We've Been on This Merry-go-round Before

Longtime cinematographer Waka Attewell gives some food for thought on a path well-travelled.

To be a true believer in being a freelance technician you have to be addicted to the business… addicted to the ups and downs, the highs and lows, rough and tumble… apparently the extremes are the drug. To survive and prosper is actually about how we cope with our disappointments and successes.

It seems, over the last 40 years, that every time I thought I had a defined ‘career’ everything instantly ground to a halt and I, yet again, had to reinvent myself. Maybe constant reinvention is the clue here?

When it comes to wanting an industry to find a secure job in, the film and TV business is not it. At best it’s a dog-eat-hound business, always has been. It’s referred to it as an ‘industry’ – makes it sound like a sausage factory eh? And when you boil it down that’s what it is - a few local studios dominating the roost having supplied a sort of form of job security. Their production tends to be ‘safe’ - ‘safe’ is the by-product of the arts bureaucracy we’ve managed to create.

But didn’t we get into this biz for the ‘rough and tumble’ not the security? To say it’s a wee bit fragile wouldn’t be an exaggeration – and we’ve just come to the end of our 20 (or so) years of boom time. It seems Great Britain has just picked up - having a turn at turning the sod - money talks and again a few will get mighty rich. This happens when Hollywood gets its slippers under the bed. It’s actually the proverbial ‘race to the bottom’.

The film and TV business must be inventive, dangerous and about something – it can’t be complacent, to function it must explore the unknown… push the edges, breathe hope into the hopeless – it’s ‘the dream factory’ - but it must also maintain a large resource of expensive equipment. This is a dilemma. A country in the corner of the world must firstly adopt a cargo-cult mentality to lure the Hollywood machine. We built it and they came. Maybe our problem was we desired to be like them folks just a wee bit too much?

Those nice folks down in Wellington believed that the film and TV business was glamorous – with that comes the idea that we’re overpaid, underworked and just have a good old time. The politicians took the photo ops with the rock stars, whilst we took the drop in rates, which is the inevitable by-product of growth, competition and the creation of a sustainable infrastructure. We got big – but before that we got good – we invested in ourselves… then the big boys who owned the ball came to play – we let them play with the wind at their backs and then they went home with the ball.

But we weren’t done playing yet? Oh yes you are and we’ve got the ball, it’s see ya … and here I was thinking we were going to be buddies forever.

No matter how good you are at your job, how competitive your rate is – the bad news is there is nothing we can do about the exchange rate of the NZ dollar against the US, and what sized carrot the present Government is prepared to dangle.

So in short if you want total security to pay the rent, feed the kids and send them to a good school – retrain now as a plumber. It’s the techos dilemma – a large few will move offshore chasing the work (if you have a duel UKNZ passport go for it) – but the film business here will recover with or without you, it always does … and that is mostly up to your desire, hope and commitment for the thing we call the ‘biz’. The film biz that eventually arrives back won’t be like the one that’s just left town… Now here’s a thought, is the end of cinema nigh?

Waka Attewell is a freelance cinematographer, director and writer – he’s a 40- year survivor of the local and the international film and TV business. He lives on a small sheep and beef farm in Otaki.