Penny Black printing plates Penny Black printing plates The printing plates for the Penny Black, two pence blue and the VR official were all constructed by Perkins Bacon, the printers of the first postage stamps issued in Great Britain. The construction of these plates was long and complicated, which was intentional so as to make the forgery of the finished article almost impossible. The first stage involved the engraving of a background for the design. This was produced with a rose engine which laid down a circular pattern of symmetrical design onto a piece of soft steel. This was then partly cleared to leave
Penny Black (film) a core cast of three, and went into pre-production in October 2011. The film was completed in 2015 and premiered at the Arohanui Film festival in Te Aroha. Sponsors included Wicked Campers, Phoenix Organic and Whittakers with funding topped up by a PledgeMe campaign. Penny Black was filmed on RED Scarlet from July-Oct 2012 in Auckland, Pukekohe, Hamilton, Te Aroha, Taupo, Napier, and Wellington, New Zealand. The role of Penny's sister, Alex Black, was originally a male role, but when finding an actor with availability throughout the filming period became difficult the production team started to consider changing the role