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Kiwi film studios booked 'chocka' by Hollywood and US streaming giants

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Kiwi film studios booked 'chocka' by Hollywood and US streaming giants

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Lots of ways to use this information. I've summarised them at the bottom of the article

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The cinematic home of Middle-earth is alive with the hustle and ambition of Hollywood film crews, as Kiwi studios enjoy their busiest period since the heady days of Peter Jackson's Tolkien epics.

After a lull in the post- Lord Of The Rings heyday of the noughties, New Zealand film studios are beset by American streaming platforms and silver screen production companies.

The broad theme of the projects are fantasy and sci-fi, and in Auckland all the major film studios are booked into 2019.

"We're really, really busy, 100 per cent," said South Pacific Pictures chief executive Kelly Martin.

"We've just confirmed another project in January so there's more work around than space, our studios are chocka. People are desperate for space."

Located in West Auckland, South Pacific is renting out one of their studios for filming of Amazon Studios US TV series The Wilds, and another for a Netflix adaptation of 2014 Kiwi film The Dead Lands.

"It's the international stuff that's causing the glut and making it so busy. I mean god, if we were all reliant just on local stuff it would be dire," Martin said.

"It's a really positive thing because it's money coming in from overseas and it's keeping the industry afloat."

Ateed Screen Auckland manager, Michael Brook, agreed the industry was thriving and forecast "a lot more activity would be taking place" in 2019.

Brook said permits issued to film on location doubled in Auckland last week, and while US film companies predominate, he described a diversification of clients from China and the UK.

One of major reasons was the emergence of online streaming platforms.

"I think globally those new platforms and ways of distributing content have meant the opportunities for production and creation have increased exponentially," Brook said.

An example was the Netflix production of The Letter For The King, being filmed at Auckland Film Studios, and Amazon Studios TV version of Lord of the Rings - tipped to be shot somewhere in Aotearoa.

Auckland Film Studios is also a base for the mammoth task of filming James Cameron's Avatar 2 and 3 sequels. This multi-year project is also being shared with Wellington's Stone Street Studios.

Kumeu Film Studios in West Auckland is shooting the live-action remake of the 1998 animated Disney film Mulan.

Studio West in Auckland is fully booked until July 2019, filming the modern incarnation of US kids TV show Power Rangers.

Avalon Studios in Lower Hutt has a string of Kiwi films being shot during the remainder of 2018 including Savage by first-time feature film writer/director Sam Kelly.

A BBC comissioned film adaptation of the Kiwi Man Booker Prize winning novel The Luminaries will also have its cast announced in the coming weeks, and is set to be shot throughout New Zealand.

The gross revenue from Auckland film production in the last few years has also reflected the US studio companiy surge - growing from $900 million in 2015 to $1.1 billion in 2017.

Studio execs and producers all agreed a number of factors come together to make New Zealand an appealing destination for international film companies:

Large variation in the landscape and locations within a small area, alternate seasons from the Northern Hemisphere, professional English speaking crews, that aren't unionised, and which provide value-for-money in high-end production.

There are also recent increases to multimillion-dollar Government subsidies for international film companies working here - placing New Zealand on parity with the industry standard.

But there has also been a broadening of horizons in the programming strategy of the film industry itself.

Chief executive for Auckland production company Screentime NZ, Philly De Lacey, said US networks are now far more open minded about what their audiences are willing to consume.

"Ten years ago if I went into the US and pitched a drama series, they'd ask 'what's the American story, why are Americans going to like this if it's not about America?'" De Lacey said.

"Whereas now you go in, and if it's a good idea, they don't mind it's got a NZ feel. In fact, there's some US networks that don't want US content, they want foreign content."

Testament to this are two Screentime NZ/Lippy productions just wrapped: the joint German-NZ funded drama series The Gulf and the joint Danish-NZ drama series Straightforward.

"The German network wants a show that looks and feels exotic, so it's set in New Zealand and all the cast are New Zealand. That's really appealing to them, but a decade ago that just wouldn't have been thought of," De Lacey said.

"I think the world's idea of storytelling has changed, people have got an appetite for stuff that feels different, and that's really opened up the doors for New Zealand producers."

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Kiwi film studios booked 'chocka' by Hollywood and US streaming giants

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The cinematic home of Middle-earth is alive with the hustle and ambition of Hollywood film crews, as Kiwi studios enjoy their busiest period since the heady days of Peter Jackson's Tolkien epics. After a lull in the post- Lord Of The Rings heyday of the noughties, New Zealand film studios are beset by American streaming platforms and silver screen production companies.

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Editorial: Wellywood bonanza may be an illusion

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Editorial: Wellywood bonanza may be an illusion

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An editorial is the opinion of the Editor on a topical issue - in this case an investigation into the Screen production grant subsidies scheme

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Our capital city's enthusiastic adoption of the moniker Wellywood may have seemed a bit crass and derivative to the rest of the country - which managed to talk the city out of displaying its provincialism to visitors with the word writ large on the hills overlooking the airport - but our investigation today of movie subsidies shows the title would not be out of place.

Sir Peter Jackson's production base in Miramar appears to be one of the big players in international movie making competing with Hollywood itself. It would make a glittering case for the value of public subsidies and other supports for industry were it not for the fact that it has been subsidised for decades and its dependence on public money has not diminished. In fact it is growing.

Nippert reports the cost to the New Zealand taxpayers has doubled in the last decade, from 12.5 to 25 per cent of production costs. About two thirds comes back to the Government in tax from activities related to the productions. To argue the public investment generates a financial return for the taxpayer, all sorts of spin-off benefits through tourism and technology have to be calculated.

The latest attempt to do that, by an economic consultancy, Sapere Group, reckons those benefits "significantly outweigh" the cost of grants. But the Government has just released its report with two reviews of it by consultants who say the evidence for that conclusion is weak and slight changes in its underlying assumptions would show film subsidies were retarding the economy. In other words, the money would be better used for a genuinely profitable purpose.

The film industry is just about the only commercial sector in this country that was allowed to continue to receive public subsidies after 1984 when all other investment was exposed to the test of value in international markets. The local film industry's case for continued subsidies has always been based on the fact that its international competitors are subsidised too. But that is an argument our farmers could have made in 1984 and every year since.

So how has the film industry managed to remain an exception to the fundamental rule of a market economy? The question is especially difficult to answer because the subsidies go to foreign, mostly American, film studios to lure their productions here. As Jackson says, "not a cent" of public money goes directly into his business. Without offering those incentives, he says, we would not have a film industry.

The lengths our governments have gone to to attract work for Wellywood were starkly illustrated when National changed industrial law to accommodate Warner Brothers, an act which has not endeared Labour to the incentives. Economic Development Minister David Parker tells us today the new Government is contemplating a cap on the amounts it will pay to bring productions here and it might alter National's "Hobbit law" to give actors more security.

