Crew Shortages Amid Film Boom

Summer is upon us and with the longer daylight hours come longer shoots and hopefully less weather cover days needed.

In the Filmcrews office in Auckland, we have noticed the most incredible spike of work in the last few weeks, stretching an already thin list of crew even thinner. It’s a pretty great position to be in, and even the lack of studio space in Auckland doesn’t seem to be holding us back.

The whiteboard in my office that generally has six or seven long-term projects up on it (in large writing) has needed a proper wipe down with Spray n’ Wipe, and a rewrite in smaller font, to allow for the 18 long-term projects that are happening around the country over the summer/autumn season.

We’ve noticed an incredible shortage of location scouts and managers, camera and grip teams. A lot of juggling of dates and personnel has been needed just to make some jobs happen, and then somehow, on top of all that, the line productions finally seem to be coming back to NZ, taking up any possible slack in crew and production people.

We look forward to NZ hosting some of the production of Disney’s A Wrinkle in Time early 2017 (starring Oprah Winfrey and Reese Witherspoon), as well as supporting further seasons of Ash vs Evil Dead, The Shannara Chronicles, some Netflix productions as well as local productions Filthy Rich, Brokenwood Mysteries and Westside 3 to name but a few.

I might sound like a broken record but, once again, I have to stress just how important it is that all crew support and train those that are younger and newer, properly and safely, and pass on your skills and knowledge to help create an even more vibrant and energetic industry than the one we are currently experiencing.

Sioux Macdonald, Guild vice president and executive committee member