Quiet yet Productive

Hello NZ techos, here is a quick report from the gem of the South Island. It looks like we have finally caught up with the rest of the country in terms of work coming in. Our winter was a dazzling burst of Korean work in August with a light sprinkling of not much else for the rest of the time, the lack of snow did not really help and those that did commit to shooting here had to fly further and higher into the mountains to get the look they wanted.

Since the last of the snow jobs, we have had a light run of car TVCs come along, most of them touting new improved ‘eco’ features and hybrid models, apart from the Volvo limo, this was one we shot for the Chinese market which was pure muscle and luxury.

We did the new Hyundai for Prodigy Films featuring Bruce Spence of Mad Max fame, who was totally awesome in his role of scary old man. Then a Mitsubishi piece on the new hybrid van, a tracking job on the Mount Cook Road and the airport runway. Runways are great places to shoot car ads, with the freedom to just keep on shooting till your arms fall off from swinging the crane without a break or until a plane comes into land – Joe Nolan runs a mean hard working ship. I’m sure if we had an anti-aircraft gun, he would have shot those planes down so we could have kept right on shooting the whole day through!

November kicked off with a Milka job from Joyride Films, the usual purple painted cow was featured in the background of various chocolate eating scenarios. Cows are great actors but refuse to stand on uneven surfaces for very long so we basically set everything up on crane on track to accommodate comfort for the cows – who says grips don’t care!

I just got back from Dunedin, after working on what may be my last job of the year, with nothing booked and nothing even pencilled in. The job was another car TVC, this time for Kia out of Korea. We had Baldwin Street locked down for the day, it was pretty challenging working on the steepest street in the world, but we got it done. There were bouncing balls, joggers and a couple of donkeys all struggling up and down the street while Emma Gilmour thrashed the guts out of the wee diesel Kia car. That’s pretty much us, the only other thing going on is the Slow West project shooting in Tekapo for six weeks, we had a team of local lighting guys up there and some unit but the remainder of the crew is from the North Island, it’s going well by all accounts.

I’m about off to a wedding in Invercargill. I always get a bit nervous heading to my wife’s hometown and I have a shake off my Auckland roots and get all South Island on it!

Anyway, Merry Christmas techos … go well.

Joshua Dunn, Queenstown branch member and executive committee member