It is hard to measure the value of the Lord of the Rings trilogy to New Zealand, because it has become part of our folklore as well as a tourist attraction.

Weta Workshop and associated entities are a source point of artistic and technological pride. But the economic benefits may be as illusory as everything they create.

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Editorial: Wellywood bonanza may be an illusion

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Our capital city's enthusiastic adoption of the moniker Wellywood may have seemed a bit crass and derivative to the rest of the country - which managed to talk the city out of displaying its provincialism to visitors with the word writ large on the hills overlooking the airport - but our investigation today of movie subsidies shows the title would not be out of place.

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The Herald Cartoon - by Guy Body 2nd July 2018

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The Herald Cartoon - by Guy Body 2nd July 2018

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This has been a topical issue in the Herald, with them running an 'investigation' into

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Partnership with Universal Pictures and MRC's Film Mortal Engines to Bring Significant Economic, Cultural and Industry Benefits to New Zealand

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Partnership with Universal Pictures and MRC's Film Mortal Engines to Bring Significant Economic, Cultural and Industry Benefits to New Zealand

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The benefits of

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The New Zealand Film Commission (NZFC) and Education New Zealand (ENZ) have partnered with Universal Pictures, MRC and Hungry City Limited on the upcoming film as a part of the New Zealand Screen Production Grant 5% uplift. The large-scale production of Mortal Engines is of great significance for the New Zealand screen industry, with production taking place entirely in New Zealand.

The announcement comes as the teaser trailer for the film was released-revealing the first look at the epic feature film by New Zealand Director Christian Rivers and Producers Zane Weiner, Amanda Walker, Deborah Forte, Fran Walsh and Peter Jackson.

The filmmakers and studios chose New Zealand to film Mortal Engines due to New Zealand's world class crew, talent, technicians and facilities.

Rivers also knew that Kiwis were exceptional world builders. He said, "It's a testament to the skill, talent and imagination of New Zealand crews that they are able to completely fabricate these other worlds that have never been seen before. Our crews are extraordinary."

Principal photography took place over 16 weeks in Wellington, New Zealand, earlier this year. The film was shot at Stone Street and Avalon Studios and at a few small local exterior locations. Post production is currently underway at Park Road Post Production with visual effects work being realised by Academy Award®-winning company Weta Digital.

More than 1,000 New Zealanders-including crew, cast and craftspeople-were contracted during principal photography. Nearly all of the Head of Departments were Kiwis, as were 98% of the crew. New Zealanders also feature heavily in front of the camera, with more than 70% of the 50 speaking roles going to New Zealanders.

"New Zealand offers some of the best and most talented crews we have worked with, said MRC. "We remain incredibly impressed by the collaborative atmosphere of the entire team and its unmatched ability to oversee a film adaptation of this magnitude."

The MoU (Memorandum of Understanding) between the partners recognises the significant economic, cultural and industry benefits the Mortal Engines production will bring to New Zealand. This includes a detailed marketing partnership with NZFC and ENZ to promote New Zealand's screen and education interests.

NZFC Chief Executive Dave Gibson noted the partnership not only provides considerable economic benefits but will also strengthen the perception of the New Zealand screen industry internationally.

" Mortal Engines gives us the opportunity to profile the New Zealand screen industry on the world stage-including our talented pool of actors, experienced crew, and facilities. In doing so, this showcases that New Zealand can cater for large scale full-service productions."

ENZ Chief Executive Grant McPherson said the partnership with Mortal Engines and the NZFC provides an exceptional opportunity to build brand awareness of New Zealand as a high quality education destination for international students. "This film was made in New Zealand because of the depth of talent and level of technical sophistication available here. This partnership allows us to showcase New Zealand's education strengths in the creative arts-in which we are not just world-class but world-leading-and which offer our graduates global-career opportunities. It supports our brand positioning of New Zealand as a modern, dynamic and creative country with a lot to offer in the highly competitive international education market."

He welcomed the opportunity to tell the stories of recent graduates and industry professionals who worked on Mortal Engines in ENZ's global marketing programme. "This includes telling the story across our one-million-strong social communities, paid digital advertising programme, worldwide PR, events and other in-market activity."

Mortal Engines opens worldwide in December 2018.

The teaser trailer can be viewed here.
About Mortal Engines
Thousands of years after civilization was destroyed by a cataclysmic event, humankind has adapted and a new way of living has evolved. Gigantic moving cities now roam the Earth, ruthlessly preying upon smaller traction towns. Tom Natsworthy (Robert Sheehan)-who hails from a Lower Tier of the great traction city of London-finds himself fighting for his own survival after he encounters the dangerous fugitive Hester Shaw (Hera Hilmar). Two opposites, whose paths should never have crossed, forge an unlikely alliance that is destined to change the course of the future.

Mortal Engines is the startling, new epic adventure directed by Oscar®-winning visual-effects artist Christian Rivers (King Kong). Joining Rivers are The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings trilogies three-time Academy Award®-winning filmmakers Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens, who have penned the screenplay. The Universal and MRC adaptation is from the award-winning book series by Philip Reeve, published in 2001 by Scholastic.

On board as producers are Zane Weiner ( The Hobbit trilogy), Amanda Walker ( The Hobbit trilogy) and Deborah Forte ( Goosebumps), as well as Walsh and Jackson. Ken Kamins ( The Hobbit trilogy) joins Boyens as executive producer. Universal will distribute the film worldwide.
About the Production and the Books
MRC and Universal are co-financing the film, and Universal will also serve as worldwide distributor. Production began in New Zealand in Spring 2017, and the film will be released worldwide in December 2018.

Published in 2001 by Scholastic, Reeve's "Mortal Engines" books have won several prestigious awards including the Guardian Children's Fiction Prize, the Los Angeles Times Book Award, the Smarties Gold Award and Blue Peter Book of the Year.
About Education New Zealand
Education New Zealand (ENZ) is New Zealand's government agency for international education. ENZ works to grow awareness of New Zealand as a study destination and to support New Zealand education providers and businesses to take their services and products abroad. International education is New Zealand's fourth largest export earner, valued at $4.5 billion in 2016. See www.studyinnewzealand.govt.nz for more information.

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Partnership with Universal Pictures and MRC's Film Mortal Engines to Bring Significant Economic, Cultural and Industry Benefits to New Zealand

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The New Zealand Film Commission (NZFC) and Education New Zealand (ENZ) have partnered with Universal Pictures, MRC and Hungry City Limited on the upcoming film as a part of the New Zealand Screen Production Grant 5% uplift. The large-scale production of Mortal Engines is of great significance for the New Zealand screen industry, with production taking place entirely in New Zealand.

