WELLYWOOD on a tight budget
The film industry may seem glamorous and glitzy, but what is it really like for our film workers in New Zealand, where Hollywood is a mere glimmer in the distance? Are they all struggling artists, living on two-minute noodles until that next big hit produ
free industry. Some guilds had concerns about their inability to regulate the local industry and keep track of how many foreign film workers were in New Zealand at any one time.
Previously, Immigration New Zealand would consult the relevant guilds before granting visas, in case the jobs could be done by talent available here.
According to Immigration New Zealand, about 480 visas were granted to visiting screen-industry workers in 2010-2011.
Brown says it is also a concern to see film graduates rolling out of training schools with student loans and little hope of steady employment at the end.
You need passion, and you don’t necessarily get that with a qualification. It’s no way to make a living.
‘‘That’s why your parents never
‘We don’t all go out there, sit down to our two-minute noodles and say one day we want to make money like Peter Jackson. There is something that just drives you to realise that as long as you’re surviving and doing what you love, you strive to pick up your game along the way.’ MELISSA DODDS WELLINGTON FILM PRODUCER
wanted you to be an actor.’’
SO IF even Weta-affiliated film workers have their down times, where does that put those who work on the shoestring productions? Wellington film producer Melissa Dodds may have times scrimping, saving and eating things ‘‘on par with two-minute noodles’’, but it is all worth it.
Her latest ‘‘post-apocalyptic scifi’’ film, Existence, due to debut at the film festival in August, was produced around Wellington.
It was made with $250,000 from the Film Commission Escalator Fund, which saw the intentionally sparse crew of 20 to 30 people through two years of production.
‘‘We had people working for quite minimum wages to help us realise the film. We couldn’t have pulled off this film without each and every one of our cast and crew.’’
Some controversy arose when people thought the Escalator scheme would stunt the film industry and tarnish it as low budget, but for Dodds it was a perfect stepping stone. It may have been shoestring, but it has high production values, she says.
It was filmed in the World War II bunkers in Belmont Regional Park and at Makara wind farm – both ‘‘extraordinary locations’’ for creating the film’s world. It could not have been done anywhere else in the world, because of human resources and the landscape.
‘‘We were using what we could achieve with a low budget and stay true to our world.’’
It’s an example of how New Zealand’s film industry still allows passionate film workers to ‘‘rally around and come on board something without the red tape’’.
But the film has given her the drive to increase her budgets so she can hold on to her talented crews and give them other opportunities.
Dodds has been working in film for 15 years, starting in the South Island. About six years ago, she moved north to work in production for Weta Workshop, before branching out on her own. It gave her the insight needed to make it on her own.
‘‘Wellington really benefits from having that creative force out there,’’ she says. ‘‘I know both sides of the cutting and I’m inspired by what happens out there.’’
Dodds used Weta’s sister company, Park Road Post Production, for her other film festival piece, Whakatiki. ‘‘It was such an amazing opportunity to really feel the cherry was being put on top of the film. We felt like spoilt grown-up film-makers.’’
But you can’t compare apples with pears, she says. Existence was cut and edited in a Wellington garage. Juggling paid work in between work on the film gave the benefit of having times they had to step back to breathe and think about how it was looking.
‘‘I think that’s also me being a complete optimist. It can also be very frustrating.’’
She did paid work as often as she could during the two years of Existence’s production – accounting work, project management, communications and marketing – whatever she could get.
‘‘In this industry, to you have to multi-task.’’
Not only does it allow her to eat and pay the bills, but it keeps her ‘‘real’’ and upskilled.
‘‘I think you just have to be work smart and in this industry we have all learnt we have to have very few overheads, and flexibility.
‘‘We work really, really hard, but most of us would say we love what we do so much that it doesn’t feel like that.’’
Even Jackson would admit it was not easy in the early days, she says.
‘‘We don’t all go out there, sit down to our two-minute noodles and say, ‘One day we want to make money like Peter Jackson’.
‘‘There is something that just drives you to realise that as long as you’re surviving and doing what you love, you strive to pick up your game along the way.’’
Any profits made from Existence ticket sales will be split between the Film Commission and the cast and crew.
survive