FILM SCHOOL ON NEW ZEALAND FILM MAKING

The 2Oth Annual Film School was more timely, more relevant to vital issues in New Zealand's film industry than I had realised it would be. The fact is that a Parliamentary Select Committee should meet this year to consider revisions to film legislation and also the Hunt Bill on film censorship.

Now, although a film seminar is not an occasion for making formal resolutions, this one was exceptional in that a number of leading film makers and personalities was gathered to consider New Zealand film making past, present and future, and among the issues raised as necessary for a future were:

Details and other issues were hotly debated, but there seemed to be clear concensus on these four points in principle, and this is important because, as it was rightly noted, "there is a need for a common voice on issues where Government policy affects film makers".

I'll come back to this, but I'd better first mention some of the leading personalities and their contributions.

Geoffrey Scott, manager and producer at the National Film Unit since its early days to the end of last year, when he retired, showed some of the Unit's milestone films, including Paul Maunder's Gone Up North For a While and, perhaps more significantly, described how the Unit had weathered political conflicts with Government, how its films achieved quality and earned revenue largely, as he put it, through the enthusiasm of staff who were prepared at times to work 80 hours a week for peanuts.

John O'Shea, director and producer of Pacific Films, introduced one of his features, Runaway, and other Pacific productions, including the fantasy The Day We Landed on the Most Perfect Planet in the Universe, directed by Tony Williams.

Geoff Murphy, one of the younger independents, screened his comedy Tankbusters and the Maori legend Uenuku.

Martyn Sandersen's contribution was a violently crazy impression of Mick Jaggar in the production of Ned Kelly, called A Stone in the Bush.

These personalities, with Ron Bowie and Paul Maunder of the Film Unit, Bill Sheat of the Queen Elizabeth II Arts Council, Roy Melford (chief producer of the NZBC) and others, contributed to discussions which had both wit and brilliance and reflected alternating enthusiasm, anger, determination and, most impressively, mastery of their subject together with a grasp of the situation and its needs.

Never have I been more convinced that we'll continue to lose highly talented people through the brain drain overseas, unless the film industry gets the support it deserves. I quote Bill Sheat: "The key to the future lies in adequate state support," he said. So far there was none for private production, whereas in many other film-producing countries the film industry had state support in the forms of grants, tax concessions, import restrictions and so on. In comparison New Zealand was disadvantaged.

Modest assistance had been available through the Arts Council. But the current budget was only $35,000 and that could not go far. One possibility for establishing a film production fund was to plough back into the film industry the $300,000 a year revenue from the film hire tax paid by exhibitors. There were other ways of raising finance, but in any case the fund would have to be administered by a separate statutory body with defined rights and obligations.

With a second television channel, the demand for the local product would increase. However, the ban on imported TV commercials, which the Government had considered favourably more than a year ago, has still not been imposed, which leaves New Zealand in the anomalous position of having TV commercials imported from several countries, including Australia, while not being able to export such film to Australia which does have quota protection.

Ways and means to develop New Zealand's highly promising film potential are bound to arouse public interest when the Select Committee begins its deliberations once the Government introduces its revisions to the film legislation.

From a 1974 broadcast on Radio Windy by Catherine de la Roche, reprinted in Sequence, October 1974.

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