BTS Magazine

BTS ART + BUSINESS OF INTERNATIONAL FILM

WETA DIGITAL

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KIWI FILMMAKING

TAIKA WAITITI

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NEW ZEALAND ISSUE

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APRIL 2020 BTS NEW ZEALAND

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Every three months BTS Magazine takes an in-depth look into a particular country and their film industry.

This month we focus on

New Zealand

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CONTENTS P2 Mini Reviews Reviews of 3 New Zealand movies and TV shows from the past year.

P3 NZ Filmmakers Why New Zealand Filmmakers Are Telling More Of Their Own Stories

P5 Weta Digital How The Lord Of The Rings Helped New Zealand’s Tech Industry

P6 Taika Waititi Q&A with one of New Zealand’s most prolific filmmakers

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MINI REVIEWS JoJo Rabbit Rating: 9/10 Source: NPR.org Writer:: Bob Mendello We’re in 1944 Berlin, where 10-year-old Jojo (Roman Griffin Davis) is having a rough first day of Nazi Summer Camp, and being consoled by an imaginary friend whose toothbrush moustache and swastika’d uniform clearly identify him — though this is a much cheerier, chummier Adolf Hitler than the one you’d recognize from newsreels.

As played by writer-director Taika Waititi, this imaginary Führer is a very nice guy — which makes sense, as he’s a figment of the imagination of a very nice 10-year-old.

Jojo Rabbit is gently comic for a while, and then surprisingly affecting at the end, so perhaps it’s not fair to wish that Waititi had opted to deal more directly with the horrors of the Third Reich. We are, after all, living in a time when fascism is again a growing threat.

Not what he was going for, though — he’s content to sidestep the atrocities, concentrate on the indoctrination of children, and let his young hero — and by proxy, the audience — learn life lessons that get tied up, like a child’s shoelace, with a neat little bow.

Jojo Rabbit

What We Do in the Shadows The Breaker Uppers Rating: 7/10

Rating: 8/10

Source: variety.com Writer: Daniel D’addario

Source: vulturehound.co.uk Writer: Katie Hogan

This show’s blood-suckers have set up camp in Staten Island, a blandly American canvas that perpetually lets the air out of the vamps’ sense of themselves as all-powerful beings. Kayvan Novak, Natasia Demetrious, and Matt Berry are witty, engaging company as three eternal beings whose vanities run up against the banal reality of trying to find fresh blood and to conquer a local populace that seems pleasantly impervious; they whine and natter, as we know they’ve been doing for decades or centuries. That their nebbishy assistant Guillermo (Harvey Guillén) is in awe of his overlords only serves to emphasize how unimpressive they really seem.

This show’s laughs are closer to chuckles than guffaws — it’s well-observed but its ambitions feel more minor than much else in this era of the relentless big swing. At times, it feels as though the show’s main goal is to present witty wordplay voiced by a few memorable characters. But that can certainly be enough, not least when the show’s mockumentary format feels, for the first time in a while, like something new.

As positive, free spirited Mel (Sami) and bitter people hater Jen (van Beek) the two friends run an agency for people who want to break up with their partners but are just too weak to. But with their latest clients, the two friends hit a brick wall with their business and friendship. The very lonely Anna who is told her husband is missing and young Jordan who has a crush on Mel and wants to break up with his tough misses, Sepa.

Sami and van Beek have fantastic chemistry, bouncing off each other, not afraid to go the extra bizarre mile. The story and characters that inhabit it are sometimes bizarre but brilliant. The romantic element to the story is basic but with James Rolleston as the naïve Jordan and newcomer Ana Scotney as fierce Sepa, there is an actual sweetness to their relationship.

The film manages to be several different comedic plots at the same time; odd couple pairing, screwball antics, quirky romance making it comedic gold that isn’t present in it’s Hollywood and even indie comparatives. Hopefully we’ll see more of what Sami and van Beek have to offer.

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WETA DIGITAL How The Lord Of The Rings Helped New Zealand’s Tech Industry Here, in the quiet suburb of Miramar in Wellington, New Zealand, sits Weta Digital, the masterminds behind the special effects in such movies as “Avatar,” “The Avengers,” “The Adventures of Tintin,” “The Hobbit,” and, of course, the films that started it all, “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy. While Weta Digital has built its gold-plated reputation on those monster hits, it is also quietly contributing to a growing tech scene at home.

