of a building site in that picture, and they've added another driveway where the gate used to be, but the greenery is now growing back. There's ongoing discussion about SBH in the locations thread

The 1988 section of the Credits Centre has been updated today, with better quality caps of Set 1, and the addition of Sets 2 & 3. Also been episode updates over the past week, and several location updates recently - Summer Bay House being the latest location to get updated pictures and more details.

As far as I can see (though I've no ideas on the legalities of it concerning building design etc.) they have no excuse to not reproduce an exact replica if they put their minds to it. They have plenty of reference material and other resources available to them. I could confidently say that if I was architect minded, I would have enough sources to replicate the exterior by myself, so they should have no problem.