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Government mulls reining in ballooning Hollywood film subsidies

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Government mulls reining in ballooning Hollywood film subsidies

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The first part of the Herald 'investigation' into overseas film subsidies

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The New Zealand taxpayer has forked out nearly $600 million to Hollywood producers since 2010 to support the Wellington-dominated film industry, and despite commissioning numerous studies the Government is unclear whether this represents money well spent.

The subsidy scheme, originally conceived to facilitate filming of the Lord of the Rings, has steadily increased over the past two decades and now sees mostly overseas producers paid subsidies of up to a quarter of production costs - resulting in $161m paid to the makers of the wildly profitable Hobbit trilogy and $12m for animation on Alvin and the Chipmunks 4.

It also appears $3m of the $31m paid to makers of Ghost in the Shell, a critically derided science fiction bomb filmed in Wellington in 2016, was used to subsidise the A-list salary of starlet Scarlett Johansson.

The Government is now looking at ways to limit taxpayer exposure to a high-profile film subsidy scheme.

Economic development Minister David Parker, speaking on the release of a long-delayed review that concluded the Wellywood-dominated industry was now reliant on the subsidies for continued survival, said while they generated positive spillovers for tourism and technology they came with a downside.

"It is though at a very significant cost. It is a heavily subsidised industry," the minister said.

* READ MORE: How NZ taxpayers forked out $575 million for Hollywood

The report, originally scheduled for completion in November, had been delayed by critical peer review for months. Its release yesterday came as the Herald launches its investigative series Inside Wellywood, looking at the nexus between the Wellington-dominated film industry and the Beehive.

The report from economic consultancy Sapere Group found the scheme, dominated by spending on international film production, claimed they generated wider economic benefits that "significantly outweigh the cost of the grant".

But peer review of the report by two independent consultancies said evidence for this claim was weak. Reviewer Sense Partners illustrated that small changes in underlying assumptions about the industry made by Sapere showed the scheme might actually be retarding the economy.
Related articles
"We would not rely on the results of this evaluation alone, without further supporting analysis, to inform policy or funding decision," the report said.

Parker said the inability to prove the subsidies provided economic benefits for the country was problematic. "We've had three leading economic consultancies on this and they can't agree. You can predict that will remain an eternal difficulty no one can fix," he said.

At present the scheme is uncapped and allows film producers - mostly Hollywood studios - to claim a subsidy from the Government of up to a quarter of spending on screen work conducted in New Zealand.

The cost to government has risen over the past decade - both due to growth in the industry and a doubling in the subsidy rate from 12.5 to 25 per cent - and now costs taxpayers around $130m annually. The report said tax paid from work on the stimulated productions only covered around two-thirds the cost of the grants.

The Hobbit films was the largest individual recipient of the scheme, attracting $162m after Hollywood spent $1b making the trilogy in New Zealand. James Cameron's upcoming Avatar sequels - which have begun shooting in Wellington - are expected to eclipse these figures.

Parker said, given the escalating costs of the scheme, he was now considering advice from Treasury about limiting the amount the Government would spend each year.

"We certainly haven't made a decision to axe the subsidies. One of the questions that has been raised with officials with Treasury is whether you can somehow cap it," he said.

Parker said he was open to such a move, but mindful of competing advice from the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment it could create uncertainty making New Zealand a less attractive filming destination

The Sapere review said while the industry was growing strongly - faster than the rest of the economy - it had lost the competitive advantage enjoyed a decade ago with innovations forged during filming Lord of the Rings and was now effectively part of a commodity industry competing on price.

"The industry does not appear to be sustainable without the grant," the report said.

Arguing the case for making the subsidy permanent represents a shift from Parker's predecessor, Steven Joyce, who framed the scheme as "breathing room" to allow the local industry to develop a business model that could survive without government assistance.

Parker said, given competition amongst countries vying to attract Hollywood, the film industry had evolved to a situation where subsidies were a precondition of entry. "The film investment backers, the studios, are very good at ratcheting up competition between countries that want this sort of work," he said.

New Zealand Initiative chief economist Eric Crampton said this competition was, in itself, unsustainable.

"That places New Zealand in an ongoing subsidy bidding war for international film productions with other countries that are also happy to provide their own generous subsidies."

Parker was unwilling to commit New Zealand to upping the stakes - and its subsidy rates - to remain in this race. "It's fair of the Government to expect that this industry maintains and improves its competitiveness, and not to rely merely on subsidies. I think industry is aware of that."

Much of the economic analysis around the benefit, or cost, of the subsidies depends the opportunity costs - particularly assumptions made about how much, or how little, of the film sector workforce would be able to transition to other employment.

Crampton said the Sapere report - in concluding the subsidies generated more than $2 of economic benefit for every taxpayer dollar spent - was flawed in concluding most of the workforce would be left stranded out of work or in lower-paying jobs.

"While that may be true during recessions, it is not true either on average or currently. And it is especially dubious where most of the film activity occurs in Wellington and Auckland," Crampton said.

Director Sir Peter Jackson, in a written statement provided to the Herald during reporting for Inside Wellywood, rejected suggestions screen sector workers would be able to transfer their skills to non-subsidised industries.

"There's a false belief that if all these film workers don't have an industry to employ them, they'll simply find other work here, and continue to be New Zealand taxpayers. That's not remotely true," he said.

Jackson, director of trilogies Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, is the largest shareholder of the Weta Group of companies, a cluster of film and screen industries in Wellington's Miramar collectively known as Wellywood that employs more than 2000 people.

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Government mulls reining in ballooning Hollywood film subsidies - NZ Herald

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The New Zealand taxpayer has forked out nearly $600 million to Hollywood producers since 2010 to support the Wellington-dominated film industry, and despite commissioning numerous studies the Government is unclear whether this represents money well spent.

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NZIER reports shows strong economic contribution of the screen industry

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NZIER reports shows strong economic contribution of the screen industry

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Some good figures here to show the economic impact of the NZFI and the contribution of international films to the $$$
here

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Should NZ sacrifice local stories for Hollywood dollars?

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Should NZ sacrifice local stories for Hollywood dollars?

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The Hollywood films made here over the last decade (or so) have propped up our local business - but what about our local stories - aren't they important too? An interesting read here

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Briefing about what the NZFC does (for the new incoming Minister)

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Briefing about what the NZFC does (for the new incoming Minister)

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Lots of good info here about what the NZFC does and why it does it
International film funding (SPGrant) is on P 11 and 12

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The govt has put more funding toward te reo Māori films. It's an aspect of change that you could focus on for your research (3.7) or your external exam (3.1)

Click on the link below and there's also this info from the film industry

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The New Zealand Film Commission has announced $2.5mil of funding for feature films in te reo Māori.

The new fund is part of the organisation's Te Rautaki Māori, a new strategy to support Māori filmmakers.

CEO Annabelle Sheehan told Native Affairs Māori voices are integral to the strength of our film industry.

"In its principles, it's saying 'lets partner and ensure we are culturally capable at the New Zealand Film Commission'. It's a statement of commitment".

