Auckland's Film Industry Faces Slow Period

New Zealand lost one of its most respected camera assistants recently. It was with sadness that Ian Turill (Turtz) was farewelled by a large number of his friends, workmates, and families in Auckland in April, followed by a few memorial services throughout the country. His stories (on and off set) were somewhat legendary. Ian’s career spanned several decades, and I’m proud to have been a part of his working life for so many years. We certainly shared a few heated words during that time, but more often than not, there were dry jokes and many giggles, and in the last year or so, cheeky texts going back and forth. He will be missed.

We are still waiting with bated breath for the rumoured big productions to actually begin filming. This will relieve a lot of stress for many crew in Auckland as the city has faced the quietest period in years across all genres. Many have struggled to make ends meet over the last 18 months, but some have used this lull to think outside the box in the most creative of ways in terms of alternative streams of income.

We welcomed our third guide dog puppy into the Auckland Filmcrews office, aptly named “Flicka.” We will puppy-walk her for now, and the intention is to also provide the Blind Foundation Guide Dogs with some sponsorship when she is returned.

South Pacific Pictures have just finished filming their 90-minute telefeature wrap-up of the successful Nothing Trivial series in Auckland, following hot on the news that Step Dave will go into production again soon.

A handful of lucky crew have joined Tim Coddington in Malaysia for the next few months, to help film Marco Polo—this is fantastic exposure for our talented teams of technicians.

We also believe there are some positive things happening in the Wellington region later this year, which will be great for crew throughout the country.

While things have been a little slower up here, we haven’t sat back idly. Filmcrews has joined forces with Crew Wellington to create Crew Auckland (www.crewauckland.co.nz). Any crew member or production company can list their details for a very small fee. Although early days, it’s already having hits from producers offshore, allowing secure messaging direct to anyone listed on it (no worries about spam) from enquiring production companies.

Sioux Macdonald, Guild Vice President and Executive Committee Member