Queenstown Film Industry Updates

Congratulations to Steve King on his fine work in driving the name change committee and keeping the process moving forward. Whilst the options may not be to everyone’s taste I like the idea of having a name that better suits who we collectively are.

Queenstown has experienced usual summer madness with clogged roads and this year an influx of Chinese celebrating their new year and drunken Kiwis celebrating ours.

The TVC world however has been fairly quiet since November with a scattering of small ads punctuated by a monster 30-seconder shot in December. The Battle of Evony aired during the Super Bowl and not only consumed most of the local crew and gear resources but also showcased the dramatic scenery of the district and gave crew a handy financial injection prior to Christmas.

Other moving picture work seems to be steady locally though with bits of Disney’s A Wrinkle in Time being shot here. Although only shooting for eight days or so these large jobs provide long-term work for location managers, art dept and production folk and also keep the other ancillary businesses that movies need afloat. There’s talk of several other large projects and a Chinese production looking to film in mid-April.

There have also been about three quite large jobs in Fiji recently that have removed a chunk of local crew out of circulation and with Auckland and Wellington busy, finding crew with specialist skills becomes a challenge.

Best wishes for the team behind The Inland Road on its première at the Berlin Film Festival in February, and to the many crew who put a lot of donated time and effort not only on this show but many others that have come through town over the last year.

John Allan, Queenstown branch and executive committee member