Film Making. in the Flesh.

Film makers David White and Slavko Martinov each have a documentary out in New Zealand cinemas. David’s MEAT is an unfiltered look behind the scenes of different sides of our meat industry. While Slavko’s PECKING ORDER ruffles the feathers of the world of competitive poultry breeding. Both films are entertaining, informative and absolutely worth supporting with your bum in a seat.

We asked David and Slavko to tell us a little about the process of getting their films made.

When did you conceive of the idea for your film? What made you know the film was something people would be interested in seeing?

David White: The journey for MEAT actually started many years ago when I made a short film I KILL. This film did very well at festivals around the world and I became very taken by the idea that people didn’t know or hadn’t thought about where their Meat comes from. After many different iterations (I’ll get to them later) my brain started to think more about this idea and further to that - actually where people get their information from in regards to what sort of Meat they are eating. And then it dawned on me, even though I had been brought up on a farm and I thought I was quite knowledgeable about the growing / selling / eating of Meat, I was actually making decisions around Pork and Chicken with relatively little knowledge. By that I mean, I had never gone to a commercial piggery or chicken farm yet like many of us I was making my decisions at the supermarket based on what I thought about those types of farms. I realised that if someone like me was buying in this way, then what did the people who lived in very urban places base their decisions on. From there I realised that most people get their information about Meat from extremes - and I’m generalising a bit here – either from activists - who usually have a clear message and who say that farming is bad and eating meat is not OK, or from the other end of the spectrum - farmers, who say everything is great and farming is amazing. So with that in mind I wanted to create a film that did not have a message either way, but that would show farming with a very even hand.

Slavko Martinov: I came up with the idea in Melbourne, in 2013. We were making a different documentary and followed the lead character to a craft fair in the suburbs. I noticed two women selling high-end organic chicken feed from a blow up tent and I kept thinking, wow, who’s buying all of that chicken feed?

Later, during a rain storm, everyone huddled for shelter in a shed. We all stood there, waiting in silence. And so I started a conversation in front of everyone by asking those women, “So, who’s buying all that fancy chicken feed?” And they proceeded to tell me how it worked and how busy they were. (So busy they had a four year waiting list. And they had to cut it off at four years!)

I asked who else bought it, apart from breeders. And that’s when it happened: one of them just nonchalantly said, “Well, all the top breeders on the National show circuit, of course”. And I’m like, “The national what?” I looked at my co-producer Mike, and he looks at me. And I turn back and say, “Are you telling me there’s a Best in Show…with chickens…but it’s real?” I remember them looking at me like I was stupid for not knowing.

So it was that moment – the delight of discovering something you didn’t know existed, of feeling intrigued and delighted and wanting to know more – that’s the magic right there. I figured, if I’m having this reaction, then others probably will too. I could see it right away: a classic sports doco format following great characters over a year as they prepare for the big day.

How long did you give yourself to tell the story? Or did you set out without a clear end in sight?

SK: We had that moment in Melbourne, discovering poultry pageantry was a thing, in November 23, 2013. I pitched to the NZFC shortly after that for early development funding, then started attending poultry club meetings early 2014. The main discovery was that the national show is always mid-winter. So we knew we’d follow the characters from July 2014 - July 2015. Everything before that was research and some filming of other shows and the club meetings.

DW: Because we knew the kind of story we wanted to tell we gave ourselves about 18 months to complete the film - from when I first started researching until delivery. We probably spent the most time with the sheep and beef farmer Jill, and we kept moving the goalposts in terms of how many shoot days we needed with her. This was for couple of reasons, one – a sheep and beef farm works on a yearly cycle - which we knew, but we had thought at the beginning of the process we could do block shoots of her over the year - but it became apparent quite early on that wasn’t going to work. Secondly Jill is one of the hardest working people I have ever met. She would start before dawn and finish after dusk and in that time she would not stop. I had to change my strategy for shooting, each day we were shooting I would think of a topic that I needed to cover and in the very sporadic moments when she could talk I would ask questions about that topic. We also ended up always shooting two cameras as it became apparent she was never going to wait for us.

