Filming
Principal photography was shot in Sydney. Filming began on September 5, 2011, at Fox Studios Australia and finished on December 22, 2011, with additional shots filmed in January 2012. The film was shot with Red Epic digital cameras and Zeiss Ultra Prime lenses. The "Valley of Ashes", the desolate land located between West Egg and New York, was shot in Balmain, New South Wales.
Manly Business School in Manly, New South Wales—known as Saint Patrick's Seminary—doubled as Gatsby's mansion. Palm trees had to be digitally removed in post-production to convey a faithfulness to the Long Island setting. Nick's house was located in Centennial Park. Daisy's house was Gowan Brae, a historic mansion at The King's School, Parramatta.
In creating the background scenery for the world depicted in the film, designer Catherine Martin stated that the team styled the interior sets of Jay Gatsby's mansion with gilded opulence in a style that blended establishment taste with Art Deco. The long-destroyed Beacon Towers, thought by scholars to have partially inspired Fitzgerald's Jay Gatsby estate, was used as a main inspiration for Gatsby's home in the film.
The location used to film the exterior of Jay Gatsby's mansion was the college building of the International College of Management, Sydney. Some inspiration was also drawn from other Gold Coast, Long Island, mansions, including Oheka Castle and La Selva Mansion. Features evoking the Long Island mansions were added in post-production.
The inspiration for the film version of the Buchanan estate came from Old Westbury Gardens in Old Westbury, New York. The mansion exterior was built on a soundstage, with digital enhancements added. The interior sets for the Buchanan mansion were inspired by the style of Hollywood Regency.
The home of Nick Carraway was conceived as an intimate cottage, in contrast with the grandeur of the neighboring Gatsby mansion. Objects chosen adhered to a central theme of what the designers saw as classic Long Island. The architecture conjures American Arts and Crafts, with Gustav Stickley-type furnishings inside and an Adirondack-style swing out.
The opening scene was filmed from Rivendell Child, Adolescent and Family Unit in Concord, Sydney, only a few kilometers from Sydney 2000 Olympic Stadium.
Costume designer Catherine Martin approached many apparel designers to craft the film's costumes. In conjunction with Miuccia Prada, Martin achieved the iconic 1920s look by altering pieces from the Prada and Miu Miu fashion archives. Many of the fashions from archives were concepts from runways and fashion magazines that were never worn by women in real life. Martin and Prada worked closely together to create pieces with "the European flair that was emerging amongst the aristocratic East Coast crowds in the Twenties". Martin worked with Brooks Brothers for the costumes worn by the male cast members and extras. Tiffany & Co. provided the jewelry for the film.
Costume historians, however, noted that the costumes were inauthentic as Martin and Prada modernized the 1920s-era fashions to resemble 2010s fashions. Most prominently, the women were clothed to emphasize their breasts, such as Daisy's push-up bra, in contrast to the flat-chested fashions of the era. Martin admitted that she took the styles of the 1920s and made them sexier for a modern audience. "If you look at the fashion illustrations, as opposed to what actually ended up being made, you will see that the '20s were all about sex," Martin stated in a Collector's Weekly interview. "It was the first time that women basically wore no undergarments and not even a [garter] belt."
Alice Jurow of the Art Deco Society observed that the film's highly stylized costume designs reflected contemporary audiences' inaccurate expectations and misconceptions of 1922 fashions. "When people say 'the Gatsby era,' there's definitely a mid-'20s concept that comes to mind, with the shorter skirts and the real archetypal flapper look," explained Jurow. "But 1922, it was the Jazz Age in terms of music, but the fashions hadn't quite caught up yet. The skirts were still mid-calf, even approaching ankle length. Clothes were a little more graceful and ornate and flowy. People would be startled and disturbed if anybody actually did real 1922 fashion in the production of Great Gatsby. It’s just not how we picture those characters."
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