Actually, that weatherboarded colonial mansion, built in the late 1800s to house a correctional facility for girls, is just one of eight buildings that constitute Weta Digital’s Wellington setup, which employs 1,100 people. Weta Digital is part of a central core of film-related facilities that sprung up in Miramar when the first “Lord of the Rings” films were being made at the start of the century. It sets alongside fellow Oscar-winners Weta Workshop, Park Road Post, and Wingnut Films, all established thanks to Miramar local Peter Jackson, whose service to New Zealand’s film industry, and by extension the national economy, is so valued that the 51-year-old has been given a knighthood.

The “Lord of the Rings” films have rightly been credited with kicking New Zealand’s previously boutique film industry into blockbuster overdrive, and helping make tourism the country’s second-largest industry, behind only agriculture. The government took the movies and the promotional opportunity so seriously that it appointed a “Minister of the Lord of the Rings” for the express purpose of capitalizing on the films.

Since then, it has granted special tax concessions to Warner Bros so that it would agree to film “The Hobbit” in the country, despite a protest from an actors union that claimed actors were being treated, and paid, unfairly.

Less widely recognized, however, has been the effect that the “Lord of the Rings” movies have had on the tech industry in New Zealand, a country of just 4 million people.

While the impact has been less noticeable than that on the film industry and on tourism, it has potentially long-lasting consequences for digital companies and startups in the country.

Sebastian Sylwan, Weta Digital’s chief technology officer, serves as a good example of the heavyweight international talent that the company has attracted to New Zealand, and how that can have positive spin-off effects.

The long-locked, towering Argentinian, who has spent much of his life in Italy, arrived in Wellington to work on “Avatar” after setting up a $50 million visual effects facility in Italy and spending five years in Hollywood. In his three years here, he has made a point of expanding Weta’s borders beyond Miramar, reaching out to both the academic community and innovators locally and internationally in an effort to speed up the industrialization process of the visual effects industry.

Perhaps a more tangible spin-off of Weta’s involvement in the local scene, however, is to be found in the entrepreneurs and startups it spins off. Given it’s a company that pays more than 1,000 people, this effect hasn’t exactly been huge, but it has helped give rise to companies like Factorial, which builds TV and film software for iOS and OS X, and KayneMaile, which is a seamless mesh developed by a former Weta Workshop artist, who based the product on the chainmail costumes he used to create for characters in the “Lord of the Rings” movies.

Like the suburban streets on which Weta Digital plies its trade, the “Lord of the Rings” effect on the tech industry in New Zealand is understated but important. Certainly, there are no fires of Mordor here yet, but the brooks of the Shire may one day bubble over.

Source: pando.com Writer:: Hamish McKenzie

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Tom The Troll Stands Outside Weta Digital

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NZ FILMMAKERS Why New Zealand Filmmakers Are Telling More Of Their Own Stories Annabelle Sheehan, chief executive of the New Zealand Film Commission, likes to say that Disney’s Thor: Ragnarok was “the most expensive New Zealand film ever made — which Hollywood and Australia paid for.”

The film, of course, isn’t actually a New Zealand production at all, and it was shot in regional production rival Australia.

But thanks to the offbeat humor and casting choices of its Kiwi director, Taika Waititi, the Marvel Studios blockbuster had an unmistakably Kiwi accent and sensibility.

In this regard, Ragnarok — and presumably its forthcoming sequel, which Waititi signed on to direct in July — represents the inverse of Hollywood’s usual mode of tentpole filmmaking when it comes to New Zealand. The studios have regularly sought out the country for its generous production incentives, experienced crews and stunning locations, but the resulting blockbusters have bared little trace of New Zealand’s culture and identity beyond its otherworldly vistas. Examples of such productions abound, from 2018’s summer hits The Meg and Mission: Impossible — Fallout to Disney’s upcoming live-action Mulan remake and James Cameron’s wildly ambitious trilogy of Avatar sequels, now shooting in Wellington.

The steady influx of Hollywood tentpoles has produced exactly the kind of vibrant ecosystem that national film incentives are designed to create.

