Albol Gets Life!

Albol (Alun Bollinger if you’re a newbie looking for him on IMDB) has long been a legend of New Zealand cinematography and filmmaking in general. He writes here for NZTECHO on becoming a life member of the Guild.

Sometime earlier this year the executive decided I should become a life member of the Guild. Their decision is much appreciated and so it is with gratitude that I accept Life Membership of the Techos’ Guild.

I was an early member, perhaps a founding member of the Motion Picture Academy which was the very first incarnation of a group formed to represent the interests of our budding freelance film industry back in... oh, the 1970s. Gradually over time the Academy evolved. First the producers and directors separated to become the Producers and Directors Guild, and then in time they separated into two separate entities. Of course today we have quite a few separate industry entities: WIFT, SPADA, Actors Equity, the Directors and Editors Guild, the Advertising Producers Group, the Writers Guild and last but by no means least... the Techos’ Guild. (My apologies to any other groups I may have left out.)

I became a freelance film worker in 1968 after two-and-a-half years working with the NZBC as a news and documentary cameraman.

I didn’t know I was becoming a freelancer, I simply knew it was time for me to leave television. I was young, footloose and fancy-free. And happy to work on any filmmaking project whether it paid or not – and mostly they didn’t. The need to earn became more of an issue once Helen and I married and began to raise a family but it was some time before we could make a comfortable living from freelance film work, and there have always been lean times – still are. Perhaps one of my shortcomings has been the fact that money has never been a strong enough motive for me. The job at hand has always held more motivation than the money I might earn from that job. In fact some time in the 1980s when the Inland Revenue Department was giving the whole film biz a thorough going over I was visited by an IRD person who came down from Wellington to the West Coast. I figure they’d been comparing my income with other cameramen of my generation, other cameramen who regularly shot TV commercials. Surely I must be hiding vast amounts of income and this bloke had come looking for the mansion with the Porsche in the garage. What he found was a family of six living in a wee miner’s cottage with an aging Chrysler Valiant parked out back.

I’m slightly embarrassed to see the number on my membership card. I was a member of the Techos Guild very early on – probably at its formation – but at some stage, perhaps during a downturn in work, I let my membership lapse so when I rejoined I was number 1013. It would be great if we really did have that number of members, or more, but I think that number is more an indication of our membership’s comings and goings.

Now, member number 1013 is a Life Member, and he’s hoping that membership will last for some time to come. To quote Fats Waller, “One never knows, do one”.