Wellington's Filmmaking Frenzy

A year draws to a close and in Wellington you can pretty much smell the déjà vu on the wind. Once again Miramar is gearing up for a monstrous shoot – that’ll be Squeaky Wheels or Mortal Engines or Hungry Cities, depending whose mailing list you’re on – which will be rolling cameras in late Summer 2017.

And, as always, the offices of Crew Wellington are still receiving emails on a daily basis asking when Avatar 2 is coming to town.

And, again, there’s another extraordinarily exciting shoot happening right under our noses which we can’t even talk about on pain of excommunication and the threat of never carrying a sandbag across Stone Street’s carpark again.

I can also tell you that Crew Wellington’s email server has been running hot with requests for location scouts and managers. Mostly because yet another pack of bloody fools are intending to shoot a car commercial in downtown Wellington a week before Christmas. Never has the sign-off line ‘good luck with that’ seemed more appropriate.

But, somehow, maybe, with the endless forbearance of our film-friendly city council, a streak of bleak good humour from the crew and the endless grim bemusement of a hundred business owners and a thousand car drivers, we will probably pull it off again. This city, walking that mostly non-existent line between a can-do attitude and a hunger for another payday before Christmas, will prevail.

Around the traps, I’m writing this in the lunch tent of the American shoot Palisades, which has been twelve weeks so far of unalloyed fun, cordial relations, balmy weather, and trouble-free days on a selection of comfortable, well-drained, unchallenging and sublimely well-managed and scouted locations. More on this when the medication wears off.

Actually, it’s been a blast. But, rain, quakes and a go-fast schedule have most definitely confirmed all those things we hear about Kiwi crews being the toughest and best attituded in the world.

There has also been a fine little bunch of medium budget TVCs in town, plus various other TV and web projects all taking up crew and resources. We are happily busy down here, as we dodge the crumbling masonry and rising water levels.

Best to you all, and our thoughts and wishes to all our colleagues and comrades up and down the country.

It’s been one of those months that reminds us all of the importance of working to tell the stories that need to be told, but also of how there are so many things in life more important than our jobs.

Love your work,

Graeme Tuckett and Crew Wellington