Wellington's Film Pulse

One of the trickiest things about this quarterly gig – which I enjoy immensely – is making sure I don’t repeat myself too tragically between the editorial and this Wellington Diary. Since I usually write both on the same day, sometimes I find I’m basically rewriting the editorial when I sit down to do this piece, or vice versa.

But not today. Because although the editorial is a basically chatty affair about what our Guild has been doing for us in the last few months, this is more of a very Wellington rant.

And, surprisingly, it’s kind of a positive one.

Look, I know the last six months (at least) has been tough. There’s been a few TVCs coming to town, some pick-ups on Mortal Engines/Hungry Cities and at least one feature film – David Stubbs’ Daffodils – at Avalon and on location, and the What We Do In The Shadows spin-off series rolling out around our beautiful little city.

But that’s not really enough to call a sustainable, ongoing industry for the number of crew who live here. The less-than-welcome news that cameras aren’t expected to be unpacked on Avatar until early 2019 also came as a body blow to many Wellington crew. Although the set building and all other construction work isn’t far away, and many Wellington people will be gainfully employed there at least.

It feels like it’s been this way for years now. And what has sprung up to take up the slack is a whole cottage industry of self-funded, crowd-sourced, or low-funded projects. Some of them go on to be widely seen and revered, others vanish onto a few websites and show-reels, never to be seen again except by a few involved people.

Every day, in my capacity as the guy who runs Crew Wellington and co-runs Crew Auckland, I’m sent a bunch of CVs and links for people hoping to be on our books. And every day I’m blown away by the sheer number of projects and shoots that are happening in our region, below the radar of the established industry.

There is a massive outpouring of creativity happening across the country right now, and it is good to see.

I’m not saying for a minute that this explosion of low and no-budget work is in any way great news for the established technicians and crew who are enduring a very lean couple of months. But I do at least want to find something to celebrate in it.

The old joke that the New Zealand film industry has a great future and has had for a long time is usually delivered with a slightly rueful smile, and I get that. Times are not great. The majority of the people who apply to join Crew Welly I turn away because there isn’t the work out there.

But every film industry needs its dreamers and strivers, working away towards the future. In New Zealand, that level of our industry at least, seems inextinguishable.