Busy Winter for Crew
What a strange year. We’ve seen petrol reach peak prices, temperatures drop, volcanoes blowing off steam, the NZ dollar staying strong and continual rainfall in the Auckland/Northland area. But, all in all, it’s been one of the busiest winters for commercial film crew in years. Normally the Auckland market drops off in volume of commercial work from April to September, but this year it switched completely. After a very wet and quiet summer the bookings for crew seemed to come in thick and fast from April 1 and are only just starting to lull a little now. It’s pretty impressive given the value of our dollar overseas.
There have also been a few shifts with producers moving around town to take up residence under new roofs. Locally, Pacific Renaissance’s series of Spartacus continues filming and is due to wrap in October. We are all very hopeful that two more projects will slot into place behind them. Power Rangers has begun pre-production on their 10-month shoot, due to commence principle photography at the beginning of October. We’ve also had many crew working on Harry and Blue Rose throughout winter, which has kept a fair few in continuous employment this year.
There are rumours of two more features heading our way between now and early next year. They always seem to be able to slot in somewhere picking up crew from all over the place, which in turn tightens the market for the commercial crew to pick up work.
Auckland has had a return of crew arriving back from The Hobbit in Wellington (well in need of a good sleep and a holiday) only to hear that some of them will be returning for a shorter shoot of a third film next year.
All in all, between the normal ebbs and flows, I think the industry is still looking healthy and relatively busy on the face of things given everything that goes against us as a remote country, with a strong dollar and limited personnel and resources.
There is also an update of The Blue Book being worked on by several senior crew – in an attempt to keep it more current and relevant. It will take time but we are confident it will be easier to understand for producers and crew in the future.
Sioux Macdonald, Guild vice president and executive member