With Josh the hunter we were incredibly lucky, we only had 5 days with him total and one of those days was pretty much spent travelling. When we got to the top of the first mountain – bang, we shot a chamois. If we had not had that happen, we would have had to spend a lot more time up the hill with him.

In the end the research and shooting took around nine months. We also made a short drama in that time. The edit process was around two months, six days a week, and bar a few minor tweaks that was the final film done. The sign off and deliverable process was a little longer but we had accounted for that so it wasn’t an issue.

How did you go about securing funding?

DW: This was from the scheme called Doc Connect which meant our budget was 50% from NZFC and 50% NZOA.

SK: We got early development funding from the NZFC. They loved the premise. So I researched chickens in depth, while attending regular club meetings. I was looking for characters to put their hand up. Was I in the right club? Who were the best competitors in New Zealand? How does it all work? Early on, you’re just trying to figure out what’s going on in this world, how they talk and how it works.

I then applied for advanced development funding. By then I knew who the characters were and was able to clarify a clear story arc with the right tone and focus on what their goals and desires are. And exactly what they’d have to go through in preparing for nationals over a year. I could see it on screen. The NZFC liked where it was going and so we decided to commit to filming the film, rather than wait to apply for full production funding.

So we started early on, attending all the club meetings and going to their houses and farms. The reality is that we’d started filming meetings right away, because we didn’t want to lose anything. We wanted to get the characters familiar with us filming them.

What can you tell us about the processes of getting funding now?

DW: I think if you have a good solid project that you are able to place in a price bracket that makes sense with good market attachments, you can be successful. But to be fair, sometimes getting all of those things in a row and getting everyone to agree that you have done that can still be difficult!

SK: So we applied for the full funding round in January 2015, expecting to hear back in February that we got the green light. And we figured by the time the funding came through we’d be able to go to the nationals in July with a full crew.

The reality was very different: we were turned down for funding, which was a real blow. I was shocked. We were doing everything we said we would be doing. The proposal was good. Well written and clear. But we hadn’t been through the NZFC funding process before (our last film, PROPAGANDA, was self-funded). So in the checklist for the proposal, there was one (of many) boxes that said, “any supporting footage”. Now, to me, that looked like it was optional. But we did have footage, so we cut some clips together just to prove that, you know, these characters existed and everything we wrote was real.

What we found out was that “any supporting footage” meant ‘high-end promo’ - a proper trailer - and that it’s more important than anything else in the entire proposal.

Was it a lengthy process, or were you able to start work on your film as quickly as you wanted to?

DW: In a way it was a lengthy process. And in some ways it wasn’t. I had actually applied for production finance for a documentary which was in the same area - meat, but was quite different film - it was more concentrating around the ways in which we killed animals (see I KILL). That application went in a year before this application and was declined funding for many different reasons, one of them being - other than me, who is interested in that sort of thing - who would go see it? I took that feedback on and I went away and actually made another short documentary called OINK which was set in a commercial piggery and was continuation of the theme, but as I said earlier, it was a further step towards this film and the expanding on my investigation of an idea.

With both those shorts behind me I wrote the treatment on the family farm for MEAT. While I waited to hear I directed a TV documentary LITTLE CRIMINALS and wrote the short film THE COUPLE, then both MEAT and that short were granted funding.

Were you working with a crew of professionals? Or was it a matter of roping in friends and family to help? Did already having contacts in the industry help? Would it have been possible to make your film if you weren’t able to call in help from friends in the industry?

**DW: **For this film I had decided very early on in the production process that I would only have two core people on the crew. Myself and my long term collaborator Paul Wedel (Cinematographer, Editor, Colourist, Title Design the list goes on) and then I would hire researchers for information that I would be able to use during my interviews, and for helping me resource farmers outside of my normal circles. However I would do the schedule and initial conversations with characters. I feel that if you can start a rapport with talent very early on, filming from the beginning you are already a step ahead. You have back story, you know where a few of their life views lie, but more importantly they trust you.

Once we got to the end of post production in regards picture and we started in on sound and music, we roped in a couple of people who loved the film. Moniker (Samuel Scott, Lukasz Buda and Conrad Wedde) did the music. A young sound designer called Stephen Riddell did the design and James Hayday in London at Lipsync did the final mix. It would be fair to say the film would not have been as good if these amazingly talented people hadn’t come on board and done me a total solid.

