Endings, Beginnings, and Unused Opportunities

It’s been a month of endings in Wellington.

The behemoth that has been Ghost in the Shell has wrapped, with many Wellington and New Zealand crew now following the circus, off to Hong Kong to carry on filming. It was as big a production as Wellington has ever seen, with every foot of floorspace in Miramar occupied and the overflow moving out to Avalon studios.

At the same time Pork Pie – Matt Murphy’s not-a-sequel-or-a-remake – of dad Geoff’s Goodbye Pork Pie has also just made it to that metaphorical Invercargill and thus finished its journey.

So now we’re in that familiar Wellington phase of waiting for the next bloody enormous boot to drop. We all know that there is another big international production about to take over our lives for a few months. But the grown-ups haven’t officially announced the title yet, so we won’t either.

And, by the sound of it, there’ll be another bloody big gig or two to look forward to roll us out of 2016 and into 2017.

Meanwhile Avalon Studios is still not being used anything like to full capacity, although there is another decent-sized TV series shoot coming in July and August.

Every week we read another story about how Auckland desperately needs more studio space – and I’m sure it does. But it still strikes me as kind of ironic while the Auckland industry crams itself into warehouses and tin sheds all over the isthmus, there’s the best purpose-built studio in the country sitting here, affordable, available, convenient and less than a 15-minute drive from the central city.

Graeme Tuckett, Wellington branch member