Climbing the Production Ladder
The production team is no longer a pathway into the film and television industry, it holds its own as a career. In part one of two looking into production Carolyn Brooke talks to associate producer Moira Grant and production co-ordinator Kylie Gaudin about their journeys so far.
A career in film and television won out over teaching for associate producer Moira Grant when she finished a degree in art history and German at the University of Auckland in 1984. Like most in the industry, she started at the bottom. Her first gig was production assistant on the late 1980s film Rushes for family friend and director Gregor Nicholas. “You were just a pair of hands really,” Grant says. But having to be practical and think outside the square certainly hasn’t changed. She recalls tracking down an actor on a campervan holiday in the South Island before mobile phones were around. “There are so many things like that – that seem impossible but you have to do them. Lots of left field things happen to us.” Entry jobs certainly may be low paid but they’re important on any production, she says. “Being a runner is an opportunity but it’s a really hard job. People want things immediately.” She says having common sense, being able to take direction and listening carefully will get you far. “It’s like people who start a job working in the mail room – you see what everybody does. You have a small degree of responsibility and an opportunity to learn, to take it all in.”
Grant has worked as a production coordinator, production manager and line producer. She says it’s always great to see others progressing through the ranks too. “With some you think ‘you’re going to be employing me in a few years.’” New Zealand films Grant has worked on include An Angel at My Table, The Piano, Whale Rider and Sione’s Wedding. International productions include Boogeyman, Perfect Creature and 30 Days of Night. Her television credits include Hercules, Xena and _Jac_on Deadly Whispers, a film starring Tony Danza and directed by Bill Norton (who also worked on Hercules). It was shot in Placerville in Northern California. Most recently she was associate producer on the 2010 and 2011 Spartacus series. Working for Pacific Renaissance on Xena and Hercules fairly early on as well allowed her to do a variety of roles. “I was a production coordinator for a really long time and I really enjoyed that job.” As an associate producer, a key part of her role is around casting – liaising between directors and producers alongside negotiating terms with agents.
Working on films like The Piano and Whale Rider were highlights to her and she says everyone involved knew it was something special. “It’s the extra bit of love, the extra mile with being a New Zealand film.” She also enjoyed learning aspects of the Maori culture and crew waiata. “When I think of the films that I enjoyed working on the most, it’s all the films that had another culture involved. You also have responsibility in representing them.” Seeing the first screening is always exciting as often she moves straight to a new project once shooting wraps and doesn’t see anything in between. “The last shoot day is pretty cool,” she says. “But it’s always great when you get to the first shoot day – there is only so much planning or theory that you can do.”
There have been disappointments too such as when Rude Awakenings was canned after one series. “Maybe people weren’t ready to get the Ponsonby world or maybe it was just an Auckland thing to get rather than a nationwide thing,” she says. “We all loved reading those scripts.” Being production manager on The Warriors Way (working title The Laundry Warrior) represented both the best and worst of productions for her. “There were financial problems along the way and so for production that’s hugely stressful – trying to keep a production moving and being the face of the production with crews,” she says. “But it was such a great, interesting mix of people. We had key members who were Korean and Japanese – that was really interesting.” She loves her job but says it’s about taking the bad with the good. “When something doesn’t go right, you can really wonder why on earth you do it – it can be really glum but when things go well it’s just the greatest feeling.” Working constantly to budget and resource constraints is always an issue. “It’s fair to say that no matter what production you are on, there’s never enough money, you have to keep stressing to people what resources you have,” she says. “You need to walk the line of giving crew the support and equipment to do the job but always having to keep to the budget.” Paperwork can be a drag too but she says it’s all very necessary. “I don’t think most crew realize how much paperwork and documentation is involved or the degree of systems in a production office and how important that paper trail is.”
While films and television series generally give longer-term work security than shorter projects, she still faces job uncertainty like everyone else in the industry. “There’ve been a couple of times when it’s been really concerning, when the gaps have been too long, but fortunately something has always come along,” she says. “The cycle of the world recession doesn’t always line up with the film and television industry here,” she says. “We can be having a bumper year but it’s doom and gloom everywhere else, or Narnia gets released and everyone thinks our industry is thriving when actually that year has been completely dead.” Making the most of breaks when they come is even more important now with a partner and two young children to spend time with. “It’s so full on from week to week that you have a very little window for the rest of your life, your family and friends,” she says. “Hopefully I’ve saved enough money to live through them.”
**Production co-ordinator **
Picking up cigarette butts and pulling trolleys around wasn’t exactly what Kylie Gaudin had in mind when she got into the film and television industry in 2004 as a runner and unit assistant. “But after three years immersed in theory doing a degree in theatre and film at Victoria University, she was eager to get started. “I realised early on it wasn’t glamorous,” Gaudin says. “You get into the business and it’s not what you think at all – now that I think back I was probably living in a dream world.”
Being cast driver to David McPhail on Seven Periods with Mr Gormsby was one of her first jobs along with The Insider’s Guide to Happiness and The Insider’s Guide to Love. In between she was duty manager at Rialto Cinemas. On the New York street set of King Kong, she worked five weeks of long night shoots as a unit assistant. “I wasn’t even looking after crew or cast it was just the extras,” she says. Bridge to Terabithia brought Gaudin to Auckland in 2006 for her first full-time film job. “I loved that – it was summer, it was a big American job and it was well resourced.”
Other films include The Waterhorse, The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian, Avatar, The Hobbit and Mister Pip along with television series Spartacus. She also did the New Zealand leg of the untitled 3D Cirque du Soleil movie, an international collaboration between directors James Cameron and Andrew Adamson. Shooting was done over four to five days and the logistics were huge. “It was a big challenge for the production team because we had to get around four tonnes worth of gear out of LA and we only had a week to do it or something crazy like that.”
She enjoys the problem solving involved with the job and working for an authoritative body like the New Zealand Film Commission or the Chief Censor’s office may interest her in the future. Kylie also fits singing/songwriting in around her job.
While her degree may come in use later, it didn’t help her get jobs in the beginning. “Basically you have to be a hard worker, dedicated and be available. Doing a degree doesn’t teach you that necessarily,” Gaudin says. “Although people look at your CV – it’s more like ‘are you ready to go? Worked in the industry before?’ rather than what are your qualifications. Maybe it’s also being in the right place, at the right time, being available, and being willing to do new things.”
