Gender Matters

I was at the Melbourne International Film Festival’s 37 South Financing Market last week when Graeme Mason, CEO of Screen Australia and former NZFC CEO, launched the final two parts of their $5 million Gender Matters plan—a $1 million incentive for distributors to look at and consider quality female-driven projects from the outset, and a fund for placements for women on scripted drama projects that have funding from Screen Australia

Two days later, the Australian Directors Guild held a discussion titled ‘Talking Pictures – Breaking the Celluloid Ceiling’, offering an opportunity to meet the women who challenge the notion that men dominate creative leadership in Australian feature film. The panel brought directors Gillian Armstrong, Jocelyn Moorhouse, Sue Brooks, Kitty Green and Sophie Hyde together to talk about navigating the highs and lows of being a female director in the Australian film industry. I was unfortunately unable to attend this but I did hear some opinions after, including a call for Screen Australia dollar spend to be split 50/50 between men and women.

Here in New Zealand at the guild we held two key discussions together with WIFT to look at gender issues in film and TV. From what we learned DEGNZ developed, got funded and launched the Women Filmmakers Incubator, which will start in September. Through five workshops across a 10-month period, the Incubator provides the opportunity for 10 emerging women filmmakers to develop their knowledge, skils and networks to help further their projects and careers.

To help address the gender imbalance in film, the New Zealand Film Commission launched the JC Cinefem Scholarship in 2015, awarded to cinematographer Maria Innes Manchego. Then in 2016, they announced the Gaylene Preston Directors’ Award, a $50,000 grant fund for one or more women filmmakers to advance their practice.

Behind the scenes at NZFC and in other screen organisations, and outside wherever their funding flows to, there is an expectation that there will be gender equity as much as possible in all things.

The above are baby steps that are seeking to address the systematic discrimination against women and their stories in film and television that has been going on for decades. We need to do more, and at DEGNZ we will continue to look for opportunities to do so.

In the meantime, Guys, get used to the idea that for the foreseeable future you are only going to be able to get a bite at 50 per cent of the pie—a situation for many that is long overdue.

 

Tui Ruwhiu
Executive Director

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A Feast For The Eyes

The New Zealand International Film Festival (NZIFF) is almost upon us. It’s usually my opportunity to catch up on as many films as I can jam in; films that often don’t get a release here but have achieved significant recognition in festivals, often in Europe.

I’ve just gotten back from spending eight days closeted in a Lithuanian hotel with 70 or so almost exclusively European writers, directors and producers, learning about coproducing there. Many European films are made as co-productions. Just look at the country credits in the NZIFF programme to see this. Two, three, four countries receive origin credits on many of the films. Filmmakers have to collaborate to survive in Europe. And they do. Co-productions broaden the potential financing base, allowing films to get made that can’t get up solely in one country.

While New Zealand has official coproduction treaties with 17 countries and counting, we don’t make that many official co-productions. Different regulatory environments, content that doesn’t easily span the divide and cultural differences are just some of the reasons why.

We don’t have a coproduction treaty with Australia, rather a Memorandum of Understanding—essentially the same thing. You’d think that with similar languages and cultures that we’d be working frequently with our Australian counterparts, but that’s not the case, although it’s changing. When our incentive increased to 40 per cent for TV as well as film, a lot of Australians noticed.

Australians like us are dependent on government financing to get films made. Director Niki Caro reminded us when she spoke at DEGNZ Selects last month to appreciate and treasure this government support, which allows us to get films up and out into the world for audiences to see. And that’s an increasingly difficult thing to do.

New Zealand and Australian filmmakers alike struggle to get their own people to watch their films. Of course there are the Wilderpeople and Last Cab to Darwin exceptions, but generally locally produced films in both countries have a hard time at the box office. The same lacklustre results come from our films in their market and vice versa.

It’s no easier for films in Europe. Most of them certainly don’t make their money back either. And they have as much difficulty as we do to find audiences for their films amidst the competition for eyeballs going on.

It is interesting for me to note the difference in filmmaking between Australasia and Europe from my recent experience.

Down here, there is a distinct pulling away from arthouse and toward genre and commercial films. Up there, of the 29 projects at the workshop I was at, 16 were arthouse, 2 animation, 4 documentary, 4 thriller, 2 comedy drama and 1 romcom. And in the genre areas (thriller, comedy drama, romcom), 50 per cent of the projects were from the UK. Arthouse still rules in Europe.

European filmmakers, particularly directors, it seems to me, see film as art. And they very intently use it to make strong thematic statements through macro and micro storytelling. Educated to think in three-act Anglo Saxon story structure, I can tell you it’s been difficult to analyse a 50-page arthouse feature film script from a European writer director who writes pictorially.

In the end, we may have different approaches to storytelling but we are all after the same result—to craft a strong film that has something to say and for it to find an audience to say it to. Arthouse? Entertainment? Something else? Different strokes for different folks.

Thank God for the New Zealand International Film Festival. It has pretty much something for everyone, Hollywood blockbusters aside, and the best of European filmmaking on offer. Make the most of it.

Tui Ruwhiu
Executive Director

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Foreign Imports

A few issues around foreign imports have my attention at the moment.

