The New Zealand Film Commission is a crown entity working to grow the New Zealand film industry. With just 22 staff, the organization is involved in pretty much all areas and aspects of filmmaking in New Zealand from training, funding and promoting locally and international, all that is New Zealand film.

Chief Executive Graeme Mason kindly took the time to have a chat about the current state of the New Zealand film industry, and the Commission’s role within it.

The New Zealand Film Commission is a crown entity working to grow the New Zealand film industry. With just 22 staff, the organization is involved in pretty much all areas and aspects of filmmaking in New Zealand from training, funding and promoting locally and international, all that is New Zealand film.

Chief Executive Graeme Mason kindly took the time to have a chat about the current state of the New Zealand film industry, and the Commission’s role within it.

Welcome home – how was Cannes?

GM: That’s already a blur sadly. Cannes was good, you probably heard this and I know people don’t have sympathy, but it was very wet and cold. 

Yes, no sympathy! What do you get up to over there?

GM: We do multiple things. We promote everything to do with the New Zealand industry, people, projects, whether we’re involved or not. So, when we’re there we answer a lot of questions about how you can film here, what crews and locations are like. We assist producers, writers, and directors with their current projects but also with their new projects. We did a series of eight round tables with other countries, so introducing at each one between half a dozen to ten of our industry people to an equivalent number from another countries like Canada, or the UK, and I and my equivalent lead discussions to foster relationships and look for opportunities. So I guess in the six and a half days I was there I did 100 meetings. 

So there’s no time to dress up and watch a movie?

GM: I didn’t see a single film. I normally don’t actually, it’s very rare to see a movie that isn’t ours, or that isn’t someone that we’re going to work with or are working with. It’s like a trade show really. On one side you’ve got this incredible festival going on, and you’ve got Nicole Kidman, Ang Lee and Steven Spielberg, but behind it you’ve got tens of thousands of people from Bolivia and Uzbekistan either looking to fund films or distribute films in their territory, so you could be selling widgets. 

Thanks goodness your not, that would be a bit boring…

GM: I guess this is my 22nd Cannes film festival, and I’ve been to a lot of the TV ones as well, and the Cannes one you know does have the glamour of the that festival but most people who are there, 95% of the people who are there have nothing to do with the Festival, it’s really the business side around it. 

Are you marketing and selling NZ films while you’re there?

GM: We do, we market and sell NZ films and filmmakers, and in fact even broader than that because the NZFC also looks after international co-productions whether they are film or television and we also look after anything which is applying for the Screen Production Incentive Fund or the Large Budget Fund. We administer both of those so if you’re a big television series coming in here, like ‘Top of the Lake’ was 20% via us, so 60% the BBC, 20% Screen Australia, and 20% us via SPIF, we were talking about that [in Cannes]. 

We had a lot of people asking about post production or people asking about on the back of work Weta Digital and Weta Workshop do, what can they do down here. So we get a lot of attention on that kind of stuff, and so we see our job as promoting that. We promote directors and writers or costume designers who may have interest offshore. Because we’re so far away, a lot of people can’t travel very much or don’t travel very much so we sort of become a de-facto thing for the screen sector when we travel. So that’s how I see, it, that’s what the Film Commissions role’s meant to be, we’re facilitating the industry rather than just a specific project. 

What is NZ’s reputation overseas? Are we still defined by Once Were Warriors, The Piano, Whale Rider and Peter Jackson?

GM: Pretty much, but that’s a good thing. I mean for a really small country at the bottom of the ocean, we get an enormous amount of attention. Which is fantastic. Our short films have been very successful internationally, so within the industry itself, whether that be opinion makers, reviewers, festivals or moving into future work so a lot of the agents, acquisition executives in big companies and the studios, they are very keen on keeping an eye on our short filmmakers. And again I can’t stress enough it’s not just about the director or the film it’s also about, “Well, that looks amazing, I wonder who was the DOP on that?” Or “Where was that filmed it looks incredible, could I go there again?” 

So there are an extraordinary variety of benefits that come from the screen sector for the country as a whole international, which I think a lot of people aren’t always aware of. I mean its fine when you see the tourism things about the 10% uplift off ‘The Hobbit’, and that’s fantastic. I think a lot of people forget that, that it’s an incredible marketing tool. People often see our films at a festival but if you go to Frankfurt or Berlin and see that– it just keeps NZ in your mind… We don’t have the kind of promotional activities that a big country like France or the UK does, so the screen sector is incredible useful for that. 

Can you say what makes a local film successful internationally, and I’m not talking about films such as ‘The Hobbit’ but the films you fund?

GM: I think the things that have traditionally worked best off shore have interestingly being very culturally specific about NZ. Not exclusively but the bulk of them have been. Things like ‘Whale Rider’ or ‘Once Were Warriors’ which are very quintessential Kiwi experiences, or ‘Boy’. Their specificity to NZ somehow also makes them ring true offshore which I think is an interesting thing. We have a lot of points of difference. We don’t have some recognizable things like the Grand Canyon or the Eiffel Tower but what we’ve got is incredible unique cultural mix and I think that plays incredibly well internationally. 

