“I want to write something new, something extraordinary and ...

of riffraff, these new-moneyed folk who have suddenly got all this cash. And that
clash between the two worlds is powerful and alive throughout the whole story.”
Martin says that the houses were intentionally designed to impress. “What
was very much in Baz’s mind was that these two houses were overwhelmingly huge
and in competition, in a way, for Daisy’s love.”
Gatsby’s colossal mansion, with its shining turrets, is based on several real
buildings,” says Luhrmann. “But really it’s a bit like Disneyland, because in our mind
Gatsby’s holiday concoction is a fantasy—it’s like a playground for adults.”
“Our version of Gatsby’s mansion is an amalgam of a large number of
references that Baz pointed me in the direction of,” says Martin. It’s kind of a Gothic
French chateau; on the one hand it’s a sad, lonely Gothic house, but it’s also a
house of great wealth and beauty. It had to encapsulate Gatsby’s extraordinary
ambitions and his optimistic, romantic soul that was willing to do anything to achieve
his goal: to capture his great love, Daisy.
Gatsby’s house was built over a number of sets, with the different parts of the
house divided up. The pool, a very important part of the story, was built as a
separate set, on stage two, and it included part of the terrazzo that continued down
to the “beach”—the actual beach was at Doll’s Point, in Sydney. The grand hall, the
back garden and the terrazzo were on one set. The map room, the grand ballroom,
the stairs, the organ and the three-layered garden were all built on one stage, a
frame that made Gatsby’s party scenes that much more spectacular.
The sets were so stunning they even impressed the veteran cast and crew.
“There were scenes where we would be by Gatsby’s pool and he’s throwing a big
party, and if you look behind the camera you’d see 20 or 30 crew members with
their camera phones out,” says Maguire. “That never happens on film sets, but this
was such a spectacle, something to behold.”
The front of Gatsby’s mansion, the postern gate, the grotto leading from
Gatsby’s to Nick’s cottage, and part of the cottage itself were filmed in Centennial
Park in Sydney. Everything was pulled together with the aid of a LIDAR scanner, a
small laser scanner that creates a 3D model of each set, allowing the visual effects
team, led by Chris Godfrey, to combine and composite all the individual pieces into
one location. Godfrey’s group also helped evoke New York City’s construction
boom of the time, with new skyscrapers reaching upward from Wall Street to
Midtown at a rapid pace.
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