How We Created World Class Performance

Dr Ruth Harley, CEO, New Zealand Film Commission

11am Showcase Session Wednesday 6 March

The thirteen Academy Award nominations and four BAFTA awards including best film and best director for Peter Jackson's New Zealand feature film THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING are the latest proof that the New Zealand film industry has achieved world-class performance.

Less than 30 years ago we had no film industry at all: not even a domestic one.

We couldn't have dreamed that we would create a film industry which would make a production to be released on 5000 prints worldwide which would become one of the top ten earners of all time - in the same list as GONE WITH THE WIND.

We did have state-run weekly newsreels. We did have a new television system. But though we were keen filmgoers, we could see only other people's films. And 30 years ago only a few dreamers believed that we could or should be making our own movies.

There was no possibility of feature film production on a regular scale - till the then National Government under Alan Highet established the Film Commission.

Its mission: to support and encourage New Zealanders to make films in New Zealand to tell New Zealand stories.

It certainly began as a cultural endeavour. The government was persuaded that it was unhealthy for New Zealanders only to see other people's images, only to hear other people's voices, only to experience other people's stories.

In its first year in 1978, the Film Commission had $600,000 in its budget, and it spent only half of it.

But the availability of some money - for investment in New Zealand films - triggered a rush of excitement among a group of talented New Zealanders who were at last able to focus on doing what they had not been able to afford to do before.

And from that modest start, the Film Commission can lay claim to the achievement of being a key player in helping to create the world class performance that is now evident in terms of internationally-recognised feature films being made in New Zealand by New Zealanders.

New Zealand's achievement on the world stage has now been visible for two decades, though THE LORD OF THE RINGS trilogy is New Zealand's most enormous and exciting achievement to date.

Some other examples of world class performance by New Zealand film-makers:

• Roger Donaldson made his first two features in New Zealand, the second with Film Commission investment. The success of that second feature brought him offers to move to Los Angeles, where as an expatriate New Zealander he has made a total of ten Hollywood films, all of them with substantial commercial success..
• Jane Campion, after making her first feature in Australia, came home to make her second feature, with Film Commission investment. That was AN ANGEL AT MY TABLE, an international award winner and a big seller too; its success enabled her to attract the French finance to make THE PIANO, absolutely an international New Zealand movie which won Academy Awards and the top award at the Cannes Film Festival.
• Vincent Ward, a farmer's son from the Wairarapa, made two New Zealand features in the 1980s - both of them earned official selection for New Zealand in competition at the Cannes Film Festival, the world's leading film competition.
• Lee Tamahori's debut feature ONCE WERE WARRIORS became New Zealand's biggest critical and commercial success, with more than a dozen international awards and sales to more than 60 countries. This one film led this talented New Zealander to an international career which now has him making the new James Bond movie in the UK.

Success comes in many different ways.

And most successful of all the internationally recognised New Zealand film-makers is Peter Jackson.

His talent was immediately visible with his first three features, all financed by the Film Commission.

I'll remind you of their titles, which are fairly descriptive of his early work:

BAD TASTE, MEET THE FEEBLES, and BRAINDEAD.

Those three splatter comedies showed a masterly cinematic storyteller at work. Though the subject matter was rather more for cult audiences than for everyone, it heralded the arrival of another new talent from New Zealand.

Peter's talent reached a much wider international audience with his fourth feature HEAVENLY CREATURES, which was an award winner at the Venice Film Festival

From then on, international financiers were ready to finance whatever he wanted to make - and whatever he wanted to make, he wanted to make at home in New Zealand. He changed the trend - he is a New Zealander of international talent who chooses to live and work at home.

That's five internationally acclaimed New Zealand filmmakers - if there was time, I could give you a list which is twice as long.

It was the Film Commission which provided the early support for these talented people.

What are the elements that we have to work with, to launch such illustrious careers?

Well, firstly, we are in the business of picking winners.

It's a gamble. The stakes are high. The international market is unforgiving, over-supplied, and highly competitive. Many people try for success. Only a few achieve it.

The Film Commission is the research and development agency of the New Zealand film industry. We support the work of hundreds of writers and short films makers. About ten per cent of them get features into production. Around ten per cent of these earn success.

This high attrition rate is a worldwide phenomenon.

