Hard News: Just Friday
171 Responses
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Geoff: I have a greater than average number of legs.
Wow. If it means in these here parts the same thing it means back home, I bet you're a very popular fella.
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"According to statistics, in 1998 there were 318,000 women in the UK who said they were engaged to be married and 218,000 men who said they were engaged to be married" (anon)
Now see, that's just polygamy hopefuls waiting for a law change.
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We could do a controlled experiment, get twelve PAS readers and ask them to summarise the contents in 300 words or less
It would have to be Proust of course.
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I have a greater than average number of legs
And by the same token, most of us reading have a greater than average number of eyes ...
I bet you're a very popular fella.
... and the readership as a whole has a greater average number of male sexual organs than the general population.
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Giovanni: I meant it in a purely innocent and statistical sense :D
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Hey, so is Mary Wilson going to interview Noelle?
lol
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It would have to be Proust of course.
<sings>Proust, in his first book, in his first book...</sings>
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Think the use of the Lange speech by a brewery is pretty tacky, both in terms of the constant (mis)appropriation of culture for commercial ends, but also using an acknowledged alcoholic to sell beer.
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That Deborah Coddington column is a real concern. One example:
"Everywhere you look, a disgrace can be found. A little-known documentary, Trouble is my Business, was funded by the commission and made by a staff member."
That little-known documentary screened in Film Festivals in Auckland, Wellington, Chch, Hamilton and Dunedin this year. It was made by Juliette Veber, who produced Toy Love and The Price of Milk for Harry Sinclair. More important, it seems she started it long before she was a staff member, as this excerpt from an Idealog profile shows:
"New director Juliette Veber did without the day job. In Trouble is My Business, her unflinching camera follows Gary Peach, assistant principal at Mangere’s Aorere College, as he fights to keep the kids in school. Veber took an 18-month break from her job as a freelance production manager and immersed herself in South Auckland. She did everything herself, running behind Peach as he charges around the school and neighbourhood. An early grant of $19,000 from the Screen Innovation Fund held the wolf from the door and, because the film was accepted into the Film Festival, she earned a post-production grant to finish it. Friends and industry contacts pitched in with skills, use of facilities and encouragement.
“It’s not that common to immerse yourself in that world”, says Veber. “I wouldn’t do another in such an extreme way, but unless I committed I would never have that access.” She has just finished showing the film to the kids and their families, and now earns a regular income as manager of short films at the Film Commission."
The inference in Coddington's column is that this "little-known" film was only funded because Veber worked at the NZFC -- ie a corrupt process. That's clearly not the case. But why let the facts etc etc.
That was one of 14 NZ films to debut at the Festival this year. It's likely that none of them would have been made without the NZFC and/or Creative NZ. Of course, very few -- if any -- will return the investment, but does that mean we shouldn't be in the risky and speculative business of film production? Out of the Blue wasn't an international hit, nor was Rain of the Children. But "the culture" was better off for both of them. Unless you're the kind of ideological purist who thinks that bookshops can do the business of libraries.
There's a famous line often attributed to screenwriter William Goldman: "Nobody knows anything." It means that no one can predict what will be a hit and what won't. You can spend US$130m on a film called Australia starring Nicole Kidman and find it only takes US$10m in its first weekend. It's easy to be wise after the event. The Ferryman probably looked like a sure thing -- another NZ horror, a LOTR star -- whereas Second Hand Wedding looked like a risk, with a first-time director, relatively unknown writers, a pretty ordinary script and only one name actor (Brophy). It was lucky to get some good media behind it. But audiences are hugely unpredictable and it could just as easily have tanked.
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Think the use of the Lange speech by a brewery is pretty tacky, both in terms of the constant (mis)appropriation of culture for commercial ends, but also using an acknowledged alcoholic to sell beer.
What Shaun said.
It is revoltingly tacky to use what is probably the finest speech made by a New Zealander - one that resonated around the world, making NZ and its inhabitants seem brilliant and rather heroic by association - to promote something that is the ugliest and most damaging facet of NZ society - the corporate muscle behind the booze culture.
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The Ferryman probably looked like a sure thing -- another NZ horror, a LOTR star -- whereas Second Hand Wedding looked like a risk, with a first-time director, relatively unknown writers, a pretty ordinary script and only one name actor (Brophy). It was lucky to get some good media behind it. But audiences are hugely unpredictable and it could just as easily have tanked.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but we seem to have produced a few low budget horror movies that have tanked - Perfect Creatures, The Irrefutable Truth About Demons, and now The Ferryman, (how well did Peter Jackson's splatter movies do anyway?).
