Aotearoa's Industry in Full Swing

Hi all,

And welcome to another packed issue of your favorite quarterly magazine.

It’s been a lot of fun getting this one together, especially reading the regional wraps as they come in, and realizing that the entire Aotearoa industry is humming right now.

With our beautiful country still one of the very few that can safely host any major location or studio-based shoot, and with the situation in North America and Europe looking dire for many more months to come, I guess we can continue to look forward to an influx of major international shoots relocating here. And as long as we can bring the crews and their equipment in safely and without disadvantaging more essential industries, then we should celebrate that.

The downside, however, is that smaller local jobs might find themselves having to join the queue for crew or studio space. But we can also take this as an opportunity to train more locals, to require the international jobs to commit to taking on interns and passing on meaningful training to them.

Getting the balance between income and allocation of resources right will always be as much an art as a science, and there will always be disagreement over what ‘best practice’ looks like. But at least we can maybe all agree that the problems created by too much work are preferable to the problems of not having enough work onshore to go around.

In this issue you’ll find obituaries to two brilliant New Zealanders, who both, in such very different ways, contributed more than most to this country and this industry. As well as a new column from the offices of the Film Commission. We are also happy to publish a look behind the scenes of the Savage shoot, from DOP James Brown.

There’s a lot here, but we welcome more. If you’ve ever wanted to see your name in print, try submitting a piece for our next issue. We are always on the lookout for new contributors.

Love your work, GT.