Film fund hopes less stress equals more success

New Zealand Film Commission chief executive Graeme Mason. Photo / Mark Mitchell

Four groups of local film makers were last night announced as the recipients of $250,000 as part of the NZ Film Commission funding initiative 'Escalator'.

In February, the Film Commission requested feature film concept submissions from teams of two or more.

The Commission received 753 film ideas from 251 teams, which was then reduced to a dozen teams.

The successful groups then attended a three-day workshop in June, before being given three months to develop their idea.

Gerard Johnstone, co-creator of The Jaquie Brown Diaries, took a pragmatic approach to his application.

"I was thinking 'oh well horrors always really work well', because the lack of money sort of adds to it."

Johnstone, a two-time V48Hours film competition national winner, now has time to perfect his draft script.

He says the biggest challenge will be to find the balance between horror, and the genre he feels most naturally inclined to - comedy.

"What appealed to me about Escalator was even though it was low budget, it was like 'if you get this, you're making it', which is quite contrary to how [the Film Commission] have worked in the past. Often things can be in development for years, but with this they want us shooting within six months."

The scheme was set up to try and bridge the gap between those just starting out, making music-videos or short films, and what NZ Film Commission CEO Graeme Mason calls "full budget features".

"If at $250,000 we can see positives but it didn't quite work, you can still see how you're going to go forward with those people again," says Mason.

"Whereas if you've got big features that cost millions of dollars that no one went to and looked like train wrecks - that's very hard for the creatives behind it to come back."

It's not the first time the Film Commission has tried to plug a gap in the industry. The Headstrong fund was set up in 2005 to originally fund four digital features. It then decided to increase the budgets to be competitive in the marketplace and backed only two projects; The Devil Dared Me To and A Song Of Good

"The four picks are interesting," says V48Hours head Ant Timpson.

"On one hand I think there were some bold original choices but on the other hand you have to consider the tricky road ahead in their finding an audience."

Timpson was one of the executive producers of the Headstrong fund, and was in an Escalator team that pulled out after making the final 12.

"The main differences between the original devolved Headstrong digital scheme and the NZFC-run Escalator scheme, is that these new films are being made with less money, the marketplace is even more clogged and chaotic, there are no EPs or distributors on board to help guide their trajectory through the wild west that is distribution today."

But he also sees positives.

"The good news is true talent does rise above the clutter, a great movie should always find an audience and four additional films will be made in New Zealand during 2011."

Graeme Mason thinks not having the weight of a big cinema release will ultimately see all four Escalator features being made - and has committed to the scheme for three years.

"For a $250,000 film, if you want it to go wide-release, you would spend significantly more than that on traditional release costs. So if we take that away and look at new means of distribution, I do believe you'll end up with all these films being seen."

The nature of the successful films themselves also lends themselves to different forms of distribution, according to Mason.

"Would these be better off being streamed, or would the zombie movie be well served by going to every college and university around the country?"

The successful teams were:

Film: Housebound
Who: Gerard Johnstone (writer/director) and Luke Sharpe (producer)
What: When serial offender Kylie Baxter is placed on home detention, she is forced to come to terms with her dithering parents, her unsociable attitudes and a tormented soul that lives within the walls.

Film: Existence
Who: Juliet Bergh (writer/director), Jessica Charlton (writer), Mhairead Connor (producer), Melissa Dodd (producer)
What: Existence is a salvage punk Western set in a post-apocalyptic future. Trapped by her circumstances behind an enclosing fence, Freya dreams of escape and pursues a mysterious outsider who can free her. She destroys her world to discover that the reality of her existence was not what she imagined.

Film: I Survived a Zombie Holocaust
Who: Guy Pigden (writer/director), Harvey Neville (writer), Zoe Hobson (producer)
What: Wesley, a young runner on a zombie film set, has the first day from hell when real zombies overrun the film set. Who are the real zombies and who are the extras? Decapitate with care!

Film: Timeslow
Who: Sally Tran (writer/director), Omar Crawford (writer), Owen Hughes (producer)
What: Henry is forced to re-evaluate his entire life when he discovers the secret to slowing down time, and is propelled into a shifting world of intrigue and danger.