Everyone sees the feature films, but there’s obviously a huge amount of things the Film Commission does under that and you’ve spoken about a few of those things, but what else does it do?

GM: I guess we are the prime supporter of industry development across all factors. So we do training, we do professional development, we do script and story development, we do production funding of shorts and features. With the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Culture and Heritage we assist on co-productions and treaties, we are the competent tax authority and we work with the film archive on the preservation and prosperity of films. We do a lot of work with Ministry of Foreign Affairs on international promotion of the country, so probably once a week, once a fortnight we are involved in some international screening event. Pretty much anything that you can think of that goes into making screen content and anything you can do with it, we assist the government or industry in that. 

Do you see a progression of filmmakers moving through the stages, from the Fresh Shorts, through to Premiere Shorts to Feature Film production?

GM: That’s obviously our primary goal is to keep people moving along, and obviously what we hope is that eventually people also move on to have international careers and the reason we like that is, it’s not like we want them all to leave, but obviously that frees up room behind for other people to continue to come through. It continues building our reputation and then you have people like Jane Campion who come back and do ‘Top of the Lake’ and that’s fantastic. 

Most features that we have at the moment, that I’m thinking of, are people who have come through some other part of our system. So ‘Mt Zion’ which is out this year and is a big hit, Tearepa Kahi obviously had done two shorts - of the top of my head - which we’ve supported. Mark Albiston and Louis Sutherland had ‘Shopping’ in competition in Sundance and Berlin and just in release here now, and again they’d done two worldwide award-winning shorts for us. Taika Waititi came through from shorts with our support before doing two features with our support, so it really is the goal. What it means is that we’re supporting about 22 shorts a year, so they can’t all move into film and television careers, but hopefully we can support several to keep moving forward.

If you look at the industry, what’s the foremost challenge for the Film Commission you see over the next few years?

GM: I think, what we need to really try and do is help as many as possible continue to tell great stories for New Zealand and from New Zealand and they maybe different things. It might be a sci-fi western set on the moon that has no identifiable New Zealand element on screen but its created by New Zealanders so that was something I’d say was from NZ. Or when we’re working on the large budge films like the ‘Avatars’, or I guess Mr. Cameron is now a New Zealand resident so that counts as a New Zealand film.

That’s the biggest challenge because obviously now days, film is seen as a very glamorous and exciting place to work and many more people can make things now, because with your cell phone you can shoot something. Now if you’re all going to shoot on your cellphone then its OK, but most people obviously would like to come to us or NZ on Air and ask for some financial assistance, so its quite simple it’s not possible to fund everybody that wants to do something.

I’ve been asking people to describe in three words the current state of the NZ film industry. What would be your answer?

GM: Creative, resourceful, provoking. 

The industry does seem to be in good shape. Do you think it’s got something to do with Peter Jackson adding a whole new layer to the local industry, that we’ve kind of grown up?

I would hope so. I think there is a spectrum, we’re a really small country and we have ‘The Hobbit’, which you must remember is a local film. It is written, directed and produced by New Zealanders in New Zealand. The production designer is a New Zealander, a good Wellington bloke. That’s an extraordinary thing. There’s so much work here. You’ve got obviously not at the moment, but you’ve got ten years of the ‘Spartacus’, ‘Xena’ things going on, that’s an extraordinary thing that Robert Tapert has done, creating that level of work…

And if you look at the very successful commercial companies that operate out of Auckland and those huge ones that happen out of Queenstown, there’s a thriving TVC market in Queenstown, and around that we’ve had since 2010 the Film Commission has been involved in 40 features and that which excludes our Escalator Films which are our low budget training exercises so I’m not counting those. There have been 40 features that people have put together that we’ve been able to assist in some meaningful way on. And then there’s been a lot of independence on top of that, I think that’s an enormous volume for such a small country and as I understand it, NZ on Air have four or five recurring series on air at the moment, that’s the Platinum fund, there’s actually quite a lot of work.

And what effect has the creation of the Screen Production Incentive Fund had on the industry since its inception in 2008?

GM: I think people can see the opportunity. It was very unfortunate it came about at exactly the same time as the world wide credit issues, and the reason I flag that is because it had huge ramifications through advertising that drives television and it’s acquisitions and funding, and there were some issues with people about how can you afford to go to the cinema but I do think it’s probably kept us on even keel and our very entrepreneurial producers, as things now seems to be coming right, are primed in a great position to make the most of that. 

Are New Zealand films better than Aussie films?

GM: I think I have to say, all independent cinema faces unique challenges and I think each territory, anywhere who isn’t Hollywood or Bollywood, has challenges at the moment, but the real thing to do is to ensure that your telling strong stories that ideally can work for your local audience and then find appreciation abroad. 



Thanks for taking the time to talk to us, I hope you’ve enjoyed New Zealand Film Month on Rialto Channel.