Shifting Industry Practices

Our industry relies heavily on goodwill to get low-budget and no-budget projects made, the recently released Second Hand Wedding being a classic example. Such films could not reach the screen without the goodwill and charity of actors, crew, equipment providers, and the many others involved.

I’ve done quite a few freebies and cheapies myself over the last few years — throughout my working life really — but I’ve decided to give them up. From now on I’m going to save my altruistic tendencies for community projects which I can be involved in without leaving the comfort and familiarity of my own home town. (I wonder how long I’ll be able to keep to my word on this?)

When it comes to short films or under-budgeted larger projects, I figure those projects should be crewed with up-and-comers. They can offer opportunities for people to step up.

Me — I’m happy to hang out down here on the Wild West Coast till the right project comes along at the right time, or until we get desperate for dosh.

I’ve been getting quite a few scripts to read recently, all Kiwi drama, some TV, some big screen, and all bloody good scripts. I find it very heartening that, one: there looks to be quite a lot of home-grown drama going into production, and two: that it’s of a high standard at the script stage. Good scripts are just the best place to start if we want to make good drama.

And now we have the new Screen Production Incentive Fund (SPIF) in place, we could see a vigorous blossoming of local drama production.

I have an apology to make.

In the last issue of NZTECHO I made a comment about a job down south as if it were firsted by a totally inexperienced first AD. I was wrong. The first AD has worked as a third, as a second and as a first AD before.

There were many complaints about the job, as I noted in my column, and many of those complaints seemed to be aimed towards the first AD and the way the shoot was run. Perhaps the problems stemmed from the fact that the first AD was also the locations manager on the same job. Or rather, the locations manager was attempting to first the job as well as manage the locations.

Nobody should be attempting to fill both these roles on any shoot — and this was not a simple shoot! I can’t see how anyone attempting to do both these jobs on a tricky backcountry shoot is going to be able to do either job satisfactorily.

And from a Techos’ Guild perspective, we cannot condone such a situation.

…AlBol