It requires determination, confidence and optimism as well as talent to pursue the hope of success.

And our success rate, from a population of less than four million people, has shown the world that New Zealand is a country which creates film-makers whose work is of world class.

So the first ingredient: an ability to find outstanding talent by having the courage to accept a high level of disappointment, and the belief that from it success will flower.

Secondly, the Film Commission has to have the money to support the flowering of the talent.

And it's not grant money. It's always in the form of investment, repaid if and when the completed film earns income. And then shared between the Commission and the film-makers, if there's a profit.

We started, as I said, with less than a million dollars a year.

We now work with an annual budget of around $13 million to finance development and production and marketing.

Of this total, ten per cent comes from the State. Seventy per cent comes from Lottery profits. The remainder from our earnings on the films which we have supported.

Without government investment, we would not have a film industry in New Zealand. Our market of four million people is too small to support it.

From our annual budget of $13million, one of the results was that there were 11 New Zealand movies screening in New Zealand cinemas during our last financial year - and 11 New Zealand movies being promoted worldwide to an audience which follows us closely to find who the next big name will be.

Currently, there's strong international recognition for Christine Jeffs whose first feature is RAIN, and for Robert Sarkies and Lisa Chatfield whose first feature was SCARFIES.

It's not just picking winners and having the resources to support them.

The third element is that we respect creative freedom.

Film Commission investment doesn't dictate rules and regulations for creating films. We work with film-makers - often in the context of fierce debate - to try to ensure the best results. But it's the film-makers' vision which ends up on screen.

The budgets of New Zealand films are tiny by international standards. But they are sufficient to enable film-makers to tell their stories persuasively and often memorably.

The challenge which we give to the creative people who we support is this: they must find New Zealand stories which can then be told in a way which can be understood worldwide.

This brings me to the fourth requirement. It's a matter of having a strong national identity from which artists - in this case film-makers - can draw their stories, tune their voices and create their vision.

It's no accident that many of our strongest films are based on our literature. Thing of ONCE WERE WARRIORS, AN ANGEL AT MY TABLE, and most recently RAIN - all based on books, all original works of New Zealand literature. The creative industries are interdependent.

Our cultural capital is a basic resource for film artists, and in turn it is enriched by our cinematic works.

New Zealand's cultural capital is the well from which the filmmakers draw the inspiration to create unique cinematic images which are simultaneously local and international.

Our cultural capital is the well from which filmmakers draw their inspiration to create unique cinematic images which are culturally specific, original and different --- but which are simultaneously internationally accessible, and not parochial.

Fifthly: we accept the need to play on an international stage from very early in the process of developing films and film-makers.

The film industry is an international business. New Zealanders are avid filmgoers and more than 98 per cent of the time we go to American, English, Australian and French movies. Our films compete head on in this arena. There is no other league to play in.

Think of our film-makers as athletes whose only opportunity to compete in their first race is the Olympics.

It is a tough and punishing environment. Most do not succeed. But those who do succeed are immediately among the best in the world. There is no sheltered spot in which film-making talent can be nurtured.

I firmly believe this is one of the key reasons for the success of New Zealand filmmakers - they either succeed or fail very early in the careers on the world stage. They have to be very talented, very ambitious and very resilient.

A sixth factor is entrepreneurialism.

Film-makers tend to be highly entrepreneurial by nature. But they need to be able to gain the experience of how to use what comes naturally, to advance their own work and to help grow their industry.

Producers and directors are required to construct deals and relationships with a number of parties from different countries to get the investment for any film which is not wholly financed from New Zealand.

This requires filmmakers to have the confidence and contacts and determination and experience and patience to seek such deals and put them in place.

The Commission encourages entrepreneurialism in as many ways as we can:

Our finance is provided as investment not as grants;

We help filmmakers to participate at international markets where they can be exposed to the many deal-making processes;

We are also enabling them to attend specialist financing markets.

The film entrepreneur is as essential to New Zealand's film success as the creative talent which tells the story - and often they're the same people, but not always.

To illustrate my six points, consider Peter Jackson's career.

