Yes and no - what was sucessful about Two Cars One Night (probably NZ's most widely sucessful short in terms of accolades, but still just about no one has seen it) was the story, characterisation and directing. I don't t know how much funding it got, but I'm fairly certain that exactly the same great film could have been made for a lot less if necessary.

And while he may not have made a film before Taika was pretty well known in theatre circles before Two Cars, which presumably counted for something.

Granted none of Taika's 48HOURS shorts have any bearing for him (I've seen them all, even the 2003 insanity) but for many other teams/individuals they are a great indicator and should be looked upon by NZ On Air and NZFC as a great 'hunting ground' - I'm talking especially about teams like Downlow and Goodfellas (that spring to mind in Auckland) who've consistently made great films with strong story, acting and direction.

3410: "Digitally Shot" also doesn't necessarily mean "cheaper" - most people shooting on RED end up running basically the same budget they would with film. The producers of House have said their budget wasn't reduced at all by shooting the final ep of the last season with Canon 5D cameras (much more was spent in post-production).

The main advantage, as I see it, for digital in things like independent features and shorts is a practical one - shooting on film imposes some very real limitations in shooting that might be counter-productive. If you can only afford 30 rolls of film then that's all you can shoot. You're may well settle for "good enough" on set because you need to 'get it in the can.

As for Eagle vs. Shark getting $1.8m as a training opportunity - well, RadiRadiRah got basically the same amount of money from NZ On Air for eight half-hour episode. I know what I think was the better way to spend public funds.

Essentially I think NZFC is spending too much money on individual shorts, and not ensurine that the people who get that funding are people who can really benefit from it.

It's hard to imagine a 'Feebles' getting funding these days, although I think 'Sleeping Dogs' could still pass muster, being based on a CK Stead book and all, but it's still actually really hard to attract any funding from NZFC unless you're "known quantitiy" really. The Donaldson from Sleeping Dogs might be sucessful, the Jackson from Feebles would have a harder job convincing them to take the chance.

Although I don't think Feebles was funded anyway, probably wouldn't have got the money then either :)

The writer-driven/producer-driven aspects might actually explain a lot of our "less inspiring" films and TV shows. Where the creative minds (ideally writers and director) have been allowed to basically run with what they want the result seems to generally be better.

I'm not a big fan of the "democratisation of filmmaking" idea - the technology has existed for a long time to make quality stuff on a low budget. The RED One and Canon 5D haven't changed anything really. All the people who went out and bought one of those thinking that some how better glass and a shallow depth of field would make their film better have completely missed the point and I'd rather not see the NZFC support that misconception.

A 10-minute short no-longer has to cost $100k, certainly, but neither should it be budgeted at only $5k. Ideally the commission should find a way to locate and nurture the people who have the really good ideas. The ones who can write well, and project that written vision into a cinematic product. Good directors and writers basically.

Almost without exception the "no-budget" indy features and even shorts that I've seen suffer hugely from lack of focus on quality writing and directing, and instead seem to be entirely built around cool looking shots and fancy effects.

I've created this account for the purposes of this thread specifically - just getting that out there...

My problem with the commission is the futility with which it spends it's money.

For the most part I think short films (which is how most development is carried out) are a waste of time. While they provide some practical experience in the physical act of filmmaking they are a very different beast from a feature film. The scripts are different, the methods of story telling are different. It's not like you can just take a ten minute film and scale it up by a factor of 10 to make a feature. It's far more complex than that.

And then there's the issue of audience. Who sees short films? They barely get screened anywhere. They may get a dozen festival plays to a couple of thousand people, but that's it. Like it or not TV is where the eyeballs are, but there's not many opportunities to see NZ shorts on telly, especially recent ones.

Look at Timpson's 48HOURS however. It churned out something like 1,000 short films this year - many crap, but a least a few dozen that were genuinely excellent. All those filmmakers were competing for a prize package with a value of in the region of $100,000 (mostly in services). And dozens of those films were played on C4 at 10:30pm for tens of thousands to see, as well as packing out theatres around for nights on end at the screenings and regional finals.

At the same time NZFC is having three independent executive producers oversee their short film development programme this year, to hand out $100,000 grants to eight film makers to create shorts of up to 15 minutes. And in at least some of those cases the applying filmmakers have had to bring on 'trusted' directors and core crew to be considered and acceptable candidate. So now the 'development' films are in the hands of experienced people who, frankly, don't need the practice, while the original filmmaker finds themself relegated to the back seat.

As Jackson suggests the NZFC could get better results by giving less money to more people and not being so concerned about failure. $20,000 to make a 10 minute film would send many aspiring directors into delight and still turn out some great stuff.

Maybe also they should look at some of the really sucessful names in 48HOURS around the country - because there are some consistantly excellent performers who, with a little support, could probably turn out some fantastic features - perhaps create a new NZ film niche like we remember from the 80s. Help us find our voice again.