From movies to markets

Blueberry grower Justin Topzand remembers his time as cinematographer for the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

Tucked away in a tranquil little valley a stone's throw from Waipapa's main road is a farmlet called Blue River that for the past nine years has grown blueberries. Well, not exactly nine years because in 2003 Justin Topzand spent $7,000 on over 1,000 plants only to watch them die.

In those days he was new to the game and lesson one was discovering blueberries, which are part of the Ericaceae family that includes azaleas, rhododendrons, heaths and heathers, don't like volcanic soil.

He changed the soil and tried to grow them organically until, lessons two, three and four, he found the plants need copper spray as fungal control because they are susceptible to 'dozens' of bugs; they needed nets because birds are fond of the little blue berries too and while he could hand-pick five kilometres of weeds at ends of rows, he had to spray elsewhere to stop them encroaching. It's the nature of horticulture but he still adheres to organic principles as much as possible.

It's not surprising his early efforts were fruitless, to coin an appropriate phrase. Here was a man who had spent his pre-Waipapa life as a freelance cinematographer with a CV that includes some of the big-name jobs like The Navigator, The Piano and the television series Hercules and Xena, Warrior Princess and in 1998 he moved to Wellington to work on Peter Jackson's Lord of The Rings trilogy for what he thought would be just a year.

"It was a massive project and management knew they couldn't make three films on the money so they pretended they were going to make three films by making bits of three films in that first year to tease more money from foreign investors to help them finish the other two films. That's why it spun out to four years."

He wasn't shooting actors. He was with the visual effects unit filming models of castles, forts and villages in front of green or blue screens and it was these images the actors would subsequently work in front of. They'd film 'five hundred and seventy-five versions' before the two film modules were then spliced together for the final result. It's technically very taxing and, on a personal level, Justin found the way the project was managed to be frustrating.

"Peter Jackson was the brain but he notoriously found delegating difficult. We had a succession of talented other directors for certain parts of the film but he was never happy and they were on the next plane out. He was the control freak and everything had to go through him so it made the project a lot slower.

"In some ways it soured my enthusiasm for the film industry because it was a Hollywood blockbuster movie which is just money-making and which is sad because the joy of film-making gets thrown out the window. There's a massive amount of waste and in the end it wore me down."

After four years of 12 hour days, six days a week in a darkened, air-controlled studio, Justin wanted fresh air. He and his partner, Buffy, had discussed growing blueberries and in short order he saw the land in Waipapa, took a video of it, showed it to her, they bought it and when Lord of the Rings finished they moved north. They didn't realise it at the time but the property had three important things - soil, water and shelter which don't always go together on other plots. It meant that despite the initial disappointment their land does in fact suit the growing of blueberries.

Now, nine years into a three-year business plan, they are 'happily selling' at the Whangarei Growers' Market. Next on the agenda is blueberry ice cream. He can sell it from a mobile site but to vend it from Blue River is literally a taxing bureaucratic process. There may not be a trilogy in that particular saga but there's certainly a long story.