Goldberg was unwilling to travel there and left the project. Authors' son Jeff Authors, who had worked on the "White Fang" television show, had suggested New Zealand, saying "New Zealand can double for Canada. Not only is it beautiful, but it looks just like Canada in all the remote spots you want, and you'll probably find a more remote lake there". The creature itself was both CGI and a puppet made by Jim Henson's Creature Shop and modelled after the late US actor Walter Matthau. The film cost $40 million. The filming in New Zealand took place on Lake Wakatipu at Queenstown in 2002. Authors remarked it was nice to work in New Zealand because "The crews were very, very keen to do anything that was required... New Zealand had just done "Lord of the Rings", and they had a taste of major motion pictures". Other filming was done in England with a water tank, and the CGI work was carried out in England in 2003 and 2004. According to Barry Authors, most Canadian Aboriginal leaders supported using the name "Ogopogo" in the film. However, one Aboriginal complained that the legend was too holy, so Authors renamed the creature "Mee-Shee". The Aboriginal who did not want the name "Ogopogo" used was Stewart Phillip, a Penticton chief. Phillip asked that the names "Ogopogo" and "Okanagan" not be used because "It's an international concern among indigenous people about the exploitation of spiritual entities and being and whatnot for commercial purposes. This is not an isolated incident". The Māori people, natives in New Zealand who owned the land on which the filming was taking place, supported Phillip. Phillip's requests attracted some media attention and generated debate. One newspaper writer accused Phillip of "xenophobia" threatening "free speech". This writer suggested that Aboriginal cultures can be "respected", but others can still appropriate the cultures because "Nobody owns a culture". The famous Canadian writer W.P. Kinsella weighed in on the issue, criticizing the name change by saying, "Filmmakers can tell any story they want any time they want, and they don't need permission from these troublemakers... Make the movie. Fuck them all". A Canadian scientist, Ed Bousfield, even objected to Aboriginal claims to the Ogopogo because he felt the Ogopogo was real. (At the same time, Bousfield attacked non-believers, accusing his "ivory tower colleagues" of "the worst kind of scientific elitism".)