One is that I am after a new car. I’ve been bidding on cars on auction in Japan, and if successful, it will be sent to New Zealand by boat.

Another is the news that the Tourism industry in New Zealand expects international visitor spending to increase by 48 per cent to $11.1 billion by 2020, with an increase in international visitor numbers to grow from 2.9 million in 2014 to 3.75 million by 2021.

To cope with the expected demand over the next 10 years, New Zealand Trade and Enterprise says we need another 26 hotels.

The numbers for Tourism speak for themselves. But with the unexpected upsurge particularly from China, we are beginning to get swamped, with a corresponding strain on infrastructure. Already, questions are being raised at ground level about how many tourists we can handle, want to, and what the quality of that tourism should be.

Meanwhile in Queenstown, Film Otago Southland head Kevin Jennings (KJ) was recently on Radio New Zealand saying that it’s becoming extremely difficult to find hotel rooms for visiting crews because of tourism demand, and with the cost of accommodation rising because rooms are at a premium, production budgets are blowing out so much that productions are going elsewhere.

In addition to Queenstown, KJ mentioned that Auckland struggles with crew accommodation from time to time. And as many who work in the international production sector in Auckland are aware, the region continues to miss out on international productions while Auckland flounders around from proposed site to proposed site while trying to convince councillors of the value of film and TV and the need to help fund a modern, purpose-built studio precinct. On top of that, with the debilitating effect of the non-competitive film & TV incentives of 2012/13 resulting in many highly experienced crew giving up on the industry or fleeing offshore, there are often crew shortages in key areas.

Domestic production isn’t abating, even with the static funding the industry suffers from—the issue is making it on the funding available when costs have been escalating year on year. Adding to the increase in production activity is NZ content being made with funding from elsewhere and going straight offshore, stimulated by the government incentives.

It’s those incentives that are driving international production here, too. Unless we become significantly uncompetitive against other countries—which could happen—the interest in shooting here will only continue.

It seems at least to me that if everything continues to conspire positively as is happening now, we can expect the amount of production being done in New Zealand to increase.

The New Zealand tourism industry running around intoxicated with its success and still pushing for quantity over quality is only going to exacerbate the woes for productions in New Zealand, domestic and international. A good indicator that a bit of planning could be necessary on our part.

Perhaps it’s time for someone to develop a national film and television strategy that also takes into account the interrelated nature of how we in the New Zealand film and television production sector operate within the overall New Zealand business environment. An overarching strategy should help us head off issues and develop plans that will ensure the New Zealand production sector has a good future as we head toward what looks like a busier one for many of us.

The imported car thing? A bit of a red herring, really. But for information’s sake, in 2015 the Motor Trade Association identified 143,642 used imported vehicle sales. In 2016, I am hoping to add one to the total.

Tui Ruwhiu
Executive Director

 

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Where Are All Our Auteurs?

With Hunt for the Wilderpeople setting the all-time box office record in New Zealand this week, we can acknowledge the remarkable talent of Taika Waititi as a director who not only has a singular voice but also a golden touch.

Box office is one mark of success for feature films and Taika has three of the top ten New Zealand hits with Wilderpeople, Boy, and What We Do In The Shadows.

Look to that other marker of filmic success, critical acclaim, though, and our lot there has fallen while our feature fortunes have risen.

The pinnacle of critical acclaim is the Cannes Film Festival.

New Zealand hasn’t had a feature film director in competition at Cannes since Jane Campion with Bright Star in 2009.

Christine Jeffs with her film Rain was selected for the Cannes Director’s Fortnight in 2001.

We have to go back to the early nineties for the next appearance of a New Zealand director when Campion’s film The Piano won the Palme D’or in 1993, while the Stewart Main and Peter Wells directed Desperate Remedies was a Un Certain Regard entry the same year.

Alison Maclean’s Crush was in competition in 1992.

It’s left to Vincent Ward to round out our Cannes competition entries with The Navigator in 1988 and Vigil in 1984, while Sam Pillsbury’s Scarecrow was the first Kiwi at Cannes, in Directors Fortnight, in 1982.

Geoff Murphy gets a mention with Utu screening Out of Competition in 1983.

If we spread our net a little wider to the other top two auteur-driven film festivals Venice and Berlin, we increase our catch of Kiwi directors making their marks.

Adopted U.S. son Jake Mahaffy won the Orizzonti Award at Venice with Free In Deed in 2015. The same year Petra Brett Kelly’s documentary A Flickering Truth had a showing there. And in 2011, Tusi Tamasese’s The Orator was selected for Orizzonti.

Two countries over in Berlin in 2016, we get a better turnout. Lee Tamahori’s Mahana showed Out of Competition while Tammy Davis’ Born to Dance was in Generation.  And it’s in Generation where we have had the rest of our success with features: Taika’s mockumentary What We Do In The Shadows in 2014, Daniel Borgman’s Weight of Elephants in 2013, as was Louis Sutherland and Mark Albiston’s Shopping. 2012 saw Petra Brett Kelly’s documentary Maori Boy Genius and Rob Sarkies’ Two Little Boys. Taika’s Boy made it there in 2010 and Armagan Ballantyne’s Strength of Water in 2009. There were other successes before 2009, too, and also in the recent addition to Berlinale, NATIVe, where there have been a number of New Zealand retrospective screenings.

