It Was 30 Years Ago Today...

Guild veteran, long-time NZTECHO editor and all ‘round good bastard Tony Forster gives us a personal look back at thirty years of Guild history. More or less...

A couple of weeks ago, I received a phone call asking if I would consider writing an article about the history of our Guild, as part of marking the 30th anniversary of its foundation. With my diary almost entirely empty for the next two weeks between then and draft deadline, I said, somewhat rashly in retrospect, Yes, sure. Then I landed a full-on two-week film job…

But only a couple of days before deadline, I finally found some free space, and decided my first point of exploration should be a good friend whom I knew had been involved right from the very beginning – Sally Meiklejohn. When I phoned her, she sensibly suggested that rather than me talking to individuals individually, if a group of us got together we would spark memories in and from each other – and generously she offered to organize such a gathering for the following day.

A few other people we would love to have joined us were either unavailable or uncontactable; but on a sunny Saturday afternoon, Sally, Chris McKenzie, Graham Morris and I met up in a small pub/café in Northcote, Auckland.

We did come to a consensus that the Guild grew out of an organisation known as the New Zealand Motion Picture Academy (NZMPA) – or was it the New Zealand Academy of Motion Pictures (NZAMP). None of us were absolutely sure…

I’ve been lucky in that not long before leaving her house to come to our meeting, Sally stumbled across a couple of folders, one of which contained papers relating to the Guild, and the other papers relating to the Academy. From the latter folder, I have been able to figure out that moves to form the Academy were made in mid-1977, and by the end of 1977 it was definitely an established entity. From our Saturday group’s collective memory, the first co-presidents were Roger Donaldson and Graeme Morris; in April 1978, Sam Pillsbury was Chair (from a meeting’s minutes), Sally Meiklejohn (then Bartle) was its first Secretary, with Maggie Lewis as Treasurer – but further committee members were “yet to be elected”.

One of Sally’s folders contains some early Academy newsletters, including some minutes of meetings, one of which concludes by saying, “The meeting closed in a certain amount of drunken disarray, and adjourned to the (next-door) party…” and “The Catering Department has decided (in future) to open the flagons after the meeting, and would remind members that paying for drinks is appreciated – even necessary – so please come armed with $2.00…”

The Academy was a gathering together of all the freelancers in what we now call the screen production industry, then known as the film industry. It was open to all freelancers, or independent film people. Crew, writers, directors, producers, actors, editors – all were welcome. There were branches in Auckland, Wellington, and “the South” (South Island?), along with a national executive.

During the effort to establish the Academy, a document was circulated that contained these words: “At the moment the industry is a divided, uncertain group of individuals, trying to survive in a difficult cultural and economic environment. If it is to go on surviving, it seems vital that a degree of unity is both achieved and seen to have been achieved. The lack of unity and a representative voice has also allowed our enemies to take us apart at will. The nonsense over the banning of imported TV commercials was the perfect example of this. Without unity the present impetus will roll off into oblivion, as it has always done in the past.”

Notes from the AGM of the Academy held in April 1978 include a discussion of “Protection of Indigenous Industry: Much discussion on the pros and cons of the Academy supporting the employment of a local equivalent whenever overseas personnel is brought in for a job.”

It seems some issues never go away…

Although there appears to have already existed an organization called the “NZ Producers Directors and Writers Guild Incorporated”, after a while the producers and directors decided they needed their own body – possibly as a group within the Academy at first. But in 1982 the Screen Producers and Directors Association (SPADA) was founded – and the Techos’ Guild was formed in response. Initially the NZFVTG was a group of mainly camera, lighting, grip, and sound people – hence the name “Techos” – but from early on the Guild began to see itself as representing every crew person, from pre-production through to post, including art department and editors.

But when exactly did the crew people make the move to form a body of their own? And how much longer after that did the NZAMP / NZMPA dissolve into oblivion? None of the others at our Saturday gathering could answer that question.

In 1984, I went to live and work in Australia and returned towards the end of 1987; whether the Techo’s Guild existed before I left I cannot be sure but I can be certain that it existed when I came back!

(It was at the first Guild meeting I attended upon my return in late 1987 that Sally press-ganged me onto the committee, where I remained for 23 years…)

Lisa Kissin wasn’t able to attend our Saturday discussion, but was able to talk to me later by phone. She remembers the Academy meetings happening in the Press Club in Albert Street, large numbers attending, and the meetings being a lot of fun. She really liked that there were so many different types of people involved and how that resulted in a really good range of views being expressed, making the Academy both interesting and effective. She is quite sure that the Techos Guild was formed during 1985 or 1986. She joined the Guild exec at that time, and remained involved for as long as I did.