The strategy also includes $2mil of funding toward a feature film where at least one key creative is Māori.

In 2016, seven of the top ten grossing domestic films at the New Zealand box office were Māori.

Ngā Aho Whakaari spokesperson, Erina Tamepo says it's a step forward in the right direction.

"We have to be grateful for this rautaki because it's not just about the last twelve months, it's been in the work for many, many years. For the last 35 years, Māori filmmakers have championed and lobbied for the existence of this strategy".

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The New Zealand Film Commission has announced $2.5mil of funding for feature films in te reo Māori. The new fund is part of the organisation's Te Rautaki Māori, a new strategy to support Māori filmmakers. CEO Annabelle Sheehan told Native Affairs Māori voices are integral to the strength of our film industry.

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http://www.nzfilm.co.nz/news/over-300m-for-new-zealand-screen-industry

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Dave Gibson leaves the NZ Film Commission 

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Dave Gibson leaves the NZ Film Commission 

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An interview with Dave Gibson, the outgoing head of the Film Commission, looking back on four years of rapid change.
Public sector arts jobs look horrible from the outside. You have an inevitably too-small pot of money, distributed to a group of people who are either deliriously happy or incandescent with rage according to whether they've recently been funded. Then you're at the whims of maddening entities like TV channels to schedule it, bookstores to stock it, critics to review it and an audience to consume it. All the while dealing with the capricious whims of the government of the day, oscillating between National's malign neglect and Labour's over-vigourous meddling.

Worst of all you have only a very limited ability to ensure that the beautiful vision sketched to you resembles the product delivered.

It's a surprise bordering on revelation, then, that when an executive takes that awful and very public top job that they tend to stick around for long tenures. The current heads of Creative New Zealand and New Zealand on Air each have had a solid decade in their current roles - the same length of time Ruth Harley spent at the head of the Film Commission through 2007. They're all dwarfed by Brendan Smyth, who ran New Zealand on Air music for more than twice that.

Perhaps this is because there are scant roles in the arts sector which contain anything as much power to shape our cultural output. And because such positions tend to filled by people who've spent a career balancing the demands of venal politicians and grasping creatives these jobs, as well as being horrible, are also as good as it gets in arts in this country.

Dave Gibson is a different type of fish. Prior to heading the Film Commission he spent 40 years in the private sector, first directing, then producing, then launching the Gibson Group, one of New Zealand's larger private production companies, which prospered through the radical outsourcing of television through the '90s and '00s, eventually selling his stake to take up the Film Commission job.

This makes him doubly anomalous - a private sector veteran heading a major public arts organisation, and one who willingly walked from the role after just four years. During his tenure the Film Commission had some hits ( Hunt for the Wilderpeople , ) and its share of misses (it would be cruel to name films I and almost all of you have not seen, but there were enough). It has nearly doubled its headcount from 22 in 2012 to 40 in 2017 - though, as Gibson notes, it has absorbed the promotional function of Film NZ, and both the number of films it is involved in and the number of incentive applications have more than doubled.

Though he dislikes the term, the commission has become manifestly more interventionist. It has started making more more small bets, leading to criticism for ducking some more commercial projects. It has instituted test screenings and gender reporting, launched an OnDemand platform and begun exploring AR/VR which could be a great idea, a bad idea or construed as a land grab over other, more appropriate agencies.

Whatever you think, it's hard to argue that he hasn't given the organisation tasked with funding and promoting our films and film industry a good shake. I caught up with him for coffee in mid-December before he head away on his century-old trawler to talk about his time, his regrets, #metoo and what he plans to do next.
Interview conducted in mid-December, with a follow-up in January and has been and condensed Why are you leaving?
I said four years. I don't think people should do these jobs for too long, I think that you can come in with a fair amount of energy - and I think I have - I think you can make a lot of changes, you can get enthusiastic and be enthusiastic and I'm hoping in my case, help to get a lot of films made.

I'm not retiring or anything - I'll take a couple of months off, but if someone calls I'll listen. I just feel that I've given it a good run and it's time for someone else to come in and pick it up and move on. I'm from a farming family, and I always believed there was that element of doing what you can for the farm and then you drive past a couple of years later and someone's added more and had better ideas and, you know, it continues on.
That's not always the typical way in the arts and creative sector here.
Look, it depends on the people. I just feel like I paced myself for this. I went four years, I'm gonna run like crazy, do what I can, make some change. Four years is good.
So what have you learnt in this four years, coming from a private sector background into an institution like this?
I think I adjusted to it better that what most people thought I would. I think people thought that bringing someone in from the industry like me into this job would create problems. That there would be issues, particularly with the other government agencies like MCH and MBIE [the Ministry for Culture and Heritage and the Ministry for Business, Innovation and Employment], I think I can say pretty comfortably that I've done a pretty good job in that area. I think that our government relationships are better than they've been in a while, we've had good relationships with the previous government, I don't think it'll be any different with Labour.

[Ultimately] the industry can say how much it's great to have someone from the industry because you're empathetic and you have a knowledge that's good for them, but if the tap gets turned off, if the money doesn't come, they won't give a fuck that you're some nice industry guy. They're gonna get really pissed off and the industry will be very unhappy.

Conversely, I guess, if there's a whole lot of money and the people giving it out don't know what they're doing, or they're not empathetic then I guess that's a problem as well so there's kind of a balance.
It's been almost an uniquely difficult era to balance though. The pace of change is so fast you can make a sort of good solid rule with correct assumptions in 2015 and then two years later behaviours have changed so radically that it's no longer fit for purpose.
Or you can say look, I want to move into a space. We can talk about an example, our board has just moved towards taking another step into the interactive space. And we're not going to turn into a full-scale industry funding in a hurry - but I was really conscious, where we've got to now is where I would've liked to have got to maybe about a year ago, it's taken us a couple of years to get there, if we move too fast we could really upset a lot of people.
You could also just burn money.
We could burn money, or we could get a backlash where the government says what are you doing this for, why are you doing that, you haven't explained it to us properly. Or maybe older filmmakers or more mature filmmakers could ask if you're taking money from our sector and giving it to somebody else?

So you've sort of got to move at a pace where - you can never take everyone with you, but you've gotta at least take half the people with you. I find, coming from the private sector, I would like to do things quicker and a bit more flexibly, but I recognise that there's certain things you've got to do. And I know some filmmakers find that frustrating, when people don't fill in the forms properly and then they get grumpy and there's a little bit of a dispute about it and all that sort of thing, and that's the other thing as well, I mean that's the other thing. I won't miss the odd OIA. I believe in them and it's a great idea and all that sort of thing but sometimes dealing with complaints can be incredibly time consuming and slightly sapping.
What do you think you achieved in your time at the commission?
Yeah, there are two things I'm really proud of. What I think I did very quickly with the staff and with the industry was we set this kind of mission statement which was that we would judge our success by the success of the industry. So I wasn't interested in saying 'the film commission is very successful, as it replies to emails within 4.7 minutes on an average tuesday', you know, I wanted to basically just say well if the industry is successful then obviously we must be doing something right, if they're not, we're not.