“Twenty years ago, film and television was mostly a hobbyist industry for a lot of people here,” says local producer Matthew Metcalfe. “Now you can hardly walk down the street in Wellington without falling over someone who has an Oscar, and we have some of the most amazing facilities and crews in the world.”

New Zealand’s hard-won production prowess has arrived at an ideal time, as global streaming platforms grow increasingly hungry for fresh perspectives and narrative worlds that viewers haven’t seen before. This happy confluence of preparation and opportunity is giving New Zealand’s filmmakers the chance to tell their stories on a global scale for the first time.

Metcalfe recently wrapped production on The Dead Lands, a TV series adaptation and expansion of a 2014 Kiwi film of the same name. The series, like the film, is an action adventure story set in New Zealand’s pre-colonial Maori society — a careful re-creation of the culture and customs of the country’s indigenous peoples, but one done with enough action and violence to qualify as a thriller.

Produced by AMC’s specialty streaming service Shudder, it’s also the first New Zealand TV series to be commissioned directly from the U.S.

“It’s quite proper that it could have only come from New Zealand,” Metcalfe says, noting that the cast is made up almost entirely of young Maori actors. “If you had told these actors five years ago that they would come out of acting school and g`et a role in a U.S.-backed TV series and that they wouldn’t have to be playing the Middle Eastern guy, but instead could represent themselves — they would have said, ‘No way.’ “

The New Zealand Tv Show “The Deadlands”

In a similar vein, Working Title Television and BBC 2’s upcoming co-produced period series The Luminaries, starring Eva Green, tells a story of romance and adventure on the coast of New Zealand’s South Island during the country’s 1860s gold rush. The show is based on a Man Booker Prize-winning novel of the same name

by New Zealand author Eleanor Catton, who also wrote the series.

“It’s a real privilege to get to be telling a piece of New Zealand history,” says Lisa Chatfield, one of the show’s producers. “It’s an important moment in terms of the journey of our industry, too,” she adds, “going from being known as a location and servicer to producing international television that has an amazing New Zealand story at its core.”

Source: hollywoodreporter.com Writer:: Patrick Brzesky

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TAIKA WAITITI

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Taika Waititi may be a MACHINE.

DIRECTING CREDIT

Over the past four years he’s directed and written two movies (“Thor: Ragnarok,” “Jojo Rabbit”), executive produced two TV series (“What We Do In The Shadows,” “Wellington Paranormal”), directed episodes for two TV series (“Shadows,” “The Mandalorian”), shot four major on-screen roles (“Ragnarok,” “Jojo: Rabbit,” “Free Guy,” “Suicide Squad”) and is now directing his second Fox Searchlight movie next month in Hawaii, “Next Goal Wins.” Oh, and that doesn’t even count “Thor: Love & Thunder” which will shoot next year as well as an unannounced on-screen role he referred to during our interview. And somehow he’s been doing the requisite awards season campaigning for “Jojo,” the winner of the People’s Choice Award at the 2019 Toronto International Film Festival and a potential Best Picture nominee.

2007 Eagle VS Shark 2010 Boy 2014 What We Do in the Shadows 2016 Hunt for the Wilderpeople 2017 Thor: Ragnarok 2019 Jojo Rabbit 2020 Next Goal wins

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The New Zealand native is so prolific that he admits his own son suggested he take a break. That won’t be happening anytime soon. Sitting in a hotel room in Beverly Hills, however, Waititi appears as fresh and energetic as anyone who just got home from a three-week vacation. And, trust, he knows his schedule is bonkers. It’s just that after hitting a level of success that arrived with the critical and box office hit for “Ragnarok,” he’s living the dream at the still spry age of 44. Now, Oscar may call coming again.

Yes, unbeknownst to many, Waititi is already an Academy Award nominee. He earned his first nod in 2005 for his short “Two Cars, One Night.” With “Jojo Rabbit” he’s brought his unique tone to a serious tale of Jojo (newcomer Roman Griffin Davis), a 10-year-old boy who wants to be the best member of the Nazi Youth he can be. Set in a fictional German town in the waning days of World War II, Jojo finds his hopes dashed after a dangerous accident scars his face. He’s then horrified to find out his mother (Scarlett Johansson) has been hiding a Jewish young woman, Elsa (Thomasin McKenzie), in their home. Jojo’s head has been filled with so much propaganda his imaginary friend (or inner dialogue) appears as Adolph Hitler himself (Waititi). Told almost entirely from Jojo’s perspective, the film looks at how ignorance and hate spread by authoritarian means can affect a child’s highly impressionable viewpoint.

