Telecom looking to keep Film Net in the picture

By PETER GRIFFIN

As post-production on The Lord of the Rings winds down, Telecom is trying to keep the momentum going for its Film Net service, used extensively by director Peter Jackson to ship digital film footage around the world.

Film Net was developed around the production needs of the team working on the Rings trilogy, but has also been used for other productions such as The Last Samurai, shot in Taranaki, and by advert production houses such as Oktober.

Now Telecom is looking to cash in on productions such as the big-budget Narnia Chronicles movies.

Over the weekend a TV advertising campaign fronted by Lord of the Rings and Matrix producer Barrie Osborne began screening, in which Osborne espouses the virtues of being able to send large amounts of footage over fibre cables from production houses in Wellington to Los Angeles and London.

Telecom was also pitching Film Net to smaller producers at the Screen Producers and Development Association conference over the weekend, encouraging them to use Film Net on a more permanent basis.

Those producers are keen to talk up Film Net overseas in their bid to attract work to New Zealand, but want to be quoted a price, something difficult to estimate for the tailor-made service.

Jackson's production house, Weta Digital, became a big customer of Telecom when it began using mobile satellite receivers to send digital footage between locations.

Shooting sections of the three movies simultaneously, Jackson was able to have the footage sent to where he was working and edit and vet footage on location. "Effectively he could be in several places at the same time, directing three units," Telecom's John Boon said.

Capacity on Telecom's undersea cables, such as the Southern Cross Cable was used for post-production.

Weta IT manager Scott Houston said as post-production continued, Jackson, in London overseeing the recording of the musical score, was able to continue editing the movies.

Although 90 megabit circuits could be leased to send the footage around the world, "last mile" access sometimes proved a headache.

"They had to dump [footage] on to an iPod and take it physically to [Jackson's] house," Houston said.

Telecom is considering hosting a bureau service where producers can use Film Net services without having to pay for cabling into their premises or for equipment and bandwidth capacity that may be used infrequently.

Louise Baker, the chief executive of Film New Zealand, said she was interested in working closer with Telecom so the service could become an element of marketing New Zealand as a technology-enabled film location.