Where’s The Work?

While everyone angsts about what the New Zealand Film Commission is or isn’t up to—and frankly I still don’t know either—I thought I’d take a look at the work situation for directors and editors with television/platform content.

Now I’ve been hearing anecdotally that there are a lot of directors and editors out of work, so I looked to what NZ On Air and Te Māngāi Paho have funded this year so far.

According to their websites, in 2024:

NZ On Air funded:

NZ on Air (60%)/TMP (40%) funded:

TMP funded:

Even though it’s nigh on impossible for a director or editor to make a living in feature film (shorts—foget about it), I thought I should also include what the NZFC has according to its website greenlit for production equity investment so far in 2024:

But back to TV/platforms.

So for the half year we have 82 projects across all genres with budgets totalling $71, 503,483.

If we guesstimate that on average at least three directors and three editors will work on each project, that’s 246 jobs for directors and 246 jobs for editors coming out of those projects receiving NZ On Air or TMP funding this year to July 2024.

Let’s imagine that the same number of projects will get funded in the second half of the year so that’s all together 492 jobs for directors and 492 jobs for editors across 2024 with funding from NZ On Air and TMP.

Now we know that a director or editor generally needs to work on at least 2 – 3 projects a year to have any kind of sustainable income.

We also know that not every project happens at the same time, so a director or editor working on one project in 2024 could also be working on one or more projects in the same year. And we know that there’s a contraction in the domestic market going on.

What I’m getting at here is that while it might seem like there’s enough work to go around, there’s also anecdotally a good number of people out of work. The simple deduction from this is that there isn’t enough work for the number of directors and editors out there.

So what’s the answer here? Less directors and editors? Or more work?

Of course, all of us will advocate for the latter. The conundrum is: Where is the money going to come from to fund the work?

NZ On Air thankfully survived the government slashing of budgets with its baseline funding remaining unchanged.

TMP also went into this financial year with an unchanged budget from 2023.

However, Whakaata Māori has announced a decrease of $9.5 million in funding available over the next two years.

The freeing up of the New Zealand Screen Production Rebate (NZSPR) to allow funding from our funding bodies for all genres of content to be combined with the NZSPR is meant to be one solution to creating more work and delivering more production by combining domestic and international financing. The verdict on this is still out.

International productions coming in offer very few work opportunities for our domestic directors and editors.

So what to do? Find more money, right?

I’ve looked at the strategic documents from NZ On Air, TMP, and the NZFC. There’s lots of corporate language about vision, mission, objectives, values, etc. And lots of statements about responsibly managing the money they are given. But nothing about getting more money to disperse.

Nobody is talking about finding more money. Even SPADA’s mutterings about a Love Local campaign around which to build momentum for a streamer levy seems to have been jilted.

More money for domestic production means more work for directors and editors.

It’s pretty clear we need to find new sources of funding to make this happen. And fast. Or we’ll all be looking for below-the-line jobs on international productions, which seems to be happening more commonly now.

Tui Ruwhiu
Executive Director

Last updated on 19 July 2024