Production Design in Mystery Road: Origin

This display looks at the production design of the award-winning series Mystery Road: Origin, a prequel to one of Australia’s all-time greatest mystery dramas, Mystery Road. The series sees Mark Coles Smith takes up Aaron Pederson’s mantle to play a younger Constable Jay Swan, who is newly stationed at a rural town where his estranged father Jack lives.

Set in 1999 in an outback mining town, production designer Herbert Pinter built several sets, including the police station and Jack Swan’s home, to faithfully recreate the period’s atmosphere, and included set dressing details that signal the time period and values of each space. In the police station, a portrait of John Howard hangs on the wall, a sign of the local police force’s conservative values. Jack’s weatherboard house is filled with medium-stained wooden furniture that was popular in the period.