nz on screenIn a lit­tle office on Tarana­ki St, a small group of ded­i­cat­ed pro­fes­sion­als (known as the NZ On Screen team) have been cre­at­ing a web­site which cel­e­brates and show­cas­es tele­vi­sion and film pro­duced in New Zealand. A year in the mak­ing, NZ On Screen launched at the end of Octo­ber and has over 300 titles avail­able to view — many in full length, some with just excerpts.

For each title there’s also pro­files of key cast and crew, as well as back­ground sto­ries, com­ments, pho­tos and links to oth­er relat­ed mate­r­i­al. Hours can dis­ap­pear when you start look­ing through the site — and it pays to have your broad­band speed high and your cap fresh!

So take a look: www.nzonscreen.com   … let us know what you think, sug­gest titles we should add, tell all your friends and loved ones, and enjoy NZ On Screen!

But what does that have to do with Welling­ton you might ask?

Aside from the fact that the NZ On Screen team is based here … Welling­ton is well known as a bit of a hub for the film indus­try. Most peo­ple would say that’s all down to Peter Jack­son and Lord of the Rings. To be fair, he’s had a rea­son­ably large influ­ence.

But the Welling­ton has been the scene for film and tele­vi­sion for a long time.  On the NZ On Screen site you will find some gems of Welling­ton-ness…

Pro­grammes that are about or fea­ture Welling­ton in all its glo­ry:

  • Town and Around — Welling­ton (1968)
  • NZBC Clas­sics — Wahine Dis­as­ter (1968)
  • A Nice Sort of Day (1977) 
    This full length short film from 1977 gives con­trast­ing impres­sions of two places over the course of a day: Mana Island and Welling­ton city. Two young climbers row out to the island while the sun ris­es and the city wakes up. Over smokes and beer, the men dis­cuss why they climb; evoca­tive shots of their rock­face ascent are par­al­leled with shots of city bus­tle: traf­fic, Radio Windy DJs and new high ris­es.
  • The Coast­er (1950)
    The coast­er Breeze was immor­talised in this film, trav­el­ling from Welling­ton to Lyt­tle­ton then back to Wan­ganui. Writ­ten by the poet Denis Glover and nar­rat­ed by Sel­wyn Too­good, the com­men­tary is rhyth­mic and lyri­cal. The Coast­er became famous as the film which led to Cecil Holmes los­ing his job, after its con­tent riled union­ist Fin­tan Patrick Walsh. The infa­mous ‘satchel snatch’ inci­dent and ensu­ing smear cam­paign got Holmes sacked for com­mu­nist lean­ings. He was rein­stat­ed after a court case.
  • Maori Bat­tal­ion Returns (1946)
    This post war news­reel fea­tures footage of Maori Bat­tal­ion sol­ders return­ing from WWII onboard the ship Domin­ion Monarch, into Welling­ton Har­bour. The sol­diers are greet­ed with a huge powhiri and ensu­ing hakari at Porirua marae where the kaimoana and pia flow freely. The reel then fol­lows the region­al cel­e­bra­tions of men return­ing home in Kuku and Ngaruiawahia. The nar­ra­tor sober­ly recalls the casu­al­ty rate of the Maori Bat­tal­ion (five men in sev­en).

Pro­grammes that just hap­pen to be set in Welling­ton:

  • To Live in the City (1967)
    This doc­u­men­tary pur­sues four young M?ori — Ripeka, Moana, Grace and Phillip — as they tran­si­tion from school, wh?nau and rur­al life To Live In the City. We fol­low them as they arrive in Welling­ton and attend a pre-employ­ment course run by The Depart­ment of M?ori Affairs which offers accom­mo­da­tion and advice on employ­ment options. Direc­tor Arthur Ever­ard, fol­lowed up in 1991 with To Live in the City 24 years on, which picks up on the lives of the four, now mid­dle aged.
  • Ton­gan Nin­ja (2002)
    Direc­tor Jason Stut­ter’s endear­ing mar­tial arts par­o­dy (and cult clas­sic in the mak­ing) was filmed on a shoe­string on the mean streets of Welling­ton. Sam Manu stars as the Ton­gan Nin­ja, while Jemaine Clement (Flight of the Con­chords), who co-wrote the script, chews the scenery as his arch neme­sis, the anony­mous­ly named Action Fight­er. The film plays for laughs — think B movie accents and bad post-dub­bing — and hangs off a flim­sy plot involv­ing an evil crime syn­di­cate’s hos­tile takeover of a Chi­nese restau­rant.

And pro­grammes made local­ly, by com­pa­nies that call Welling­ton home:

  • Good Taste Made Bad Taste
    This film by Tony Hiles was made to show some of the tricks of the trade used by Peter Jack­son in the mak­ing of his first fea­ture film, Bad Taste. Shot at PJ’s Welling­ton home and on loca­tion, the film uti­lizes excerpts from Peter’s ear­ly films, pro­duc­tions stills, inter­views with the key cast, and excerpts from Bad Taste itself. Nev­er broad­cast by tele­vi­sion, this doc­u­men­tary is the only inde­pen­dent film com­mer­cial­ly avail­able show­ing Jack­son’s work.
  • The Insid­ers Guide to Hap­pi­ness (2004)
    This high-rat­ing dra­ma series from Gib­son Group fol­lows the inter­con­nect­ing lives of eight twen­tysome­thing char­ac­ters, one dead, as they search for hap­pi­ness. Dra­mat­ic, com­ic, sexy, sur­re­al, fresh and orig­i­nal, this is New Zealand tele­vi­sion at its finest. Razor-sharp scripts are enriched by superb per­for­mances, styl­ish pic­tures, an excel­lent sound­track, Welling­ton loca­tions and real-life but­ter­flies.
  • The Insid­ers Guide to Love (2005)
    The sec­ond, but pre­quel, series to The Insid­ers Guide to Hap­pi­ness is chaos the­o­ry in action: sev­en young strangers whose lives inter­sect, linked togeth­er by a bizarre inci­dent. Pro­duced by the Gib­son Group, The Insid­ers Guide mix of meta-tan­gle sto­ry-telling with fresh shoot­ing and faces, was a hit with the same youth demo­graph­ic as Hap­pi­ness, and it won sev­er­al gongs at the 2006 Film and TV Awards, and Direc­tors’ Guild Awards.

 That’s just for starters … there’s more being added all the time!

- Bren­da Leeuwen­berg

And if you need any fur­ther encour­age­ment to get into NZon­Screen check out your swag bag at the TAWAs — you might just find an awe­some tea tow­el from them in there…