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Gold Coast business owner Mark Wemyss has lost count of the number of actors from Australia to Hollywood who have worn one of his suits — wetsuits that is.
"We can potentially do six suits for one scene," Mr Wemyss said.
"Because if the scene starts dry, and then they get wet, obviously, like, the director [yells] cut, do it again they have to have wetsuits on hand to keep the talent warm."
Mr Wemyss, who has been manufacturing wetsuits for three decades for "pretty much all water sports", has expanded his repertoire to include flesh-coloured suits for the film and TV industry.
Some of his notable clients include Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson for the blockbuster San Andreas, Johnny Depp for the Pirates of the Caribbean series and Australian actress Nicole Kidman.
The suits are usually worn as undergarments by actors and production crew to keep them warm when filming scenes in water or under rain machines.
But he said one of the biggest projects he had been involved with required wetsuits that were seen on screen.
In 2021 he was commissioned to make costumes for the biopic, Thirteen Lives, a film based on the true story of the Thai cave rescue in 2018.
It was also shot on the Gold Coast.
Mr Wemyss was tasked with creating replicas of the wetsuits worn by the British and Australian divers who rescued 12 boys and their soccer coach from Thailand's Tham Luang cave.
"Some of these suits were from companies that were since gone so we had to reproduce logos and we had to [make] a lot of wetsuits in a short period of time," he said.
Award-winning special effects makeup artist, Jason Baird, said he had used Mr Wemyss' suits for his prosthetics and costumes.
He enlisted Mr Wemyss and his team to construct the inner lining for his mermaid tails for the Australian television series, Mako Mermaids and H2O: Just Add Water..
"Mark was heavily involved in all the mermaid costumes we built because he made all the under structures for the for the tails," Mr Baird said.
Keeping up with demand
The Gold Coast is positioning itself as the destination of choice for filmmakers, offering everything from film studios to post-production, makeup and costumes.
City of Gold Coast Mayor Tom Tate revealed in February he was keen to attract more major studios.
He said he wanted to approve construction for post-production facilities and an additional 40 film studios in cane fields to the city's north by the end of the year.
Mr Wemyss welcomed the growing industry but said securing the supply of material up to two years in advance was a challenge.
"We've got to forecast where we're going to be in not just six months, but 12 and 18 months down the track, so we've got to have fabric that's ready to go for a certain production," he said.
"With the flesh-coloured fabric, we've got to have it in 1mm, 2mm, 3mm, 5mm, and we've got to have enough supply because sometimes you can have one production in Sydney, one in Melbourne, two on the Gold Coast, a couple in Hollywood and they all want that one thickness at the one time, so we've really got to be in front of having raw material on file like here ready to go."