[We now look at] eyeballs on films, careers and pathways for people and economic growth. The last two are quite interesting because traditionally, the film commission would've been about the films, and then slowly people have begun to talk about the audiences - but they used to talk about box office and we don't want to do box office.

We love the idea that a film goes to a cinema, that's the most lovely place to see a film for all sort of reasons - social, screen, and sound - but the truth of it is it's how many people see it is more important. That's going to change when platforms change - so we turn to eyeballs. And then this thing about careers and things, I think is a critical shift.

When I began in the business your Mum would say 'what do you do for a real job' and there's no expectation that you could make a living. Most people now want to have a mortgage, they want to have a house and I don't think that's unreasonable so we focused a lot more on that. Also I think a lot of training in the industry has been very early, it's like film school stuff, and that's not really working for most people at all.

For example if a person who leaves a film school gets a job on Shortland Street as a boom person or as a wardrobe person then that's a success - but how do you train producers who are essentially entrepreneurial, who will never have a job in their life? It's not a job, you only get paid of you make something. Well, we're really short of entrepreneurial, creative, skilled producers. Really, really short. This industry could be twice the size if it had more upskilled and creative producers. No question.

Then the second thing is tied to that which is I think we've roughly tripled the number of domestic films that we're involved in from previous periods.
So does that mean you've made more low-budget films?
We've made a wider variety of films, some of which are at low budget, and there's a graph floating around which shows the amount of other investments in our films has gone up considerably in the last three years. So what we've done is we've encouraged producers to get more money from other places as well so we've made more films largely by making the money go further.

At the same time we've just invested around $2m into a film of around $35m. Which is the biggest film the film commission has ever been involved in. Now it's not absolutely locked in terms of its closing yet, so it's not a done deal but we're there. I just think we've been more aggressive.
What does being more aggressive look like?
We've chased stuff a bit more. We go looking for opportunities and we're not passive. I find that sometimes people will say 'oh, if I made this film about this do you think you might be interested?' and I think in the past people might have said yes and then they would wait.

What we're saying a lot more now is 'yeah. We would be seriously interested, how can we help you, what do you want apart from the money? Is there a co-producer we can introduce you to? Do you want $10,000 to go to Cannes and pitch it to somebody?' I think we're pushing people.

I've got a couple of cases. I think with the Richie McCaw documentary, that was a company up here in Auckland called Augusto. They came in and they said 'well, what do you think? We've got this little trailer and some stuff and we have really good access to Richie'.

I told them their deadline was Friday. It's Tuesday, you need to make an application by Friday. I said it has to go to the board but I couldn't see why not. I think it's fantastic and I definitely support it.

I think it's easy to be a funding agency because all you say is yes and no, but if you really want to be an industry partner or an industry support group then you have to be more than the money. It isn't just like in the old days where you applied for money and the film commission gave you money and then that was it: it worked or it didn't work. I think we're a little more involved now. Some people don't like that, some think it's a little more moving towards the studio model.
I asked someone who felt like your film commission was a lot more interventionist.
I don't think we're interventionists, I think we're firm and quite tough - but we're giving out a lot of money.
Someone told me that Top of the Lake I mean if there was one TV show made here in the last decade that really meant something, it was that. season two under the new incentive criteria wouldn't be considered for support - is that true? Sounds interventionist...
I would absolutely refute that. I would say that Top of the Lake two they wanted to make in Australia for creative reasons. That is my understanding. It's not set in New Zealand, they didn't leave New Zealand because of the incentive. Ironically, for Top of the Lake one, it was made under the old incentive where they only got 20 per cent for television. The new incentive they would've got 40 per cent for television in New Zealand and in Australia they only got 20 per cent because TV rates are different but it would've made economic sense to stay in New Zealand but it was a creative decision. That's just another one of those bullshit pieces of rumour that drive me completely and utterly nuts in this job.

We actually inquired why are you going to Australia, are you sure you don't want to shoot in New Zealand.
In terms of the films that you've been responsible for, how would you rate your slate?
I don't know. I think we have a lot to offer and I think we are generally helping people. I have a little story for you. We instigated compulsory test screening for all films. So basically we invest in a film now, when you get to the edit you have to stop for three weeks, then we organise a test screening, where we ask what they think about the film and then we produce a report which we discuss with the distributors and then the filmmakers.

Now that's inserting ourselves into the process. 90 percent of people think it's a great idea. The people who don't think it's a great idea tend to be people who have never done it. Feedback from most people who have been involved in the process is that it's incredibly helpful, so interventionist? Yeah. Unashamed. Does it make the film better? Yeah.

I think we've done pretty well. We've increased the number of films, last year we had the best box office that we've ever had. Now a lot of people would go oh, yeah, that's Taika Waititi's Hunt for the Wilderpeople , but actually there were a number of other films that were north of a million dollars that year as well. I think it's been pretty good.
What have you made of the Weinstein story and all that has followed? Were you aware that he was such a monster?
We've had some failures but that's the nature of the business, and if you have some films that are very successful then people will forgive you some failures. Because they can see the successes they don't notice the failures so much. If it was that easy, we wouldn't need a government funding agency we'd have bankers queueing up at the door lending money on term deposits because they were convinced they would make their money back which clearly they wouldn't on an average thing.

I inherited the back end of , but that was only the very beginning of how we approached the production in a different way. I was very proud of, it didn't do particularly well offshore but it did solid business here. Hunt for the Wilderpeople , obviously. is a personal favourite, because I saw David Farrier at a pitching contest and went up to him afterwards and introduced myself and gave him some money to go to L.A. and introduced him to a couple of producers, from which he chose Carthew Neal, supported that film through quite a lot of legal and insurance issues - so I'm particularly proud of that. I don't feel bad about anything we've made.

I wasn't surprised by the Weinstein story, having been in the business a while. He operated in an orbit that most New Zealand producers and filmmakers were far away from. But was I aware of the fact he didn't seem to be that well regarded? Yes I was.
Are you surprised by the extent to which it has been - not entirely, but most frequently - located in film and television?
I'm not conscious of a lot of that activity in the New Zealand industry. But I guess people don't always know what's going on. A lot of these situations are one on one. So it needs people to step up and to talk, which I guess is the really positive thing about the #metoo thing. Because if you've got a better environment, where people feel more empowered to do that then that can only be a good thing.
Is film in New Zealand a boy's club - does it have a diversity problem?
What I would expect to happen now is that I think the the guilds and other organisations within the industry - including the funding agencies - will become much more conscious of this. I would expect processes for reporting and standards of behaviour would probably start to find their way into contracts more.
Do you know where you're currently coming in?
I would think these situations are occurring in all industries. It's an element of the star power thing - the media probably has more of an interest in what happens in the film industry than what happens in a chemical manufacturing plant in the middle of America or the middle of New Zealand. Because these things are happening by famous people to famous people they're going to get more coverage. But it can only be a good thing - it can only help across the board.
Does this count all of the directors of [which had nine female directors] individually?
There are two things we've done in recent times. We've got a gender policy, it's got eight planks. We report on those planks, so if you go onto our website we did a report only about three weeks ago that said this is where we're at with these things, this is what our progress is. We have an aim of 50 percent female directors on a rolling average within three years.