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Where do you get your energy? Is that a stupid question?

Taika Waititi: Heroin. A big bag of heroin. I don’t know how you take heroin. Oh, in needles. Heroin doesn’t give you energy?

No, I don’t know if it does.

Like in “Trainspotting,” I think it makes you just stand in one spot.

In “Pain and Glory” Antonio Banderas’ character smokes heroin and it knocks him out.

Oh, okay. So, it’s not the heroin.

It’s not the heroin.

It’s got to be something else.

For “Jojo,” I read that your mother suggested Christine Leunens’ novel. How long did it take reading into the book until you thought it could work as a movie?

It was actually when she described the book to me that I thought, “Oh, this is something”. I wouldn’t have read it it wasn’t something in it for me. The way she described the book, made me feel, “Oh, this is something quite cinematic”. And this idea of a relationship that should really never exist.

This idea of this kid [in the] Hitler Youth who discovers his mother’s been hiding this girl in the attic. And she sort of threatens to kind of dismantle everything that he’s believed in or everything he hopes for. That was like a simple idea, but there’s just something, some reason it just felt like something that I could do. The book’s quite dark and also extends past the war as well, it goes on for a while. But I just took those parts from the book [that could make a good film] and then added my own things, like the imaginary Hitler, which is not part of the book. And a lot of the humor.

So I changed the tone and added this goofball character too.

Because I’m brown. My hair is not right.

I’m too good looking. It’s just none of that makes sense. I’ve got NO BUSINESS playing Hitler in a movie.

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Where did that inspiration come from?

It popped in my head because I was like, “Oh, I want him to have no friends except for the one friend who also has no friends.” I just like the idea of these two German kids who are trying to be cool, which is in their eyes trying to be Nazis. I guess I was struck by high school structures, high school dynamics which is like even in Nazi Germany I’m sure there were nerdy kids who got picked on, and who were like, left out of the cool groups and had to eat their lunch alone. I mean if I ever wanted to feel like I cared a little bit about anyone who was in the Hitler Youth, like a kid in Germany during the war, that would be a way, you know? Because no one likes bullies and as a dad as well I’m always so worried that my kids might be bullied or that they’ll be picked on or someone’s going to be mean to them. So, I feel for kids who go through that. And then I made my Taika’esque, sort of accouterment upon this story.

Did you always think you’d play his imaginary best friend?

Taika Waititi On The Set Of “Jojo Rabbit”

Yeah, there was no intention at all of me playing it. Because I’m brown. My hair is not right. I’m too good looking. It’s just none of that makes sense. I’ve got no business playing Hitler in a movie. I’m not the obvious choice. I doubt there’s any list in existence with those like, “Well, who should play the Aryan? I doubt there is any list in existence where I’m on that list. So, that was 2011, I finished the script, we sort of sent it out around the agencies just to sort of see who they might want to recommend or if they could suggest [anyone for] that particular role. And the usual kind of names came back. Because everyone always starts from the top and then goes down to the bottom. But we didn’t actually even get a chance to really do any meetings or anything because Jemaine [Clement] and I, that month or a month after, got the financing to do “What We Do in the Shadows.” So, I flew home to New Zealand, we made that, which I thought was going to be a really fast thing, and then I’d come back and make “Jojo”. But [“Shadows”] ended up being like two years of work. And then after that, I tricked myself into doing 2016’s “Hunt for the Wilderpeople.” And after that, I got distracted by doing “Thor: Ragnarok.” So I went off and had to go and make three movies before I had to remember to make this one. And when I came back, Fox Searchlight said “We really want to make this film with you. We loved the script, but we’re only really interested in doing it if you play Hitler”.

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It was literally that Jermaine and I, we’d been writing “What We Do in the Shadows” for about six or seven years. And so when the opportunity came to make that, we were like, OH YEAH, FUCKING LET’S JUST DO THIS.

Taika Waititi and Jemaine Clement Wrote and Directed the 2011 film“What We Do In The Shadows.”

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Oh, they suggested it?

It can happen again. This movie would not work though if you had not found Roman.