One of Lisa’s major contributions was to represent the Guild on the Film and TV Awards Board, until roughly 2006. She pointed out that this was after the infamous televised GOFTA award ceremony of 1987; Gaylene Preston had become the chair, and she, Judy Callingham, and Lisa formed a strong committee that made a lot of things happen.

Thinking of the other individuals who have given an unusually large amount of time, energy – and dare I say, love – to the Guild, it would be impossible to decide fairly who to mention and who not. But it does seem fair to make reference to the various presidents and administrators/executive officers that we have had over the years, the latter including Bruce Bisset, Helen Buckton, Helen Martin, Janet Cervin/Klee, Megan Ritchie, Fritha Stalker, and now, Karla Rodgers.

However, interestingly, when it came to trying to recall exactly who was our President and during which years each one held the position, our little group found our memories all being rather vague – even Mr. McKenzie, who was himself President for a period of time, was unsure which years he was in that chair! Ditto Sally! But with the help of Lisa and her phone call to Mr. Stephen Buckland, I believe we can be sure of the order, at least:

Our memory of presidents is a little vague, but our first president was John Mahaffie, and he was followed by Stephen Buckland, Chris McKenzie, Sally Meiklejohn, David Madigan, Alun Bollinger (AlBol) and now Richard Bluck.

Despite what I have said above, there is one individual who stands out for his extraordinarily huge contribution to the Guild. As president, David Madigan was no mere figurehead. Before, during, and after his presidency, Dave was an inspiration, a leader, and a guide, a fount of knowledge in regard to any issue he took on, and indispensable in inducting, nurturing, and guiding our various administrators and executive officers over the years. In particular, his effort and his achievements in the area of immigration - foreign crew coming to work in New Zealand - were simply immense.

Huge appreciation must be expressed to the individuals who over the years have contributed so much of their time and brainpower to helping run the Guild – especially those who have served on both regional committees and the National Executive.

Initially the Guild branches around NZ seemed to operate pretty much independently of each other, with the administrator attempting to communicate what was happening in the various branches to each other. The advent of email made a huge difference when it came to discussing issues at a national level. Being on the ‘Nat Exec’ meant that rather than just turning up to a monthly meeting, one would be regularly answering emails, participating in a nationwide conversation, at times a daily basis. It meant, for example, that our highly esteemed (and government-honoured) President AlBol was able to participate even when ensconced in his lovely hideaway in the remote west coast of the South Island.

Another recent development in the running of the guild was also made possible by the existence of the inter-web. Initially our meetings were held in various people’s homes or workplaces; eventually, we got to a point of being able to afford to rent an office.

If I remember correctly, the first was in St Benedict Street in Newton in Auckland; we then lived for a long time in an office provided free by Panavision/Film Facilities in Freemans Bay. The advantage of having a small theatrette next door that we could use for meetings and for skill development events was significant. Another advantage was being able to interact with other people in the industry – not only other tenants but also companies using the studio for filming.

It was a sad moment for some of us when that building was demolished and we were forced to move; but on the other hand, returning to Newton to occupy two levels of a townhouse just across the driveway from Filmcrews was a definite step-up in the quality of our surroundings! (Sioux MacDonald’s support of the Guild in those years and since has been immense.)

Now, the Internet has made it possible for us to do away with renting an office altogether, allowing us to channel members’ fees into more productive alleys. Setting the Guild up in this manner also allows us the freedom, now and into the future, to operate from anywhere in the country, moving the Guild away from being Auckland-centric.

Thinking of what the Guild has achieved over the years, it’s impossible to look past the first two priorities – terms and conditions of engagement of crew, and safety at work. In that regard, we may focus on what the Guild has done in terms of creating the Blue Book and the Safety Code of Practice (SCOP).

It’s notable that the first version of Rules for Engagement of Crew was created by the original Academy. It is reported that director Roger Donaldson took this document and simply stapled a copy to the back of every contract for crew involved in his first feature, Sleeping Dogs.

In Sally’s folder we found a number of older versions of the Blue Book. A couple of interesting points about the cover of the (possibly first) version of the “Production Code of Practice”, as it was called then, published in October 1984. The booklet is a pale green now, though it might have been pale blue in 1984! Above the booklet’s title is the heading “New Zealand Academy of Motion Pictures”, while under the name of the book it reads:

“Established by:

N.Z.M.P.A. TECHNICIANS’ GUILD (AUCKLAND)

N.Z.M.P.A. TECHNICIANS’ GUILD (WELLINGTON)”

No wonder many of us were confused as to whether the Academy was the NZAMP or the NZMPA.