When I came in we were about 11 or 12 per cent if we were lucky. It's significantly improved but it's still not right. In 16/17 14 films received production finance, 48 per cent of the 23 directors attached were women.

Of course it does. There's a note: in 16/17 there is the impact of 's female directors. So we're not hiding that information. One of the stat problems is that submissions by women are generally lower than men so that's actually quite an issue. We often give both the numbers for early development funding. In the last financial year, 40 percent of the applicants were women, 46 percent were approved. So we're tending to give you both the numbers which is quite an interesting approach.
What would you do differently if you were starting over?
Another thing we've just locked off after about six or eight months of hui is locked off a Māori policy. I think the gender thing and the Māori thing are two non-screen achievements. Most other countries with indigenous filmmakers see New Zealand as like, quite a high pinnacle. Because a lot of films have Māori themes, Māori directors, Māori actors and stories and things like that. But we've never had any policy around that. For example, the Film Commission had generally had around two or three staff who were Māori, but at the moment we've got six.

We've got this lovely thing where older Māori filmmakers would say 'I don't want to work with the bloody Film Commission, I'm a filmmaker' and then quietly afterwards, young women in particular were coming up and saying 'I think it would be really cool to work with the Film Commission, I'd love to do it, even if I only do it for a year or two'.

You learn a lot sitting in a place like that because you see everybody's applications, you see all the creative treatments, you read all the scripts, you see all the budgets, you see how people prepare marketing and audience engagement plans. You see all this stuff. It's better than film school if you want to be a producer.

I would do some things quicker, I would have got onto the question of producer skills more quickly and in a way I'm a bit stunned that I didn't - because I'm a fucking ex-producer.
What is your view of the broader state of the screen ecosystem in New Zealand right now?
What I realised was we thought some of the producers are really really good at this and that but they've never done the finance plan - so when you say to them 'how will you divide up the money that comes in?' they have no idea. I think upskilling the producers and identifying entrepreneurial people and giving them a bit of a skillset is obviously a very good thing. I wish I'd done that earlier. That's one of my regrets.

There's also a little bit of regret around that area we talked about earlier of not really managing to find quite the right balance between how to be nimble and flexible and respond quickly, and still solve government funding agency sort of things. If we'd actually sat down with a blank piece of paper and said is there another way to do this it might have been a bit interesting.
One industry source I spoke to said that there is a bit of a feeling that the film commission has predominantly interacted with arthouse or low budget films. Is that fair?
[When I started] there were a very large number of ways to access money from the film commission. 'You don't mean this fund, you mean that fund,' 'oh no that fund's just passed and you'll have to wait another three months for that to come around again'. I thought that was quite clumsy but now it's exactly the same if not worse.

I think on the one hand it's really exciting, because you've got new ways to tell stories, things like AR and VR . If you look at it in a total sense, you feel like now there's a lot more ability when people say 'I've got this story I want to tell, this idea I want to explore,' then you can create different ways of doing it, and then you can think about different platforms. So I think that that is more exciting.

The potential downside of that is that some of those platforms aren't particularly monetised so people could be doing something amazing and it might get a big audience, but after five years, they don't have a career to pay the mortgage and that's a problem. For every Taika there are plenty of people who aren't getting there.

One of the reasons I feel that we have to be proactive is because we can only fund what comes in the door, what people apply for. Obviously, our criteria, generally, is that we like to see most of the films, not all of the films, but most of the films have some sort of significance to New Zealanders. That's the point of the exercise.
The Spinoff Weekly compiles the best stories of the week - an essential guide to modern life in New Zealand, emailed out on Monday evenings.
The sort of film we might turn down on a commercial basis might be, let's say a very commercial horror film that's very slashy. A couple of times we've turned down people or discouraged people from making films that have no relevance to New Zealand whatsoever. So they'll say 'I've got a film about these two people and it's set in America, and I want to set it in America because I believe that I'll make more money from Americans buying the film if it's set in America, so I'm setting it in L.A. and I want you to give me half a million dollars', and I go 'why?

That's not what we're here for. Why don't you set it in New Zealand?' and they go 'oh, because it's very commercial', and I go 'well, if it's all that commercial, why are you talking to us? Why don't you borrow the money from the bank if you're that sure about it?'

This section is made possible by Simplicity, the online nonprofit Kiwisaver plan that only charges members what it costs, nothing more. Simplicity is New Zealand's fastest growing KiwiSaver scheme, saving its 10,500 plus investors more than $3.5 million annually. Simplicity donates 15% of management revenue to charity and has no investments in tobacco, nuclear weapons or landmines. It takes two minutes to join.

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'I just think we've been more aggressive': an exit interview with Film Commission boss Dave Gibson

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An interview with Dave Gibson, the outgoing head of the Film Commission, looking back on four years of rapid change. Public sector arts jobs look horrible from the outside. You have an inevitably too-small pot of money, distributed to a group of people who are either deliriously happy or incandes

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How can NZ film makers get people your age to the cinema?
NZFC research

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VIEW PROFILE

Kiwi content on Netflix is virtually non-existent. You can count the New Zealand-made films on one hand - Toa Fraser's The Dead Lands and Peter Jackson's The Lovely Bones are the most recognisable - and there's zero local television.

Speaking exclusively to Timeout, Netflix's VP of original content, Cindy Holland, says that could soon change.

"We first get into a market, then we start to understand what resonates most locally and then we start to programme against that," says Holland.

"Our goal is to improve the service all the time and get better and better, so I would expect to see more New Zealand-centric, specific content coming in the future."

When TVNZ's deputy director of content, Andrew Shaw, called Netflix a "fad" earlier this month, he was swiftly ridiculed by TV critics and commentators across the board. Shaw's comments were a misfire - but others have pointed out the threat the US streaming giant poses to local broadcasters.

Netflix continues to pump out original content, with 1000 hours of original programming set to premiere on the site in 2017 alone. It was showing little sign of slowing down, until a recent wave of cancellations signalled the end for The Get Down, Sense8 and Girlboss. The cancellations drew heat from critics, who noted they were among Netflix's most diverse shows.

Holland says each cancellation was circumstantial - The Get Down creator Baz Luhrmann was focused on another film project - and that Netflix remains ambitious.