That said, a New Zealand director has never had a film selected for the main competition in Berlin (as far as I can find).

Cannes, however, sits at the top of the auteur tree, and we’re obviously not punching above our weight there. So what’s up? Or is that just our due?

One experienced New Zealand producer I spoke to about it said the reasons for our lack of recent success at Cannes are many and complex. Included are that it’s very political, competition is so much more intense, and that we have a lack of true artistic voices in film. To highlight this he pointed out that those directors who have succeeded at Cannes in Vincent Ward, Jane Campion and Alison Maclean all have an arts background (Pillsbury was an English major and Jeffs an editor), which many contemporary directors these days don’t have.

I’m sure I’m not the only one who has noticed the dearth of Kiwi feature competition offerings at Cannes. Much as NZFC seems hell-bent on commercial and genre films at the moment, a nice artsy Cannes competition selection would undoubtedly go down a treat.

Kiwi film auteurs front and forward, please. Cannes and we need you.

Tui Ruwhiu
Executive Director

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Cutting Loose

I have had more than one occasion lately to discuss a number of issues over what some regard the plights of editors and others the realities.

A number of senior editors convened recently over a drink and lamented the lack of an assistant editor in the cutting room, more particularly with one-off dramas and feature films. Essentially, on an increasing number of productions only one Avid is available to do both the data management and the cutting. What this means is that the assistant editor has to work opposite shifts to the editor to prep the material for the cut. The problem with this is threefold:

  1. The editor is not passing on the knowledge and experience of how they cut drama to the assistant.
  2. The assistant is not able to relay what they have seen when prepping the material.
  3. The editor has absolutely no back up for handling emergencies in normal hours – outputting scenes for set, chasing missing files, dealing with post house requests or the myriad other tasks that put demands on their time.

General consensus is that with budgets under pressure, producers are not allowing for two machines so that the editor and assistant can work side by side. The benefits of two edit systems are many:

  1. It’s the most cost effective use of budget.
  2. The assistant increases their knowledge for the next project.
  3. The editor is completely focused on the edit and can keep to schedule.
  4. Relationships remain intact and production runs smoothly.
  5. There’s another pair of relatively fresh eyes on tap for the editor.

In such a scenario the assistant works under the watchful eye of the editor, can benefit from discussions with the editor around sequences the assistant puts together, gets to see the editor at work, and is there to take in the director/producer/editor interaction around the cut, which is an important dynamic to get a handle on—These are all highly important professional development elements.

A further budgeting issue is the lack of time producers allocate to the narrative cut. Editors are coming under increased pressure to deliver quality outcomes with shorter editing times while dealing with masses of footage. There are three key issues with this:

  1. The editor can run out of time to get the best edit before they have to move on, most likely because they have another job they have to go to.
  2. The cut isn’t as good as it could be.
  3. And the budget goes into overdrive.

To deal with these, another editor often has to be brought in, requiring communication from the first editor to the second so that the institutional knowledge is relayed—another inefficiency. And this brings up a further issue that has become topical particularly in regard to feature film: the proliferation of multiple editors working on a single project. In addition to the lack of allocated edit time, this can come about in a number of ways.

Some filmmakers have gone through multiskilling film and TV educations and work environments and think they can edit their own feature films, not realizing none of that prepares them for the sheer mass of footage they’re faced with, the technical gobbledygook wonderland they now move in, or the psychological pressure a big budget brings to bear.

Then there’s the director or producer who goes into a debut feature with their short film-only experienced editor with them. It can be tough for everyone concerned when the cut doesn’t pass muster and an experienced drama editor has to be brought in to get the best for the film.

Or the situation where the director and or producer feels the need to have multiple goes at cutting a film, each with a different editor because they don’t see eye to eye with each other and or the editor involved.

Each one of these scenarios will result in a blowout of the editing budget—which usually wasn’t enough in the first place—to fix up the problems.

There also seem to be less director – editor partnerships the likes of Martin Scorsese with Thelma Schoonmaker or our very own Niki Caro with David Coulson. One director and one editor, who respect each other, know how the other works, and elevates the other’s work.

Editing is a highly skilled and creative occupation that can often be undervalued. Projects suffer when that is the case. It’s important to remember in the ego-filled world that we work in, true collaboration can bring about the greatest works of art, whether it’s with one or many.

As four time Oscar-winning costume designer Catherine Martin said of her work with her creative and life partner, director Baz Luhrmann, “For me as a creative person, I feel I have a genuine voice in the process… Baz has the ability to be a great conductor, a great leader, but to actually engage you creatively and to make you feel like your contribution is meaningful.”

There are many approaches that can be taken to get the best result, with some for and against the idea of multiple editors working on a single project. In the end, it’s the contribution that counts and should be appreciated.

DEGNZ is working on ways and means to ensure that editors get the opportunities and environments they need to develop their skills appropriately and deliver their best work.

Tui Ruwhiu
Executive Director

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