Posts by Joe Wylie
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It could be argued that there is a case to be made that the people who don't get any support could be competing with those who do.
Time to level the playing field then by introducing some kind of handicap scale to nobble the exceptionally talented.
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Understood, I took it to mean that NZOA helped Jackson get established. My wrong.
Herc/Xena is a great example. While the marvellous Ngila is the shining star of that show's alumni, the flow-on boost to industry skill levels in general was immeasurable. Judicious assistance to industrial entertainment can be a very good thing.
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Peter Jackson was able to count on a local skill base for his movies because NZ On Air allowed so many people to learn their craft on Shortland Street.
NZOA was established in 1989, when Jackson released Meet the Feebles, his fallback project after the initial collapse of funding for Braindead.
The release of Braindead in 1992 established Jackson as a mainstream director. Many who worked on that film had stuck with Jackson since Feebles. It seems a bit of a stretch to accord any credit to NZOA. As for Shortland Street, perhaps the biggest technical boost that show received was the fully digital editing equipment originally purchased for the Barcelona Olympics. Possibly with NZOA help?
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We've seen the same thing in the screen industry -- Peter Jackson was able to count on a local skill base for his movies because NZ On Air allowed so many people to learn their craft on Shortland Street.
Probably true, although Shortland didn't get going until the early 90s, when Jackson was already well established. Being Wellington-based the expertise he drew on was more likely to have been reliant for day jobs at Avalon and the National Film Unit, the latter of which he's owned outright for some time now. The only reason that particular little state owned enterprise wasn't flogged off in the fire sale of the 80s was because all any prospective buyer wanted was the excellent film lab and Dolby suite, and it took a while for the asking price to reflect that. All of the Unit's other areas of supposed expertise had long been eclipsed by the private sector.
Although derided at least as much in its day as NZOA currently is around here, the NFU's often stodgy implementation of its charter to facilitate local film production was largely carried out in good faith.
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Sorry. Maybe I should stop focusing on us manifold failures and rejects and join in the celebration of the handful of successes.
Good on you. When the kind of invective in evidence here is of the same tone as hopelessly inadequate dads employ against the family court, you have to wonder what it is about the music biz that spawns so many embittered "failures and rejects". I had thought that Robbery was the sole example.
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The British people didn't want a war. (Just like the Iraqis and Afghans). But they got one, largely because they have an electoral system that lets governments discount and ignore public opinion.
According to Michael Bassett it was all due to the singular genius of Tony Blair:
What I found most encouraging about Blair’s victory was that he won despite Iraq. The worst politicians in my mind are those who refuse to do what they know to be right because there’ll be a knee-jerk reaction that could frighten the horses. David Lange’s government did the right thing and was rewarded in 1987. Blair did over Iraq, despite some initial nervousness. Governments that stand for nothing except a few oddball agendas, which swivel in the wind, then cut and run every time the heat comes on, can survive for a time. If their opposition is weak or irresolute, they outlive their usefulness, yet still win re-election. However, they won’t have much of a place in the history books. Blair will. He’s a modern phenomenon with respect that crosses national as well as political boundaries. The real test will be British Labour’s fourth election. The auguries for Gordon Brown, to whom Blair has promised to surrender the leadership during this term, aren’t as good. Brown has no visible element of magic. These days real political skill is rare.
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. . . from Herne Bay . . .
Would that be Eldred Stebbing? Marvellous production, but for me that song will always be the freakishly phenomenal Aphrodite's Child, with Demis "Songs of the Humpback Whale" Roussos, and Vangelis, way back before Chariots of Fire:
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The mark of Cain.
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For purposes of clarity, I should pick a winner today -- and that's Hilary. Having the man who introduced gorse to New Zealand as an ancestor is pretty hard to beat.
Richly deserved, and beats being tarred & feathered. I'm sure I read somewhere about someone being awarded a prize by a 19th c. NZ acclimatisation society for a magnificent potted specimen of gorse.
Around 20 years ago there was a little terrace house near the Paddington town hall in Sydney with a pair of miserable little potted gorse bushes flanking the front entrance. I was reliably informed that Scots lived there, and cultivated the stuff for sentimental purposes.
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Thanks Andre, much appreciated.