"It just so happens that the series that were canceled most recently are more diverse, and that's a function of the fact that we're creating more diverse programming," says Holland.

"We want to be swinging for the fences and... sometimes they're going to work spectacularly, and sometimes they're going to be great works of art, but not be financially viable in the long run."

Netflix has won praise through shows such as Orange Is the New Black and Glow for telling female stories with a nuance and integrity that has been largely absent from scripted television in the past. Holland says while they never know what shows will be a hit, it's often the more refreshing ideas that work.
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"I think [female-led shows] are successful because historically they've been pretty unusual. These aren't stories that you find on mainstream television, and sadly so.

"You have these amazing three-dimensional characters of women who relate to each other... And I think that audiences are hungry for those kinds of stories."

Kiwi content on Netflix may not be far off; the company has worked with TVNZ on Legend of Monkey, which was shot in New Zealand and will premiere in 2018. Holland says Netflix plans to continue expanding and taking risks - a freedom granted by its format.

"Our platform certainly allows for a lot more experimentation because we're not advertiser supported. We have the freedom to aggregate audiences of all kinds from wherever they are around the world," she says.

"Other networks have started to follow to some extent, and then we keep expanding our programming that's predominantly by, for, and about women."

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VIEW PROFILE Kiwi content on Netflix is virtually non-existent. You can count the New Zealand-made films on one hand - Toa Fraser's The Dead Lands and Peter Jackson's The Lovely Bones are the most recognisable - and there's zero local television. Speaking exclusively to Timeout, Netflix's VP of original content, Cindy Holland, says that could soon change.

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this is an IMPACT of using the internet to market films and create a connection (previously unable to be done) with fans - it will get you M, or E if integrate the information into your essay argument

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Immi Paterson-Harkness digs into how boot-strappy local production companies build their audiences into champions and advocates - and some of the downsides that come with all the attention.
Stand at any bus stop and observe the people around you: heads down, eyes on phones, reading the latest Trump tweet reposted by a friend of a friend, commenting on the clip of a dog dressed as a giant spider with 167 million views and climbing. Vlogging, sharing, tagging, subscribing. For homegrown artistic industries - music, film, literature - this communal virality has been revolutionary, opening the door to international audiences. But doors go both ways, and engaging with multitudes of anonymous fans can be more trouble than it's worth.

"I do get a little concerned when I get weird messages from people who are in New Zealand," says Harley Neville of Pigville Productions. "Not someone in America on the other side of the world, but someone within ten hours' drive, probably closer."

Pigville was started 17 years ago by Neville and high school friend Guy Pigden, back before even Myspace or hi5. Pigden used the money he earned on his milk run to hire-purchase a camera, and they shot their first film in the cemetery above their school. He then edited the film using two VCRs; distribution involved taking the finished tape around to people's houses and "making them watch it." Pigville's come a long way (and about 130 YouTube clips) from there: they're in post-production for their second feature, Older, and their short film No Caller ID recently won Best Short Film at Sydney's 'A Night of Horror' and was announced as one of the top three stand-out films at Screamfest in Los Angeles. Pigden attributes their success to social media. "Had there been no social media, we could still be those guys sharing our films by going around to people's houses and playing them to them."

Still, Neville seems a little disconcerted that people would also be able to identify his girlfriend via Facebook, or his mother. Thirty years ago a fan would have been lucky to find a postal address; these days a filmmaker can't even bluff not receiving correspondance, since Facebook tells the sender when a message has been read.

"It can be a bit creepy," says Neville.

Creepiness aside, the 'social' aspect is an obvious boon. With all that liking and sharing, fans are an important marketing channel, and Neville's adamant that the more interaction he has with fans on a personal level, the more they share his work with friends. Pigden agrees: "They feel they are part of something in a way they wouldn't if social media had never come along."

Pigden and Neville make a conscious effort to mention their fans in their weekly podcast, they've thrown house parties for their listeners, and Neville in particular spends a great deal of time each day interacting with their followers. "I always have a backlog of messages to reply to," he admits.

Superfans, King says, are earned.

As Adam King (one third of Viva La Dirt League - 'VLDL') explains, the aim is to make 'superfans' of your audience. "They're the ones who no matter what are going to share the post. They're the ones who, because they love you so much, do the extra leg work."

Rowan Bettjeman and Alan Morrison make up the other two thirds of VLDL, and started VLDL as a humble YouTube channel, which has since evolved into a "video-content ecosystem between YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter." An impressive output sees them releasing three new videos per week - Epic NPC Man (Mondays), about a self-aware 'non-playable character' in a computer game; Bored (Fridays), a series set in a computer store on the North Shore; and random gaming-related skits, which they post on Wild Card Wednesdays. So far they have over 150,000 Facebook followers and 90,000 YouTube subscribers.

Superfans, King says, are earned. The wife of a fan contacted VLDL recently and said it was her husband's birthday. He loves Epic NPC Man, so the VLDL team cooked up a personalised video for her husband and made two new superfans in the process.

Adam King, Rowan Bettjemen and Alan Morrison

But all this personal, individual interaction is time consuming. Talking to King gives the impression he barely has time to eat and sleep around his VLDL schedule and TVNZ day-job. Three of four filmmakers I spoke to described their social media regime as a "time suck", a procrastination tool, and one that might get in the way of actually producing new content.

Being so friendly online comes with the further problem of giving people the wrong impression. While Neville was attending Screamfest at LA, one of his Facebook 'friends' was bitterly offended when Neville chose not to socialise with him in person, promptly ending the online friendship. Neville, dwelling on the incident, seemed just as concerned about all the wasted time as the actual lost friendship.

And what happens when Joe Public is critical rather than appreciative? Tom Hern, producer and co-founder of Four Knights Film said that filmmakers have to prepare themselves for direct negative public feedback. "Even if you have an Oscar-winning film, you'll get people who will hate it, and you'll know about it. People don't seem to be shy to let you know."

Four Knights Film (founded by Hern and James Napier Robinson) is best known for the award-winning feature The Dark Horse (2014). Their latest movie is Pork Pie, a modern remake of the classic Goodbye Pork Pie, currently playing in cinemas. "We had some quite gnarly reactions [to The Dark Horse]... When you are dealing with emotional material that can obviously bring out emotional responses from people who take it quite personally, and have strong feelings about it." Pork Pie came under attack even before it was aired, by fans of the original film who had 'strong feelings' about what the new one should be like. But Hern wasn't too concerned - he believes a full spectrum of responses is a sign you're creating powerful work.

Neville puts the sometimes confronting feedback down to the anonymity of the internet. "If you went to somebody's art exhibition, you'd never say [to the artist] 'that sucks. Don't give up your day job'." On the internet we're one stepped removed, so the social rules don't apply in the same way.