Whereas we've produced a small string of low budget light dramas, - Sione's Wedding, No. 2, 2nd Hand Wedding, which have done better...
I'll use foresight to suggest that any low budget horror produced in New Zealand probably doesn't have an audience sufficient to make it profitable. Make a light drama/comedy, and you might be in business.
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Have to agree, Coddington's swipe at Juliette Veber's film was ignorant and underhand. If anything, Trouble is My Business is the sort of film that the Commission should be more involved with making. I have no idea what struggles Veber had to go through to get her film made, but there's no way she could have been the recipient of some kind of privileged favouritism. Shame on Coddington for implying it.
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Not really true, Andrew. The thing is that NZ horror films have had an international festival and video audience, largely thanks to Peter Jackson's rep -- which is why The Irrefutable Truth About Demons was released on video in the US, only titled The Truth About Demons -- and why the NZFC actively went into horror production a few years ago. Black Sheep was one of the relative successes, both here and abroad. I don't know how The Tattooist did. Perfect Creature wasn't a hit, but from memory a large proportion of the funding came from offshore.
Sione's, No 2 and Second-Hand did better here but did no business overseas.
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Sione's, No 2 and Second-Hand did better here but did no business overseas
That was in the back of my mind - the horror productions looking for overseas success a la PJ - is it possible the Ferryman could go this way?
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Thank you, Philip. Someone needs to defend the Film Commission from know-nothings such as Coddington. It was interesting, for example, that John Barnett and John Maynard might have different takes on funding regimes but both believe in the cultural brief of NZFC. They had a very amicable debate about this at the SPADA conference.
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@Dyan:
What Shaun said.
It is revoltingly tacky to use what is probably the finest speech made by a New Zealander - one that resonated around the world, making NZ and its inhabitants seem brilliant and rather heroic by association - to promote something that is the ugliest and most damaging facet of NZ society - the corporate muscle behind the booze culture.
And yet ... Margaret Pope, who wrote the speech (but not, obviously, its brilliant extemporising), was there on the night it was delivered, and subsequently lived with David Lange till he died, was totally okay with it, and thought that Lange would have been too.
So it's not simple. Which is why I thought it was worth discussing.
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It's not the Film commission that needs defending, it's those who it's supposed to serve, the public and the filmmakers. Autocratic management, weak ministerial oversight, and a disinterested political opposition have simply provided Coddington with an opportunity to score points, some of which, given her cheap-shot scattergun approach, just happen to be valid.
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(And you know something's very wrong with the world when Coddington's making valid points.)
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Further to the discussion before about the commercial validity of NZ horror films, the NZFC annual report has 168,000 tickets sold in the UK for Black Sheep and 150,000 DVDs. It took $500,000 at the box office in Australia.
Also, 178,000 DVDs were sold of The Tattooist in the US. The NZ box office for The Tattooist was $575,000 which is pretty good for a film of that type.
That dreaded Ferryman sold some 95,000 DVDs in the US and somehow took US$125,000 over two weeks in cinemas in the United Arab Republic. It ran for six weeks in cinemas in Singapore and Malaysia.
I know that Coddington read the same report I just did. So how can she claim that "Not one theatre bought this movie. The commission says 16,000 people have seen The Ferryman, but look closely and you realise this is based on a DVD being rented 13 times and seen each time by 2.5 people (was the third person half-asleep?)."
As they say, she's entitled to her own opinions but not her own facts.
The report also has Eagle vs Shark in 70 US cinemas and selling 62,000 DVDs. In the same year, we have Rain of the Children, Apron Strings, Rubbings from a Live Man, A Song for Good, The Hollow Men, the aforementioned Second Hand Wedding ... Those with memories that stretch back into the '90s would know that this actually looks like a pretty good year.
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Russell said:
And yet ... Margaret Pope, who wrote the speech (but not, obviously, its brilliant extemporising), was there on the night it was delivered, and subsequently lived with David Lange till he died, was totally okay with it, and thought that Lange would have been too.
So it's not simple. Which is why I thought it was worth discussing.
Yeah, these things are never simple- and you are right, it is worth discussing.
