Reviving Wellington Film

By Hokey it’s nice to be back. After far too much time spent in the USA these last 16 months or so, it’s great to be back in Godzone and Wellington for the foreseeable future.

But, arriving to the deathly hush of a mid-season, pre-election, between the big jobs, waiting for the next shoe to drop Wellington scene isn't exactly what I was hoping for.

The reality is, Wellington is just a bit moribund at the moment. We have a few bits and pieces, a lot of rumours, plenty of digital wizardry happening out at Weta – as always, it seems – but a real lack of crews and cameras on the ground working.

The phone at Crew Wellington is running – if not hot, at least warm – with queries regarding jobs in the near future. And there seem to be a lot of Aussies and a few Asian crews soaking up the Spring sights in the glorious Wairarapa and the splendid Marlborough sounds, which is all good. But I’m also well aware that when I do phone up crew they seem to invariably be working at something outside of the industry, at least temporarily.

Is it sustainable? Yes, probably, Wellington has been here before, and will be again. And the same group of hard-bitten veterans will somehow always turn up again as the generators kick into life and the contracts get signed. But I fear, I really do, for the young’uns coming through our film schools, or out of other industries, with a dream of working in film, facing the reality of half a year spent doing other work just to experience the excitement of a film set for a few weeks or few months out of every twelve.

Solution: More local scripts being produced. How to get there? How about a direct funding correlation and pipeline between what the big internationals contribute to our economy, and the amount of contestable funding available to our local producers.

Now there’s a policy I would have voted for.

Love your work,

Graeme Tuckett, Guild member