The versions of 1989 and 1991 are still entitled “Production Code of Practice”, but are now published solely by the NZ Film and Video Technicians’ Guild, and described on the cover as “An Agreement between the NZFVTG Inc and The Independent Producers and Directors Guild Inc.”

Inside the rather brief and concise booklets, it’s intriguing to see references to a six-day working week and a 10-hour working day, only! By 1995, the cream-colored booklet is now titled “Guidelines for the Engagement of Crew”, but is again listed on the cover as an agreement between the two bodies as previously. The interior layout is completely different, with each page divided into two columns – “Considerations” on the left and “Common Practice” on the right, for each heading or section. While the working week is now described as “usually five or six consecutive days”, the normal day is still described as 10 hours, flat – no mention yet of any such thing as a ten-and-three-quarter-hour day for drama, as opposed to 10 hours for other forms of production.

Here again my memory would seem to be faulty; since I recall the 10¾ day for drama having been standard much earlier. (As I remember, I was surprised to find there was no differentiation between a drama day and a TVC day when I moved to Australia in the mid-80s.)

In our group discussion on Saturday afternoon, it was reported by more than one person that it was the Shortland Street production that first attempted to bring in the 10¾ hour day – and succeeded; and this year is the 25th anniversary of the beginning of the programme. Suggesting the 10¾ hour day came in during the early 1990s…?

How the 10¾ day progressed to become an industry standard for drama in NZ, none of us could recall. Any enlightenment from anyone about this would be most welcome!

Over the years there has been a history of opposition from certain quarters as each new version of the Blue Book was created. I cannot recall now which two of the later versions of the Blue Book I was involved in helping to draft, but what I do definitely recall is that one year, the producers group had stated that they were going to henceforth completely ignore the Blue Book, and simply negotiate all contracts with individual crew members; that is, they intended to dictate all working and contract conditions themselves. We went ahead with creating a new version of the Blue Book anyway, believing the producers’ position was untenable.

Funnily enough, one significant factor in the reinstatement of the Blue Book as an accepted document for the industry as a whole was the demand by overseas production companies for some form of guidance as to working conditions here – because without this knowledge they found it impossible to do proper budgets. The absence of a Blue Book risked sending these offshore companies elsewhere to shoot, and no-one here wanted that!

When I think about the amount of effort that small groups of people have put into creating and evolving the Blue Book over the last 30 years, I find there is one thing that really irritates me. It is when I encounter people who say “Why should I join the Guild? What has the Guild ever done for me?”

Answer: Two words. Blue Book.

For me at least, it is most pleasurable to see that the latest version of the Blue Book has been negotiated by our Guild in collaboration with SPADA and the NZAPG, with the Guild Blue Book Committee preparing the entire book before presentation to both organisations. At the end of the day The Guild owns the copyright to the Blue Book.

The Safety Code of Practice, the other major document published by the Guild, had a much more difficult genesis. Initially attempts were based on adapting a North American document, eliminating such seemingly irrelevant items as how to deal with bears in the forest. But the immense task was simply beyond the capacity of Guild member volunteers, despite significant contributions made by members involved in the special effects and stunt areas, for example.

At one point however, the Guild was given $40,000 by the Accident Compensation Corporation to assist in developing the SCOP, and money was spent to employ a professional in the field to develop the document for us. It took a long while, and also required some further financial help from the government’s Department of Labour, to enable publishing; but in late 1996 a project committee representing the NZFVTG, the IPDG (Independent Producers & Directors Guild), Equity, TVNZ, and OSH produced a looseleaf ringbinder folder and 80 A5 pages of fine print.

Of course, over the last couple of years, the SCOP has been supplanted by the new regulations created by the government in April last year, and the development of ScreenSafe.

I’ve always found that throughout the entertainment industry there is quite a divergence of views as to whether a guild like ours would be better being a union (as the Writers’ Guild is), with or without compulsory membership, versus those with quite strong anti-union feelings.

And of course, the situation with our members is complicated by the whole employee / contractor factor – with many of our members actually being both “workers” hired by a production company, and “bosses” in that they are often responsible for selecting (even hiring) members of their particular team, and directing their work.

In the early years of the Guild, communication with members via newsletters and such was sporadic at best. In 1988 a monthly newsletter was proposed, but didn’t really get off the ground. But in 1999, a camera assistant named Tim Pope offered to put together a proper magazine for the Guild, with him as editor. I was asked by the Auckland Branch committee to cast a supervising eye over the publication, apparently on the grounds that I was suspected to be the only committee member with university qualifications – spurious though they were, in that my studies had been in psychology and philosophy, not English literature!