I guess it is hard to assess the motivations for Margaret Pope agreeing to the speech being used to sell beer, or why Lange might have agreed if he was still alive.
The speech is a powerful moment in defining a New Zealand identity to a world audience in an enduring way, and perhaps one of the first non-sporting examples of that. It is a moment many of us will remember with a certain pride in what Dyan eloquently described as us feeling “brilliant and rather heroic by association.”
Ego- of Pope as the author- and Lange’s desire to be remembered and loved (despite heading a government that economically devastated a lot of lives through their term and paved the way for the further rightward lurch of the subsequent National Govt), could in some way explain why they would be happy to have the speech again put in front of people, albeit in this context. In some ways, it has parallels with artists (assuming they hold the rights) allowing corporates to use their songs in advertising campaigns- although there is undoubtedly a financial incentive in those instances. I assume that the recording of the speech is in the public domain, so no payment or actual permission was required before using?
It kinda grates how a brewery is trying to associate itself with a progressive political movement (anti-nuclear) after the fact. Is their next tag-line going to be “Steinlager- supporting a nuclear free nz since 1987”- or would even they find that a bit too tacky?
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Thank you, Philip. Someone needs to defend the Film Commission from know-nothings such as Coddington. It was interesting, for example, that John Barnett and John Maynard might have different takes on funding regimes but both believe in the cultural brief of NZFC. They had a very amicable debate about this at the SPADA conference.
Thanks, Geoff. This know-nothing taxpayer will STFU now. Perhaps the Film Commission -- and NZ On Air and Creative New Zealand -- wouldn't need "defending" if they weren't do damn opaque and downright defensive in the first place. And in my view, Finlayson would actually do arts funding bodies if he demanded they undergo a plain English audit, and didn't treat public scrutiny or criticism as some kind of Philistine mugging. While "cultural briefs' may be self-evident to you, Geoff, others among us need a lot more convincing.
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Finlayson would actually do arts funding bodies (a favour) if he demanded they undergo a plain English audit, and didn't treat public scrutiny or criticism as some kind of Philistine mugging.
Craig - whether or not it was your intention, you've summed up something of Ruth Harley's approach as Film Commission CEO rather well there. A pity, though, that Chris Finlayson didn't apply a little more "scrutiny or criticism" to the NZFC in his time as shadow Arts Minister.
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There's a famous line often attributed to screenwriter William Goldman: "Nobody knows anything." It means that no one can predict what will be a hit and what won't. You can spend US$130m on a film called Australia starring Nicole Kidman and find it only takes US$10m in its first weekend. It's easy to be wise after the event.
Phillip, you're making some good points. However, I'd suggest anyone working in the film industry who couldn't see that 'Australia' had a far greater than usual potential to become a total disaster should perhaps take some time out to do some good hard naval-gazing.
Directed by Baz Lurgi, who only knows how to make monotonal, single-pace films. Fine for shallow eye candy like 'Moulin Rouge'. Not at all good for historical epics.
Starring Nicole Kidman. The last time she made a film worth going to see was.....uh....someone help me out here?
Add an enormous dash of hubris. It's called 'Australia' ffs. If that ain't a clear signpost that suggests the director's ego is raging out of control, then I don't know what is.
Yes, no-one knows anything. You don't know which nag is going to cross the line first at Ellerslie, but you can bet on the odds. It might be the 50-1 long shot, but it's more likely to be the 2-1 favourite
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And yet ... Margaret Pope, who wrote the speech (but not, obviously, its brilliant extemporising), was there on the night it was delivered, and subsequently lived with David Lange till he died, was totally okay with it, and thought that Lange would have been too.
I'm tempted to say it's their speech, and they can do what they want with it. If they're happy for a beer company to use it, well, up to them I guess.
What it says about the beer company, who are suddenly nationalistic beyond their association with the All Blacks in a whole left-wing way, well that's another angle.
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The last Nicole Kidman movie worth seeing? She did a bunch of quite interesting films earlier this decade: The Others, The Hours, Birth, Dogville, even Cold Mountain. She hasn't had a hit in years but she's still probably one of the only actresses with the name recognition to attach to a purported blockbuster. And I largely agree about Baz -- I hated Moulin Rouge. But my point was that whichever studio or backers funded Australia figured that the combo of Kidman, Jackman and Baz with a historical-romance epic -- people keep evoking Gone with the Wind and David Lean -- and timed for Christmas was a good bet.
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