From left, Eastern Screen Alliance manager Patrick Sherratt, ESA board member Daniel Betty and Te Awa Talent owner Karen Taiapa. Photo/Warren Buckland
From left, Eastern Screen Alliance manager Patrick Sherratt, ESA board member Daniel Betty and Te Awa Talent owner Karen Taiapa. Photo/Warren Buckland
A local regional film office that supports the development of screen productions in Hawke's Bay is pushing to build a thriving screen production industry in the area.
Eastern Screen Alliance hopes to be the first point of contact for national or international film productions made in Hawke's Bay and has teamed up with local production company Te Awa Talent to create a regional actors' database.
The initiative follows a resource consent application lodged by an Auckland film company to build a proposed $40 million studio development on 24 hectares in Hawke's Bay.
Working within the community has always been a passion of film-maker and owner of Te Awa Talent based in Hastings, Karen Taiapa.
She says the partnership with ESA is a "great opportunity" to encourage people to expand their creativity in the film industry locally.
"I hope to achieve a platform for artists to be recognised in this field of entertainment in the near future."
From left, Eastern Screen Alliance manager Patrick Sherratt, ESA board member Daniel Betty and Te Awa Talent owner Karen Taiapa. Photo/Warren Buckland
ESA manager Patrick Sherratt said nationally Hawke's Bay had not been regarded as a screen-industry region and the idea for a film industry based here isn't new.
"The last few years (ESA) has been building a database of people who work behind the camera and the database project is about finding those people who can be in front of the camera," Sherratt said.
"It means that when projects come in from overseas or nationally or even within our own region, we've got those people on our database who can be used to support those projects.
"People in the industry will want to move here to work here because it is simply a nice place to live."
ESA board member and professionally trained actor Daniel Betty said the region is already home to a film community.
"We do have a lot of actors but we have never actually compiled them into a format where we can start communicating opportunities with them."
He said they were trying to create a film industry incubator environment. The group is looking for suitable premises that could house actors, script writers and production crew under the same roof.
"Our region hasn't been discovered yet."
• Aspiring actors can head to the Eastern Screen Alliance website and sign up to the database.
