This week, a number of sites were invited to visit the set of Scooby Doo, currently being filmed on the tropical Australian Gold Coast at the Warner Brothers Movie World studio lot, a one-hour flight north of Sydney.

Driving to the set on a bus, there was a certain trepidation amongst the passengers about what we could expect from the film set. Only one picture had been seen, to which the overall response from Scooby Internet fans was aimed squarely at Freddie Prinze Jr's hair: What the hell were they thinking? Would Scooby Doo look like some sort of canine Jar Jar?

Upon our arrival, we were all in for our first pleasant shock, all of which quelled our initial fears. The magnitude and detail of the production was stunning. Scooby Doo had literally taken over the entire lot, using so many stages nothing else could fit in at the same time, and the largest production ever filmed at the studio. It was all much grander in scale than anyone expected.

One person largely responsible, art director Bill Boes, is definitely one of the standouts on the production - none of the cast and crew can stop with their superlatives when mentioning his work. "The sets are like Tim Burton on crack", describes Prinze, admiring the set of the Haunted Castle Amusement Ride on Stage 3. A full-sized knight costume sits on an armored steed draped in cobwebs in a corner, and piles of skulls, shields, gargoyles, mummified remains and giant dolls heads decorate the room. The entrance has huge wooden doors with a twisted and rusted metal portcullis.

Visiting this particular set a number of times throughout the visit, someone would point out another item that had been missed in the last visit and you couldn't help being impressed by the painstaking level of detail that had gone into its creation. What's more, two of the sets that the crew themselves were raving about, we never even got to see: a castle built from scratch (gargoyles and all) in the middle of the rainforest on a nearby mountain, and a mysterious Toy Factory.

This is only Boes's second gig as Art Director after Monkeybone, and is definitely one to look out for in the future. He had previously been working on Fantastic Four before coming across to the Scooby production. He is very proud of his work as an assistant art director on Sleepy Hollow and Nightmare Before Christmas, and found his inspiration for the Scooby sets in the original series, and it is obvious in the designs. Each set is like walking onto a 3D version of the TV show. Even the color palette throughout the production is very recognizable from the classic series.

Walking further through the Castle soundstage, we came upon a room typical of many a Scooby episode: lots of food to seduce Scooby and Shaggy. It's a towering banquet room, with a king-size table piled with a sumptuous amount of food. The room also features a voracious "Wall of Meat", built by Babe's Oscar-winning designer John Cox and one of the horrific surprises in the film for the duo. This is one of the many scenes which put forward a very convincing argument that the production has kept true to the original show.

"Their motivations were very simple," Scooby Doo co-creator Joseph Barbera once said. "Scooby was cowardly, unless you gave him a Scooby snack. Shaggy was always hungry. He'd even eat plastic fruit. People could identify with them."

Funnily enough, we found the convivial Matthew Lillard (Shaggy) on a soundstage shooting a scene with the non-existent Scooby Doo, cooking hamburgers in the back of the Mystery Machine. The internal van set was definitely a favorite among our group. It consisted of a wooden shell in the shape of the van, and while smaller than other sets, it oozed Scooby-ness. The orange shag-carpeted van interior was decorated in classic Scooby style: piles of stacked food and magazines, fruitbowls, a hammock, beanbag, orange TV, and a charcoal barbeque in the center.

An "X" was taped on one of the walls which indicated Scooby Doo's position in the van. Two crewmembers were painstakingly measuring the van and its contents for the various Special Effects houses to ensure that Scooby perfectly fitted into his environment. For one crewmember, it was their full-time job. The night before, they had been working on measurements for a particularly hard set due to the fact that Scooby Doo needed to appear as if he was walking across an uneven surface.

Lillard relaxed in a chair beside the van interior, dressed in Shaggy's green t-shirt and bell-bottom trousers, and explained how hard it was at first to get the voice of the iconic Shaggy. The only way to achieve it was apparently for him to shout a lot to wear out his voicebox. This caused great pain to his throat for the first couple of weeks but his "Zoinks" are pretty easy these days, five months on.

The major achievement that Lillard needed was dealing with an invisible co-star. Director Gosnell was extremely complimentary of Matthew's abilities. "He's very good with mime, so when we needed to simulate Scooby jumping onto him in fright, it was very helpful. You could really see the weight in his arms."

Lillard's only complaint with the production is his hair, which has to be in a mullet cut underneath the (extremely realistic) wig, which forces him to wear a cap wherever he leaves the lot, like in a recent trip to Sydney.

He's not the only one with hair problems. "Blondes definitely do not have more fun," moaned Freddie Prinze Jr. As opposed to the publicity still released on the net (where he dons a wig) - he sports a much more cropped (and natural) hairstyle in most of the film, which takes place over a period of two years. Every Sunday, Prinze spends his day off having his roots, eyebrows and arms bleached, and armpits shaved, much to his chagrin.

"I have every episode on tape," says Prinze proudly of the Scooby Doo series, a self-confessed huge cartoon afficianado with a daily cartoon habit that goes back to early childhood. So much so, it apparently has the potential to annoy friends and family with his addiction: "My friends, my girl, my family, everyone just has to accept it".

When he got the script, he had some input into his character. He explained that he made Fred as egotistical as possible, and based him on young Hollywood stars that think they1re going to "be around forever".

The truth of Fred and Daphne rumors from the TV show, according to the original producers, was really because they got sick of writing and drawing Fred and Daphne, so they had them leave until the final act. Still, that's not stopping the film from expanding on them, hints Prinze.