Tim made some interesting decisions in those early issues – for example, I never did figure out the exact relevance of the photograph on the front cover of the first issue: a guy with a weird grin and a glass of milk in his hand. Nevertheless, the 16 pages of that first issue in May 2002 contain articles that are quite representative of what the magazine has continued to do over the years – including celebration of guild members’ successes, acknowledgement of the passing of both Guild and wider industry members, discussion of Blue Book issues, plus reports from branches around the country and from the then newly elected President AlBol. Tim didn’t continue his excellent work in creating the magazine for very long and left NZ for Australia. It’s a sad reflection on the industry as it was then (and hopefully is not quite so much now) that Tim found it necessary to move to find a screen production environment that was a little more LGBT-tolerant than Auckland’s was 14 years ago.

It was at this time that I was asked to take over the editorship, and being enthusiastic about the magazine and its possibilities – and challenges – I accepted. Like Tim, one thing was clear to me quite early on – we had both underestimated the amount of work that editing such a magazine would entail. The 45 issues I worked on over 8 years gave me a lot of pressure, mainly from contributions always being late (standard throughout the journalism world, I’ve discovered). But all this was more than compensated for by the intense satisfaction from what we achieved.

The magazine quickly expanded to a standard 24 pages, and quite often blew out to 28, sometimes even 32, such was the amount of content we gathered and were given.

Members the magazine has celebrated included Grant Major, Hammond Peek, Kim Sinclair – all Oscars – plus other international awards to people such as Tony Johnson and Matt Meikle – and of course, then President AlBol being made a Member of the NZ Order of Merit.

When I think about the articles which gave me most satisfaction, I think of Tom Burstyn telling us about the midlife crisis that led to him chucking in his high-end television/low-to-medium budget feature career as a DoP in Hollywood to become a one man documentary maker in New Zealand; AlBol’s blunt and forthright revealing of what went on behind the scenes during the making of River Queen. And perhaps most of all, Wayne Johnson’s utterly compelling story of the helicopter crash that took the life of cameraman Joe von Dinklage, titled “I Still Hear the Bang”.

At the beginning we were keen on keeping a relaxed, informal style in the magazine layout; but as time passed, there was a clearly expressed desire to make the mag more formal, more “professional” in its appearance, which we did. In 2009-10, there developed a desire to “take things to a new, higher level” – to publish in colour rather than black-and-white, and to defray the extra cost of colour by reducing the frequency from six issues per year to four.

It was at this point that I realised it was a good time, the right time, for me to pass the baton on.

It is gratifying to see in the years since how the magazine has maintained, even continued to consistently improve, its quality. And glossy colour certainly does create a stronger impression with the reader.

It is interesting to compare our magazine with attempts by the Writers Guild to establish a printed magazine of their own in the past. Despite some marvelous efforts by Steven Gannaway in particular, the last incarnation of a Writers Guild magazine did not last long in printed form; but their regular email newsletter has since been consistently strong.

Often we were asked why we did not follow fashion and replace our printed magazine with an email version. The answer was: writers tend to work as solitary individuals, and so their print magazine copies were unlikely to be read by many, if any, other people. But film crew people tend to work in large groups, and we know from experience that they often take their copy of the magazine with them to set, and there other people read it – including nonmembers. There is also the fact that when something arrives in a person’s email inbox, if they don’t read it immediately it’s very unlikely that they will return to it at all. Items not read on first opening are quite unlikely ever to be read. Whereas a printed magazine will sit on a table, and is quite likely to be browsed again at later times – a significant advantage over an email.

Today, NZTecho is the only coloured hard copy magazine serving the NZ screen industry.

So as we approach the future of the screen industry in New Zealand, with a new name, I find it disturbing that at our little gathering on a sunny Sunday afternoon in Northcote, the prevailing view was that we are still having to fight over some basic issues that we were fighting over 30 years ago when the Guild was formed; these being foreign crew working in New Zealand, excessive hours of work (particularly on TVCs), broken turnaround times, per diems, and the excessive demands placed in particular on both the production office team and art department people. But the reality is these are the issues that the Guild will probably always be fighting.

Remember – overtime pay rates and suchlike are referred to in industrial agreements as “penal rates” – they are intended to be exactly that, penalties for exceeding hours of agreed working conditions!

Over the last few years the Guild has made some major contributions to the NZ Screen Industry, in particular our Blue Book and the implementation of ScreenSafe, but there will always be more work to do. On the list, the implementation of a standard contract for the engagement of crew (the Guild actually published one in 1997), and ScreenSafe workshops. All good work that counts!

And so, looking to the future, I remain:

Optimistically yours,

Tony Forster.

I would like to express my very warmest gratitude to Sally Meiklejohn, Graham Morris, Chris McKenzie, Lisa Kissin and Steve Buckland for their generous gift of time and help in drafting this article.