Christopher Stratton

Why did you join the film industry? What motivated you to become part of such an uncertain world?!

In all honesty, I don't think I even considered the uncertainties or realities of being a freelance contractor when I first hopped on a plane to go study film as a fresh 18-year-old leaving small-town New Zealand. I finished high school in 2006 having spent the years there mucking around with video cameras, finding a deep affinity with two close friends in our love of movies, and just deciding to make our own.

This was in the days of mini DV cameras. We had two between the three of us and had some small success in winning a few local and one national video contests. It seemed a no-brainer that we would then go to Wellington for university, become filmmakers, and also very rich and famous. The dream team all quit Victoria University after a year for different courses, splitting up, and a decade and a half later, we don't quite have the Oscar dreams fulfilled, but one of us is head writer and co-producer for an American show, one is a freelance post-production producer in the UK, and I'm still bumbling around designing.

In high school, I won a very flash phone with internet and a keyboard for having the best art direction in a student film (Wintec Cut contest), and I'm convinced that it was my decision to give a backyard bride a cauliflower as a bouquet that sealed the deal. This was perhaps the true beginning of my relationship with design, props, and comedy—I was rewarded for dreaming up something strange.

So I guess I'm saying—I had no choice—I loved film, both watching and making, and couldn't see myself being happy in any other career path.

As for the uncertainty...** **I don't think I, my careers advisor at high school, or my parents were quite sure of the nature of the industry, being far from it both literally and figuratively—Mosgiel. My father still asks, "And are they paying you for this one?" every time I tell him that I've booked a new job, despite not having done unpaid "for the portfolio" work for nearly a decade. So, I think some awareness has slowly crept into the family.

There are times when I've decided to throw in the towel. I had an office job at a TV network for a minute in 2015 scheduling ads, but my friends were all working on a sketch comedy TV series. I really thought that would be more fulfilling even if I struggled with the bills, so I went back to play in that world and have been freelance again ever since (it was actually just across the car park).

What jobs have been the most inspiring and enjoyable so far? Why?

I would say any of the jobs with my best mate and other set of hands, Jess Horan. We met on a job I was first AD/stage manager on (I've lived many years in the low-budget world, and almost every job you have a slash—this was a docuseries about high school drama departments putting on a show). I was apparently rude to her (which I cannot recall), but a year later we met again—both in the art department on Head High. We legitimately hit it off this time, and she agreed to jump on board the second series of TVNZ's improvised comedy Educators with me. For the last three years, we've been on a big ride of low-budget jobs, where the team was often just her and me, or thankfully, other times, we had the luxury of team members—but with Jess and me leading the charge.

The reason I'd say this is enjoyable is the way we work. The jobs we have done together have largely been either no money or no time (or both), but all hope, and we somehow manage to have fun while doing it, and really caring about the work we do and each other.

I'm really strict with myself, and therefore people working with me, that we don't make any arbitrary decisions, even on the silliest, most "it is what it is we're under the pump" style jobs. If we're putting something on screen, it has to make sense character and story-wise—not just what is close, cheap, and easy and "f*ck it, it's only TV." That's a really tempting trap to fall into with the fast no-money-or-time jobs, but taking that extra moment to pause and think about the character and story is, to me, absolutely fundamental (I've worked with some other crew members who didn't find it so...). That is the part that makes the job enjoyable—discovering the world the characters live in, how they see it, and then what we want the audience to know about that character. It can all be communicated so clearly within a frame if the right pieces are put there.

Jess really gets it, and when you work so closely and intensely together handling not just the creative but the logistics, you develop all different kinds of shorthand, common knowledge, and shared brain to the point where you can absolutely trust each other on both good and bad days. We also don't just work as a duo and have times apart on different jobs or when we switch it up and it's me working with Jess on a job she's designing.

I think relationships are core to any job, and interpersonal management is something that, in my opinion, is severely lacking in screen industries. No one ever goes to team leadership courses or HR training like they do in most other industries if you have a management role. Even on these fly-by-night, low-budget productions, I take being an 'HOD' seriously.

Having had a fair share of bad experiences on several sets and jobs, Jess and I made it a goal to have a really strong sense of being a team and supporting each other, especially when other people join us. This is what, for me, keeps the work enjoyable, beyond all the things I could say about how much fun it is to nail a character's funny office mug (see Educators) or the satisfaction of managing to fully dress an empty house with two people—and still be carrying in furniture as the first day turns over—but have every piece of the character's life make sense (The Pact).

I will add—it becomes more enjoyable the more people you have and the ability to share the work. I'm trying hard to not just 'graduate' from those kinds of jobs but to gently push back and change the way that has worked so far.

What would be your dream job or career path in film? Where would you like to be in another ten years or so?

I left school with the ambition to direct and write and got myself a lovely certificate saying that I have a Bachelor of Performing and Screen Arts in Directing and Writing for Screen and Theatre from Unitec in Auckland. That remains my dream job in a sense, and I have directed odd bits here and there, but it's important to me that Production Design doesn't become a sideline. It's not just a source of income for me or something I'm doing "until." I'm deeply passionate about it, so a dream for me in that regard would be working with larger budgets, more time, and also designing a film.

As well as someday pulling my own film together as a director/writer or designing one, in ten years, I'd love to be running a little company where I can work on design-heavy content while trying to streamline my several hectic design studio ideas into a working business.

I'm managing to move more into this sector with some advertising and studio-based shoots, both in my pocket and others in the future. A lot of the work I have done so far has had limits of location-based shooting and on a budget, so the ability to really 'design' space to a full extent is still a treat when it is offered up—like a talk show pilot I did last year or the talk show I'm currently designing to be released later this year.

I love working in the creative industries in so many different capacities that this question is incredibly difficult. I guess in ten years, the main thing I'd like is to be sitting behind my beautiful glass desk in my Prussian blue office, full of white leather furniture, with a workshop next door and a few jobs on the go. This would be the main change I hope for myself—I'm sick of working from my spare room and garage. It's a bit gutting how expensive it is to have your own little space somewhere to throw props and paint around.

What do you hope and expect your membership of the Guild to do for you, and what can the Guild do for the industry?

I joined the Guild to try and become a more active member of the film industry community. It sometimes feels like the world I inhabit is very different from the one that others in the industry live in, or that you might think of immediately when you think "FILM INDUSTRY" in capital letters—the large international jobs, shows with an army of trucks, workshops, and people who get to work on the same show for a long time with a large number of people. I don't think it needs to feel that way, or feel any different. The idea that there is a collective I can be a member of and go to for guidance, have a copy of the Blue Book, and connect with on a professional and network level opens up the industry to me in ways that I don't think I'd really clocked.

I think what the Guild can do for us is to keep us informed and be a central hub for information—the kind of information we don't go looking for, as we're often still just stoked to be a part of the magic part of filmmaking. We forget that it's an industry and we are people with needs and, more importantly, rights and livelihoods!

I also joined to try and ascertain an answer to the absolutely burning question: on a shoot where there is no FX budget or line for a person to run it, should the one art department person who is doing a million things already really be the one to hire, pay for, and operate a hazer—if it's not their call on when, how, and if we should use it? (Makes you think...?)