THE SUCCESS OF MISS CONCEPTION
James Croot looks at how Ainsley Gardiner and Georgina Conder are changing Miss Conception in the movie industry.
Madeleine Sami and Jackie van Beek might be the multi-talented faces of The Breaker Upperers, but the movie is also an important milestone for two other women.
The Kiwi comedy, which has already gained rave reviews after it debuted at America’s South by Southwest Film Festival last month, marks the debut project for New Zealand-based production company Miss Conception Films. The brainchild of Ainsley Gardiner and Georgina Conder, Miss Conception was set originally set up in 2015 with the aim of producing strong female stories, while working with female writers, directors and key creatives.
‘‘We really want to make films about women that we’re interested in,’’ says Gardiner, whose previous producing projects have included Eagle vs Shark and Boy. ‘‘I’ve also got three daughters, so I’m also interested in making movies that they will be interested in.’’
She says The Breaker Upperers‘ tale of two cynical women who run an agency aimed at helping people who want to ‘‘consciously uncouple’’, appealed to them as a project for many reasons.
‘‘It was first and foremost about the script. I loved that the characters were kind of antiheroes, unorthodox female kind of role models, who are a little bit despicable, but actually are loyal and loving. The further I investigated the material, the more I liked what it had to say.
‘‘Obviously I love Jackie and Madeleine and the kind of irreverent comedy they do, but it was also appealing to work on a project that was nearly fully formed. We shared the producing with [Piki Films’] Carthew Neal, so we didn’t get burnt out and were able to work to our respective strengths.’’
While Neal looked after things on either side of the main production period, Gardiner and Conder, who had worked together before, took on different roles.
‘‘On this one, I had more flexibility with my time,’’ recalls Gardiner, ‘‘so I was able to be more present through the shoot and I also worked closely with the girls, while George oversaw the logistics – the budget, the crew and the dayto-day running of the machine.’’
One of Miss Conception’s goals has been to try and complete a project with an all-female cast and crew. ‘‘We tried to set it up in Wellington on a short film, but couldn’t quite get it over the line,’’ says Conder. ‘‘In Auckland, it might be possible if you had more lead time, but the problem is commercials come up all the time.’’
She says around 60 per cent of Breaker Upperer‘s crew was female.
‘‘The camera crew, which is usually primarily men, only had one male and five females, while we also had a female lighting assistant. But we’ve never worked with a female sound recordist and I’ve only encountered a female grip in Wellington. Those kind of technical roles seem harder to crack.’’
Gardiner says that even with only a slight female majority, the feeling on set was very different, something this movie shared with last year’s critically acclaimed portmanteau drama Waru. Gardiner was one of Waru’s nine female filmmakers.
‘‘What I most enjoyed about Waru was how nine women could come together with different stories, different opinions and different viewers, disagree absolutely, but argue robustly and make decisions quickly.
‘‘I think Waru has impacted on the way that I want to approach producing. It showed me a way to really supercharge the creative process – allow people to be heard and come to an agreement. We did have to do things quickly here and when you don’t agree, the speed at which you have to make decisions can leave a bad taste in your mouth if you are the one who loses out. But there certainly is a way that you can engage in the process and have a creative win.’’
But she warns that while film schools seem to be producing more female graduates than males now, there still needs to be a willingness within a crew to hire and nurture them.
‘‘I do think some of our community are a little bit blackand-white about the best-person-for-the-job approach, like some inherent, old-school misogyny. Hiring women for the job is seen by some as some kind of positive affirmation that’s detrimental to the operation of the crew, whereas in actual fact it has never been the case. It was the same earlier in my career when we actively tried to hire Ma¯ ori trainees – nobody will hire somebody who can do the job well.
‘‘I had children fairly early on in my career, so to me it’s never been an option to discriminate against other mothers and fathers who wanted to try and make it work.’’
Based in Whakatane, Gardiner says she has no desire to get involved in the politics around the film industry, preferring instead to let her creativity do the talking.
For Miss Conception, that includes developing a few more female-led comedy ideas and shepherding projects like Rachel Craw’s Young Adult book Craw and Patricia Grace’s 1992 novel
Cousins to the big screen. But first, there’s a documentary on female sheep shearers due out later this year.
Currently being test screened,
She Shears follows four female shearers questioning their life’s purpose, as they work and compete in an industry that’s rapidly shrinking. ‘‘I love that these women are such athletes and have just such a different mindset to everyone else – it’s amazing how hard these people work,’’ says Gardiner.
While delighted with their current slate, she is also acutely aware of how tough it can be to make a movie – especially in New Zealand. ‘‘I know I sound like a bit of pessimist, but the awful truth is some people aren’t going to make it. We are a tiny country with a tiny film audience, but the world is changing and the mediums by which we can tell stories changes all the time. You can make something on your cellphone now, or make a web series.
‘‘I don’t have all the answers. In my 20 years, I’ve had periods of six months, a year at a time, not knowing where my next dollar is going to come from. But I think the one thing that has always been the same is: to succeed you need a little bit of luck, a bit of talent and a lot of perserverance, patience and hard work.
‘‘I’ve been lucky enough and been in the right place at the right time and just kept going. And now, with George, I feel like we’ve matured enough to have a greater sense of what works and how to do it. Plus, it helps that there’s currently a desire for the films that work for us. I think no matter how good we are – if there wasn’t an appetite for female-driven content then our slate would be useless.’’
❚ The Breaker Upperers (M) opens in New Zealand cinemas on May 3.