1. Picking a winner. A big tick for this, but taking the first steps with Peter was such a big call that Jim Booth who was CEO of the Film Commission hid the commitment to Peter for some time, using or misusing his discretionary powers!
2. Having the resources. The Commission's ability to support Peter from very early in his career was essential to getting BAD TASTE made. Peter had come to the end of his family's ability to support his film.
3. Creative freedom. People in the markets still laugh at the fact that a government agency financed films like BAD TASTE, FEEBLES and BRAINDEAD. State-sponsored splatter!
4. Cultural capital. Peter had a unique voice from the beginning. His powerful filmic storytelling ability was singled out by the major international companies from his first splatter comedies, all of which couldn't be set anywhere else except here at home. But the international money waited till he showed willingness to reach more general audiences. And he demonstrated this with his fourth feature HEAVENLY CREATURES which took a true New Zealand story and re-constructed it as a work of great creative fantasy.
5. International environment. The Film Commission launched BAD TASTE in the market at Cannes, and Peter was there to start getting international recognition and making international contacts. The Commission sold BAD TASTE for release in many overseas countries; the results of these releases were a learning curve for Peter and enabled him to start getting a take on how the markets respond.
6. Entrepreneuralism. Peter's own campaign for BAD TASTE featured an alien holding a machine gun and making a rude sign with his finger. Everyone used Peter's campaign except the French distributor, and France was the only country where the film wasn't a popular success. The French distributor blamed the fact that he had failed to recognise that as well as delivering a successful movie, Peter had also delivered a successful and effective campaign.

To finance Peter Jackson's first four feature films, the Film Commission invested a total of around $5million.

Since then, Peter's ideas have attracted finance for more thanr $650million of production - that's a huge amount of creative employment of New Zealanders.

That's not only over a hundred times more than the Commission's investment in his first four features.

It's also more than three times as much as the Commission's total expenditure on film-making in our country during the entire 24 years of our existence.

As well as Peter Jackson, we now have at least another six film-makers working here at home with finance from offshore.

And remember - everything that I've told you is predicated on the fact that our film-makers have to compete on the world stage.

Peter's success gives us a new opportunity to grow our industry so we concentrate on the areas where we can lift our game - this means we must continue to increase our international connections while at the same time encouraging the best film-making talent to speak with a unique voice.

We need to work with the best in the world to support the development of our talent and our opportunities in the world market.

We also test the quality of our films by offering them to the world's top film festivals, where official selection is an indication of high calibre film-making.

Every time a New Zealand film is selected for Cannes or Berlin or Venice or Toronto or Montreal or New York or Sundance, or the other top film culture events, this is a further indication of the level of success.

And as well as festivals and markets, the Film Commission is involved in a wide range of initiatives to keep the quality of the development process up to the highest achievable standard.

This year we have a film project honoured by being invited to participate in a screenwriting lab at the Sundance Film Institute.

This year we took a group of filmmakers to the Cinemart at the Rotterdam Film Festival, where film business people mix with film creative people to see which projects have the strength to attract international support.

We brought senior development executives with strong international experience to New Zealand to run workshops with film-makers.

We have enabled a promising young producer to have an internership with an international production company.

We have assisted another young producer to gain work experience with a substantial international distribution company.

We work hard to maintain and develop relationships with expatriate New Zealanders who are an enormous resource for us.

.... All this is in the service of growing the international experience and awareness of our filmmakers, and growing the cultural and economic value of the New Zealand film industry.

I've told you a lot about the successes we have had. But there are a couple of clouds on our horizon.

The fact that New Zealand television and NZOn Air do not see themselves as part and parcel of the film industry - unlike every other country in the world - is a real problem for us.

Everywhere else in the world, the growth of the film industry is dependent on strong television support.

The failure of television arrangements in New Zealand to provide this support needs to be addressed by strategic coordination of governing resources.

We're also discussing the downturn in lottery profits, as the state lottery has been a significant source of finance for the Commission since its earliest days.

But let's leave those two small clouds in the sky which is otherwise a blue sky of the best kind.

And let's acknowledge that the film industry in its third decade is recognised as one of the real and strong contributors to New Zealand's knowledge economy.

It has achieved great success, and the Oscar nominations and Bafta awards are just the latest proof of this - not to mention the billion dollar box office of the first LORD OF THE RINGS movie, which has become one of the top ten earners in the entire history of world cinema.

The Film Commission wants to be sure that such successes can continue, and that the next generation of filmmakers can develop and flourish.