Yeah. Supposedly they blackmailed me.

It would just be a movie about Hitler?

Had it been difficult to get the movie financed back in 2011?

It would be a movie about an imaginary Hitler.

We didn’t even really try. It wasn’t even a thing. I don’t know if it would be that hard. I guess it would have been. It was actually more the attitudes back then were still that you need a big celebrity in a movie as a box office draw. Which has kind of changed now. When we went to see Searchlight about this, they’re like, “Oh we don’t believe in that shit.” It’s like, it just doesn’t matter anymore. “We just want to make good film. It doesn’t matter who’s in it. People will go and see it if it’s a good film.” Which is great and that’s why they’re doing such good stuff. That’s really cool. It wasn’t that we were having difficulty. It was literally that Jermaine and I, we’d been writing “What We Do in the Shadows” for about six or seven years. And so when the opportunity came to make that, we were like, “Oh yeah, fucking let’s just do this”.

How do you think the movie is different now than if you had made it then?

Obviously, it’s more relevant now, which is sad. And also, I guess kind of good that exists in a time when it really means something. When I wrote it I was trying to make a film that was about war through the eyes of a child because I don’t think I’ve seen films like that which are really through that lens. I’ve seen films with kids in them, who were the main actors, but it doesn’t feel like a film that explores a child’s experience. Like a child’s logic and how they interpret things and how they look at the world. And how they see grownups behaving and how they take that and apply it to their own lives and conjure up imaginary friends. It is a way of sort of dealing with the world. And trying to deal with this girl in the attic. It’s essentially a monster in the attic. So, when my mother was describing this book to me, the way she was describing it made me feel like it was going to be something like “Let the Right One In”. You know I was like, “Oh, I can see that. I can see that movie in my head.” So, if a boy has never met a Jew before assumes that they’ve got horns and a devil’s tail it’s like having a monster in your attic. And if that monster is not going to leave, how do you deal with it? You get to know the monster. And then you realize, “Oh, that monster is not a monster. It’s actually just another human.” That’s a simple idea, but I thought “Oh, I really like that”.

Looking for a friend. [Laughs.]

When did you know that he was the kid to play him? Was it the audition tape?

It wasn’t necessarily the audition, I think. I could see something more in the audition room when they talk to you and they loosen up a bit. I thought, “He’s quite an intelligent kid. I have to meet him.” So we did a Skype audition and as with all Skype auditions, it was terrible. They’re always glitchy and they’re always skipping and freezing. And you’re like, “What’s he doing? Is he a mime?” But it was fun. So we did that, and it was really through conversations on Skype. I thought, “I get it, this is a sensitive kid, and he’s a likable kid”. Which are the two things that are very important for this character. Because it’s hard to get an audience on your side when the first thing you show them is a kid in the Hitler Youth. Like, even if someone was to say “Oh, this a movie about this kid in the Hitler Youth”, even me, and I’ve made this movie, even I would be hesitant. I don’t want to watch a movie about a kid in the Hitler Youth! Those guys sucked! So yeah.

And he really bought a lot of himself to the role. Roman, he just cares so deeply about people, and he’s very sensitive and compassionate. And the thing that you want in any actor is someone who’s emotionally aware as well. Who can ask the right questions. It’s a 10-year-old. “Was it emotional enough? Did I do it?” He’s like really asking the questions because he wants to do a good job.

Source: theplaylist.net Writer:: Gregory Ellwood

It’s also really impressionable for kids. I know you made this movie for everyone but during the editing process did you show it to kids to see how they’d react?

No. I knew that youth would see it and that it would work for youth. That’s what I really wanted, I guess, teenagers and adolescents. It’s a coming of age film so I felt like, you know, when people are coming of age. That’s when you’re most impressionable and you’re wanting to be important.

You’re wanting to be cool. And you want to formulate ideas and have opinions at the dinner table around your parents and stuff. So, I wanted to like target those people as well. That’s why, for the most part, the dialogue is very contemporary. I wanted [an audience to feel] if they close their eyes it could feel like it is today. Because it’s important that people remember those experiences in 1945 was like being in 2019 for the people in 1945.

That was the modern times. And it can happen again.

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SOUTH KOREAN FILM

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Bong Joon-ho Parasite Kim Ji-Young

Available August 2020 12

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