Rejuvenating the NZ Film Industry
Coming into Christmas and the dawning of a new year – it should be a time for joyous celebration but unfortunately the state of our industry somehow dampens the celebratory mood.
You may have noticed articles in the previous NZTECHO magazine touched on how quiet our industry is at the moment, even talking about how some of us find alternative occupations to help fill down time and bring in earnings. Unfortunately that moment hasn’t passed and we’re still in the doldrums workwise. It’s even been attracting media attention since Labour Party MP Jacinda Ardern questioned Minister for trade, enterprise and employment Steven Joyce during parliamentary question time, about the state of the screen production industry in general and in Auckland in particular. For all Steven Joyce’s claims that he has been consulting with the industry it seems clear that this Government has no intention of raising the Large Budget Screen Production Grant (LBSPG) stakes, and for all the questioning of the National Party’s policies in this regard I suspect we’d see nothing different if Labour held the treasury benches.
With the NZ dollar staying strong and other territories offering bigger incentives and better facilities it seems likely that we could be in for a prolonged dry spell with fewer off-shore productions coming our way. How should we deal with this situation? The industry as a whole has been getting together in Auckland with the aim of finding ways to rejuvenate our industry. It’s now grown into a serious lobby group which we must hope will gain a positive hearing from this Government, or the next. Watch this space. It’s important to note a big thank you to all those in the industry who are putting their time and effort into rejuvenating our industry.
We may have been riding a temporary wave. It’s been a good wave, and a prolonged ride over almost twenty years, but we have been building up our industry on the strength of off-shore productions coming here. In the US they call them ‘runaway productions’ and it seems even California is prepared to offer incentives to get productions to stay home. Now those off-shore productions seem to have dried up, or they’ve found somewhere else to go, and with our little population base of 4 million people we can’t realistically expect local production to fill the void.
Perhaps if our Government is not prepared to boost the LBSPG incentive they might see fit to boost funding of local production through the New Zealand Film Commission and NZ On Air. They were prepared to give Warner Bros an extra 30 million on top of the LBSPG. They’re prepared to give 30 million to Emirates Team New Zealand for the America’s Cup boat race challenge. They’re prepared to give Rio Tinto 30 million to keep Tiwai Point aluminium smelter going. Perhaps they’d like to give the NZFC a 30 million dollar top up... every year? A contribution like that we could really make good use of, we’d be able to make more Kiwi films, and we wouldn’t be relying so heavily on the vagaries of off-shore productions. I realize that we’ve built up crew and resources based on the needs of off-shore production which tend to be more extensive and extravagant than most local production, but more local production wouldn’t be a bad thing in my book … (dream on Albol).
Having said all that, we had an impressive line-up of local films competing for gongs at The Rialto Channel New Zealand Film Awards (aka The Moas), so at least we can celebrate our most recent work as Kiwi filmmakers.”
By the way, I lied about Gaylene Preston’s project Hope and Wire coming to our TV screens in September. With the upheavals at TV3 it seems that many things have been put on hold. TV3 don’t seem to be commissioning programmes at the moment. Let’s hope that isn’t an ongoing trend. We certainly don’t need local production drying up too.
Also in my last president’s rave I mentioned the fate of clothing workers in Bangladesh and the fact that there are moves to improve their working conditions and to give these workers a united voice. Yes, efforts are being made to give these workers the right to collective bargaining. I find it encouraging that this is happening, but is it not ironic that at the same time our own Government is implementing changes to employment law which will make it more difficult for workers to bargain collectively? The law is being re-written so as to allow an employer to walk away from collective bargaining if they feel the process has broken down, making it “easier for employers to undermine collective agreements and employ casuals on lower pay”, to quote Gordon Campbell, (Kapi-Mana News, 8 October 2013). Some may see this as progressive but I see it as a giant leap backwards.
Of course these employment law changes don’t affect our industry since almost all of us work as contractors. Let’s just hope there is some work around for us to be contracted to work on next year. On that reticent note however, I do wish you all the best for the silly season and here’s hoping for a productive and fulfilling 2014.
The break will see me catching up with relatives in the North Island, Te Ika a Maui. Then it’ll be back home to finish fixing up the chook house, mend some fences and swim in the river while I wait to see if any offers of paid film work come along.
Once again, fingers crossed for 2014 and thank you to all those in the industry who are putting so much time and effort into bringing our industry back to life.
Albol