SK: I have a very simple rule: I only work with people better than me. That’s not saying much when it comes to sound, camera, lighting… pretty much everything to be honest. So I’m lucky I get to work with the professionals I already know. And they’re good to me. The people I know rallied around to help me while I tried to get the private investment in place. And If it weren’t for the support of those friends I couldn’t have made this film.

How was the process of shooting and then editing? What unexpected challenges did you find on the way?

DW: Being a Producer, Director, Writer, Production Manager, Researcher, Main sound recordist, shooter, etc was an incredibly large job. And I have to agree it is, much more emotionally taxing than anticipated. However I do really love every part, I am interested in budgets and putting finance together and seeing what the market can withstand all the way through to what sort of camera I am thinking we should use and what sort of lenses do what to what. I love being in the sound mix but also knowing exactly how we spent the money to get there, then there is a buzz when you sell your film and you are at the coal face trying to work out how that deal is put together. I guess the challenge is managing all those things to make sure you are doing the best job you can in all departments.

SK: The real challenges we faced were of people in the film changing their mind about appearing in it. The biggest one followed when Doug left the club. I got a call from him telling me he was out. Out! No club. No film. No nothing. I spoke with him, listened for almost an hour. And he was adamant that he wouldn’t be in it, that he was sorry but that was that. So I was facing the end of the film in that phone call. Plain and simple. I’m sitting there on the other end of the phone, thinking, what do I know about this person? I mean, really know about them? What I know about Doug is that he’s an old school stand up guy whose handshake is his word. And that’s exactly how I was raised, too. So I reminded him. I said, “Doug, I’m sorry, but when I started this I told you there’d be no going back, even if you had the worst day. Because I can’t spend all that taxpayer money for nothing. And you shook my hand on that.” I waited. There was a big silence. And he says, “Yep. That I did. Alright then”. And that’s why I still have a film. A handshake.

Did your film turn out as you hoped/expected/wanted?

DW: Yeah, it did. I think it is a clear representation of what I set out to make. We had the release and had reviews come in from vegan activists who said “everyone should watch this film” and at the other end of the spectrum we had very vocal farmers say the same thing. I think if you can get opposing views saying the same thing then I think you have made a very even handed film which is what I set out to do.

I also had a friend who was working on the film become vegetarian (not Paul), I asked him why? And he said ‘cause you didn’t tell me what to think, I have watched lots of food documentaries but you can kind swipe them away because of the bias, but you just let it sit and I had to go away and think about my thoughts and obviously I have been on the fence for a long time’. Admittedly that person has gone to Argentina since then and eaten a steak.

**SK: **PECKING ORDER has turned out the way I wanted it to, yes. Usually there are things you’d want to change but I wouldn’t. Of course, there are some extraordinary characters who didn’t make the cut and some of the best one-liners never made it but that’s fine. The only thing that matters is that the best version ends up on screen. And that’s what we have.

Are there things you would do differently now?

SK: I need to change my approach to having participants sign consent forms. I gave my word to all participants at the start that I had a ‘do no harm’ policy. They were used to being mocked every time they did an interview. Someone would say one thing and do the opposite. So I had to move gently regarding trust issues. And because of that I held off getting signed documents for a couple of people who I felt concerned about. I wanted them to feel comfortable and that nearly backfired horribly on me. I’ll have to find a way to balance that better in future.

**DW: **I just got the American trailer and I think it’s a little more commercial as a trailer than the one we created for NZ. Even though the trailer was extremely well received by sales agents and distributors across the board, I think the American trailer shows more of the humour and has a lighter touch. To be frank it’s more commercial.

Where to now for your film? And where to next for you?

DW: We have an American release scheduled for August 4th. I have another film (drama) which is nearly set to go – watch this space.

SK: Our international sales agent just sold to North America and China, which is a great start. And I’m about to screen the film in competition at the Edinburgh International Film Festival, then home for the Melbourne International Film Festivals 4th August. And as of last night, Michael Moore wrote to say he loved it and invited it to the Traverse City Film Festival, which is a real honour.