Say yes to Hollywood millions
Kylie Klein-Nixon believes the Avatar crew have a gift for us in their carry-on luggage: a billion-dollar booster shot for the economy.
It really does seem like there’s one rule for some and another for everyone else when it comes to entry to New Zealand. The film crew that landed in Wellington on Sunday hadn’t been here five minutes before they were being branded a ‘‘swarm’’ of Hollywood flash-os, sidestepping the rules.
Here to work on the three Avatar sequels that shut up shop during lockdown, and another ‘‘secret’’ film, critics leapt to call their access to Aotearoa-New Zealand ‘‘political favouritism’’, claiming their entry was fast-tracked while other more worthy travellers were left waiting.
Yet they were only 56 of more than 200 workers who have been given exemptions to enter the country. Apparently, the film business isn’t businessy enough for some folks.
There was even a suggestion that their arrival somehow proves the Government’s film subsidy is past its best-by date, putting productions with little or no cultural value to the country ahead of homegrown productions.
Well, you’ll get no argument from me about the lack of cultural value in an Avatar film – sorry James Cameron, I’m not a fan – but I’m calling baloney on the other complaints about international productions coming here, and on film folks getting treatment out of proportion to what they bring to the country.
It’s the same wailing and gnashing of teeth we’ve heard about Hollywood productions in New Zealand for the past 20 years and none of it has been borne out, least of all by the state of homegrown TV and film production.
There are caveats on all of this, of course.
It’s true, bringing in 56 people from LA, a Covid19 hotspot, just when we’re celebrating 12 days with no new Covid cases could be asking for trouble.
The Ministry of Health assured us the filmmakers were in strict, monitored isolation for 14 days after their arrival.
But that isolation will have to be stricter than letting other guests at the hotel wander through a crowd of them, or simply relying on a Covid-19 test the crew took before leaving the US to guarantee their health status.
If the crew turns out to be a vector for this horrific disease returning to New Zealand, no amount of movie cash will have been worth it. In that instance, the entire movie industry can crash and burn for all I care. I’ll bring the petrol, mate.
But if we can trust the team that effectively eliminated the virus in New Zealand will also manage to keep it out, then the benefits could be huge.
First, the Avatar sequels will be completed by many more than 56 people, most of whom will be rent- or mortgage-paying, grocery-buying, disposable-income spending, taxpaying, fulltime employed locals.
The 56 will include producers who will choose to make future films here; actors, who can influence tourism with a single nice statement about the country – hands up who ate a Zany Zeus chocolate cake on Scarlett Johansson’s say so (don’t lie to me); and technicians and craftspeople who’ll upskill our own crews.
That upskilling raises the quality of local productions, increasing their chances of luring international finance to tell local stories and also of our own productions selling overseas.
The effects of that cycle on skill and talent can already be seen in local productions.
There hasn’t been this much local drama and comedy made since the 1970s and 80s because we haven’t had the number of film-makers or quality of facilities to achieve it that we now have, thanks to meeting the needs of international productions.
From The Gulf proving homegrown crime drama could hold its own against any number of Scandi Noir thrillers, to comedies Golden Boy, Mean Mums, Educators and Wellington Paranormal, supernatural thriller One Lane Bridge, Ma¯ ori fantasy-actioner The Dead Lands, and Eleanor Catton’s adaptation of her Booker Prize winning novel The Luminaries classing up TVNZ, many of the folks who worked on those shows will have worked on medium- and bigbudget productions first.
It’s the same wailing and gnashing of teeth we’ve heard about Hollywood productions in New Zealand for the past 20 years and none of it has been borne out.
In movieland, the first production to crank up the movie-making engine after lockdown was a Kiwi one, Poppy, which tells the story of a young Kiwi with Down syndrome.
Meanwhile, in Auckland, Warner Bros’ production of Black Hands, based on journalist Martin van Beynen’s Stuff podcast about the Bain family murders, was busily turning an Auckland dairy into 1990s Dunedin as a location for the fiveepisode series.
Kiwi cinema and TV is alive and well and thriving, thanks to skills it’s more than likely were acquired and honed on Hollywood’s time and dime.
As fast as film technology moves, we need to keep that circle going to maintain that production momentum for local stories. We need to keep working on big-budget international films and improving homegrown stuff, too.
The best scenario is for the circle to close up – for the big international films to be helmed by Kiwis.
Since Kiwi Niki Caro’s successful New Zealand production Mulan for Disney, the dream is Taika Waititi bringing Star Wars and its ‘‘that’s no moon’’-sized budget to New Zealand, where he could prioritise the hiring and mentoring of indigenous film-makers.
Any subsidy is worth the opportunities for Kiwi film-making that would mean.
There is certainly an opportunity to review how large or competitive our screen subsidy is in this new context.
If it means New Zealand could be the only country in the world where big-budget film crews can work safely and freely – and possibly one of the few places in the world where productions can secure insurance – I’m all for it.
As long as Hollywood is willing to pay its way and submit to whatever measures – to the point of overkill if need be – our authorities deem will keep Covid-19 out, why on Earth wouldn’t we welcome it here?