Roll on the Third Generation...

Helen Bollinger – Helbol to more than one generation – writes with good humour and insight on the joys and perils of bringing the family onto the film set.

Matt Murphy’s Pork Pie is a good example among a number of recent productions where three generations of inter-related families worked together. There’s a phenomenon afoot whereby grandchildren work alongside their parents, grandparents and extended family on NZ film and television productions. There are too many families to mention here, but you know who you are.

This inter-generational phenomenon breeds questions like: why would we baby boomers encourage our young to run off to join the same kind of dodgy circus we did? And, what are the continuities and differences between what it means to work in the film industry then and now? Do work roles still tend to be gender-specific and, if so, why? Do women filmmakers who raise children continue making movies? Who creates the filmmaking ‘dynasties?’ The following observations are based on my own experience and on conversations with film workers of all generations.

There was just a handful of freelance filmmakers during the 1970s in NZ. The work was often unpaid, self-motivated, experimental and occurred as an extension of a bohemian way of life. Or maybe it was the other way round? Our work was not perceived to be particularly relevant until independent films were screened from the late 1970s.

When we baby boomers opted out of the nine-to-five life-sentence and chose filmmaking’s intermittent employment with regular and unpredictable periods of unemployment, it was chronically bewildering for our own parents who, having grown up during worldwide economic depression and war, had a great desire for job security.

“When are you going to get a real job?” they would ask wistfully.

As it turns out, what my generation of filmmakers chose fifty-ish years ago has today become the new normal, where job security exists for very few people. We conditioned our children and they their children with this notion of job precariousness. Now, workers everywhere are part of the new proletariat – ‘the precariat’.

Nature via Nurture? The traditional job of the teenager is to challenge and rebel against the values of the parents. For our children perhaps it felt pointless to rebel against parents who were rebels themselves. Mind you, it could have gone this way…

“Dammit mum and dad! Enough of this creativity and freedom. I’m off to join Gloriavale and to train up as a bank manager!”

“If only…!” Do I hear you mutter? “Especially the bank manager bit.”

Many of our 1980s teens just rebelled against the next layer of compliance which happened to be school which they left early to go straight into film work. They talk about falling into film work because it was easy, because they knew what to do. They enjoyed the creative collaboration, the travel, and felt they were in good company.

Is nepotism a factor? Sure! It worked in 5000 BC and it works today. Family will work for love if there’s no money. Are there any of us who haven’t worked for free on the projects of family and friends? Nepotism is not necessarily a bad thing in the film biz because of the close working relationships on set – better the devil you know…

Through the affectional community of the crew, our peers keep a friendly eye on the new kid on set. However, regardless of who the new kid is related to, if she chooses to watch the monitor when she should be rolling cables this could well be her last film job.

The paradox is that film work can be hard on families. It would be interesting to run the numbers to see if film workers had higher divorce rates than other occupations given the long hours of work, recreational temptations, long absences from home, and dedication to the work in hand to the exclusion of all else. To illustrate: let us imagine this scenario where Albol is glued to an eyepiece when the news comes that I’ve been mortally wounded by a low-flying wood pigeon… Al finishes the shot, checks that the director is happy with the take and that the gate is clear and then says, “Oh shit! Poor Helbol. When’s the next day off?”

Our children learned never to place anything on a lens case. In the early days of Waimarama our children were more or less brought up on set; they were in the show because they were there and because babysitters hadn’t been invented.

Empirically the young ones came to observe and eventually take part in the creative processes of shooting a movie. The children absorbed set etiquette, multitasking and fluid hierarchy as the cameraman and director built the props and sets before shooting them. As teenagers some of the Waimarama kids made their own movies, back in the days of Bolex and Nagra.

The kids also observed their mothers simultaneously whipping up costumes whilst cooking dinner for thirty, recording sound in a canoe while breastfeeding twins and then production managing a feature film whilst giving birth… Oh, perhaps I exaggerate a tad, but you get the picture. The children observed their parents working creatively, cooperatively in mainly traditional gender-roles. At this time these roles were mostly defined by physical strength, availability, aptitude and fertility. For example, although the women frequently helped crash-start the Blerta Bus, only the blokes operated the camera crane, mainly because they weren’t pregnant and had not learned how to sew – poor things. The women constructed costumes because they’d learned to sew at school and it was a job they could do while keeping an eye on marauding toddlers, sleeping baby and simmering casserole.

Gender-stereotypical roles – has anything changed? Yes and no. Gone are the days when an NFU female employee went by the honorary title of ‘Bruce’ and was refused location work on the grounds that she might get pregnant. Although there are now more females working around the camera, more female directors, producers and ADs, today’s work roles mainly continue along traditional gender lines. Costume, casting and hair/makeup departments are still female dominated.

A number of local initiatives aimed at creatively empowering women filmmakers may help dislodge the sorry but persistent tatters of institutionalised sexism.

With practice, Kiwi filmmakers have gotten pretty darned good at visual storytelling, and levels of skill and professionalism are world-class. The roaring success of a number of NZ films has contributed to a change in public perception whereby the 6,600 of us who attempt to earn a living from making television and movies in NZ are now valued for our contributions to the culture and to the bank balance of the nation.

Nevertheless, many aspects of film-work culture remain unchanged fifty years down the track. These include job precariousness, long hours, no real rise in pay rates, and the many requests to work for free.

On the other hand, much has changed.

We 1970s filmos are no longer young and lurch closer to our three-score-years-and-ten allotment. My generation did its apprenticeship with film and analogue technology but have now (with some kicking and screaming) embraced digital media. This is pretty good going for those who grew up with bakelite party-line telephones stuck to the wall and no TV. Now we have prehensile children and grandchildren to help us. We can even attend seminars run by clever young filmmakers like the Candlewasters on how to produce web series.

So, roll on the second and third generations!

We need you as much as you need us.