Harley Neville and Guy Pigden

Despite occasional abuse and the criticism that direct fan engagement allows, publicising creative projects via social media is far cheaper that traditional forms of advertising, while also being a means to raising capital.

"We got on board the social media bandwagon quite early with our first feature I'm not Harry Jenson," Hern says. It was 2009 and they had a tiny marketing budget, but were lucky to work with advertising executive Lachlan McPherson. He suggested they offer people a credit on the DVD release of the film in exchange for changing their Facebook name to 'Harry Jenson'. The small, personal touch went a long way towards promoting their film, and McPherson won awards for what was considered a novel ploy in the early age of social media.

VLDL, whose main audience is the online gaming community, do well through Patreon - a subscription service where fans pay a monthly tithe of their choice. Pigville also funded their film Older through online crowd-funding, and Neville is convinced that next time they crowdfund they'll do even better, simply because their online presence is now stronger.

But interacting with fans pays off in tangible ways, too. After a recent call-out on Facebook for extras and crew to work on Older pickups, Pigville was so inundated with volunteers that they had to send someone to print more release forms mid-shoot. VLDL often receive messages from fans suggesting new ideas for skits - "People have literally sent us scripts before," says King.

Meanwhile, funding bodies have begun to adapt to the new ways audiences consume media. In 2013, NZ On Air created The Webseries Fund, in recognition of the fact that New Zealanders are actively seeking online viewing content. Last year, NZ On Air teamed up with YouTube to create 'Skip Ahead', a funding pool with strict eligibility criteria. VLDL received $80,000 from Skip Ahead to develop their new webseries 'Rekt', about "a ragtag group of gamers who are trying to make it big on the world stage of e-sports."

King describes VLDL's audience as a community.​

'New Blood' is a much-discussed new opportunity for online content creators. Run by TVNZ and supported by NZ On Air, the fund awards the creator of the best-judged webseries pilot $100,000 to create the rest of the season. A panel will decide on a shortlist of finalists, but the overall winner will be voted on by the public. "Up until recently, any funding of any sort was decided by 'the board'," says Pigden, whereas New Blood is directly influenced by public opinion. In this sort of situation, filmmakers need as many superfans as possible, which raises the spectre of hordes of people voting for a lowest common denominator. "If this was used as the exclusive system," Guy says, "most of the great television shows would probably never have been made."

More than money and publicity, though, most filmmakers suggested the most signficant benefit of growing an online community of followers is that they know their work is appreciated. "It's been really special being able to receive feedback directly through social media," Hern says. "It's been at times inspiring and uplifting."

Neville says that through their personal messages he's gotten to know them, the fans, and that making content for an audience he knows is more satisfying than a faceless crowd. "They've been very supportive, very good to us."

King describes VLDL's audience as a community. He says that once VLDL realised that Facebook and YouTube weren't just places to post links but to engage with fans, things really started happening for them. With any community you have to take the bad with the good.

Pigden said that it's the fan's positivity that helps him maintain his motivation, passion and drive. "Those little things go a long way to making yourself pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and get up and do it again the next day."

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Pantograph Punch - Sourcing superfans: on nurturing local creative communities

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Immi Paterson-Harkness digs into how boot-strappy local production companies build their audiences into champions and advocates - and some of the downsides that come with all the attention.

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A crash course in NZ film funding - with reference to Mahana

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A crash course in NZ film funding - with reference to Mahana

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A Crash Course in NZ Film Financing with 'Mahana' Producer Robin Scholes

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The facts and figures about who funded it are at the bottom of the article

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Internationally acclaimed director Lee Tamahori's first New Zealand film in 20 years, Mahana, will open in cinemas nationwide on March 3, 2016.

Mahana (previously The Patriarch) is an evocative family drama based on Whale Rider author Witi Ihimaera's novel, Bulibasha. Set in 1960's rural New Zealand, two Māori sheep-shearing families, the Mahanas and the Poatas, battle for supremacy in the shearing sheds and in their own hearts. The youngest Mahana, 14-year-old Simeon, is troubled by the rivalry and begins to unravel the truth behind the longstanding feud.

Tamahori explains "I wanted to do a film about the East Coast from this era and Witi is the person who has been telling these stories. I had always wanted to film one of his stories, so when Robin Scholes came along with the rights, it was a perfect fit. I wanted it to be a loving postcard to a period that I know very well."

Temuera Morrison ( Once Were Warriors) returns to the big screen to play Tamihana Mahana; the proud, traditionalist patriarch. Nancy Brunning (White Lies) is cast as his wife Ramona, and young newcomer Akuhata (Augs) Keefe was plucked from Tolaga Bay Area School to play Simeon. Jim Moriarty ( The Strength of Water) stars as Tamihana's arch-rival, Rupeni Poata.

Mahana reunites the team behind iconic Kiwi film Once Were Warriors including Tamahori, Morrison and Producer Robin Scholes.

" Mahana is very much a coming home for Lee," says Scholes. "Lee's exceptional talents as a filmmaker were evident in Once Were Warriors and from that moment on the offers flowed in for bigger and bigger budget films. It's very rare for people to return, let alone to a film with a much lower budget than anything he's done since Warriors. We have Witi to thank for this. His book really appealed to Lee because it's about the people he knows and loves and wants to see portrayed in film".

Mahana is funded by the New Zealand Film Commission, New Zealand On Air, Māori Television, Entertainment One, Wild Bunch and private equity investors, including a selection of 200 individuals who put in funding via the Snowball Effect equity crowd funding platform, a first for a New Zealand.

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Mahana - The NZ Story That Brought Lee Tamahori Home

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Internationally acclaimed director Lee Tamahori's first New Zealand film in 20 years, Mahana, will open in cinemas nationwide on March 3, 2016. Mahana (previously The Patriarch) is an evocative family drama based on Whale Rider author Witi Ihimaera's novel, Bulibasha.

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Is here

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Are important for NZ Film makers

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John Drinnan discusses our screen industry - and how the film industry is doing better than our TV industry

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The latest NZ on Air Survey about what Kiwis are watching is here it's important because film makers have to fight for an audience against a rapidly crowding market place (eg SVOD like Netflix etc, overseas big budget films, cable TV - sky and of course pirated content - see the Guy Pigden 'Zombie Holocaust' post about the implications of that for film makers

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Idealog talks to Kiwi filmmaker Guy Pigden about financing films, finding crews and how digital distribution is the future.

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Note: this is about the entire screen industry which includes TV, digital production, music vids, ads etc. Most NZ film makers need to slide between making their own films and other related sources of income - why do you think that is??
The survey is here

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Remember - the film industry is diverse in NZ - some films are made for an NZ audience and some for overseas - the money to keep our film industry alive, comes from both sources of income. Here is the article

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The Box office report for 2016 is here
The Box office reports for 2017 are here

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http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/91487173/screen-industry-boosted-as-wellington-leads-doubling-in-film-production