Director Raja Gosnell was also very excited to join the production. The director of Big Momma's House and Never Been Kissed immediately saw the potential of the film and made to ensure that the production had the scope of an event movie he envisaged. As we passed Stage 5 where the stunt crew (including stunt doubles for the film's principal cast) were training for the film's final set piece in a huge cavernous set resembling something out of the world of Sleepy Hollow, you could see that he's clearly achieved that scale. Gosnell has also worked as an editor on a number of productions, such as Mrs Doubtfire, Home Alone and Pretty Woman.

The man behind the film being made, producer Chuck Roven, whose previous work includes Twelve Monkeys, City of Angels and Three Kings, is clearly excited to see the film in its final stages of filming (principal photography wraps in June) and is surprisingly relaxed. But why film in the Gold Coast? Why Australia?

"We chose the Gold Coast for three reasons," he explained. The first was the exchange rate ($1 US dollar = $2 Australian dollars). Joel Silver (Matrix) once explained studios were able to achieve twice the effects for the same budget using an Australian locale.

The second reason: The movie is set on an amusement park called "Spooky Island", so when Roven discovered Warner Brothers owned not one but three amusement parks in the area (Dream World, Movie World, Sea World), it became very alluring.

The major problem with alternate locations, he explained, is finding good crews comparable to Hollywood. This wasn't a problem either, and it was the other primary reason for filming in Australia. The mostly-local Scooby crew is first class, with many having credits on other Australian productions such as "Star Wars: Episode II", "Survivor", "Mission Impossible 2" and "The Matrix". Australia's fastest growing city, the Gold Coast, is ideal for film shoots with 300 days a year boasting 8 hours of sunshine and an average temperature of around 90 degrees.

According to Scooby lore, the characters -- Fred, Velma, Daphne and Shaggy -- were actually taken from the popular sitcom "The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis." The series was originally titled "Mysteries Five," after the four investigators and their dog, Too Much. "It was what kids said in those days," said one of the head writers Joe Ruby (in an interview with The Orange County Register). "Like 'That's too much!"'

The title had to change, according to Fred Silverman, children's programming executive at CBS who originally ordered the series from Barbera. They first tried "W-wh-oo's S-ss-scared," but then Silverman heard Frank Sinatra improvise "scooby-dooby doo" on "Strangers in the Night", and the rest, as they say, is history.

To become a part of that history was a big thing for Sarah Michelle Gellar, who plays Daphne in the film. Ironically while growing up it was actually the character of Velma that she identified with most. "Jinkies (Velma's catchphrase created by a writer from the word (high-jinks) is definitely my favorite phrase," says Gellar. She was filming all day and it took until 8:30pm to get a moment to talk with her. She came in wearing fuschia knee-high boots and miniskirt, slightly shivering in the cool cavernous set on Stage 5 and marvelled at yet another Bill Boes creation - it was the first time she had seen it.

After waiting for her availability for so long, there was a degree of expectancy in the air. As she began to answer her first question - BROOOOMM!!!! The silence was broken by the deafening motor of a huge crane behind her which started at exactly the worst time and drowned her out. "Maybe I'm not meant to answer that question", she joked.

A big fan of Survivor, she is in love with Australia and its people. It's the second time she1s filmed here. In 1997, she starred in the TV production Beverly Hills Family Robinson, which filmed on the same soundstages.

For this production, she revealed she had to travel back and forth from Los Angeles between filming Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Scooby Doo every fortnight until the Buffy season finished filming earlier this year.

Next week she's getting to do some Matrix-style Hong Kong wirework: in the film, her character decides to get, er.. buff and look after herself instead of sitting back as Daphne has traditionally done. The remains of a boxing set was on the Mystery Machine soundstage, which may figure in the film.

Who Daphne and the gang actually fight is up for conjecture however, and was one of the unexpected surprises during the day. "[The Press] assumed that because Mondavarious was the owner of the Spooky Island theme park that he was the bad guy. It's not necessarily the case". Rowan Atkinson (who plays Mondavarious) has been a source of fascination for the cast, particularly Matthew Lillard.

"Rowan was really amazing to work with," he enthuses. At first, Lillard couldn't work out what he did that made him so funny. "It was the little things where his genius showed," he explains. You would be filming a take with him and it would seem like a perfectly normal delivery at the time, but then you'd look on the playback monitor and he'd do something like exit the field of vision walking in a funny backwards motion which was absolutely hilarious.

Among the other cast we glimpsed in the makeup van was the beautiful Australian actress Isla Fisher in a huge blonde wig. The former soap star plays Shaggy's love interest Mary Jane, and was also visible on playback screens shooting a scene on the rear of Shaggy1s scooter. Isla has been the brunt of jokes by the rest of the cast for both her Australian and American accents, says Gellar.

We had just exited one of the soundstages when I spotted the Art Department building, and asked if we could have a look inside. Jackpot! Inside were designs stuck all over the walls of each part of the production -- including Scooby Doo himself!

This was another surprise: the rumors of it not resembling Scooby were entirely false: seeing him in all his 3D glory, you definitely know who you are looking at, and it's strange -- it's like he couldn't be any other way. Roven stressed how important it was to get Scooby to look right. At first, they decided to experiment with animatronic puppets as well as CG.

"We actually went down both roads for a very long time," admits Roven, but they decided on the CG Scooby in the end, with only about 5% of him being animatronic, none of which involves his face. Afterwards we saw some actual size stuffed versions of an early design which is being used for reference points and lighting. A couple of Scooby stuffed heads also exist (stuck on sticks) which are also used for lighting and referencing by the effects studio in charge of animating Scooby Doo, Rhythm and Hues. Their recent work with Cats and Dogs will show the amazing work they are capable of.

Scooby is actually played by a little person on set as reference for the actors, and while they have someone voice Scooby on the set, they haven1t decided on an actual voice yet. "Too early," says Roven.

As for Scooby himself, he's not getting good buzz from his fellow cast. "Scooby is so difficult to work with," complains Gellar. "He never even comes out of his trailer".

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