TVNZ reports that  Prime Minister John Key will be dining with Warner Bros. executives in Los Angeles on his way to Washington, D. C. to meet with President Obama and other officials. Key negotiated with Warner execs last year when a labor dispute threatened to drive the Hobbit production to a different country. Extra tax incentives and a change in labor laws convinced WB to keep the production in New Zealand.

According to Key: “They are very keen to build a long-term relationship with us. They see us as a strategic partner and New Zealand as a quirky but talented little market that’s quite cheap.” The report also says: “Before leaving yesterday, Key told reporters the Government wanted to build a partnership with Warner Brothers ‘like they have with the United Kingdom, where they film the Harry Potter movies’.”

Maybe he’s being overly optimistic, but perhaps The Hobbit will continue to support the Kiwi film industry, a tradition started by The Lord of the Rings. After all, Wellington isn’t all that much further from Los Angeles than London is.

Stuff.co.nz reports that there is considerable opposition to the proposed “Wellywood” sign being voiced, particularly online. There’s now a “Wellingtonians against the Wellywood Sign” on Facebook; so far its members outnumber the “Support Wellywood” page, but the latter does have a substantial number of boosters. Representatives for the airport, which plans to put the sign on a ridge where it will be visible from planes landing and taking off to the north, say the project will go forward.

Back in March of last year, I reported that the Wellington airport was planning to put up a “Hollywood”-style sign on the side of a green-zone ridge on the western side of the Miramar peninsula proclaiming “Wellywood.” At the time there were some legal rumblings from the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce.

Apparently those have come to nothing, and the airport is going ahead with the plan (according to Stuff.co.nz). Back in 2010, 44% of local residents surveyed by Stuff.co.nz approved of the idea, and there was a mixed response in general. Now the overall attitude seems to be that the sign is crass and unnecessary. Positively Wellington Tourism’s spokesman is among the few approving: “One of the things for Wellington is that the world talks about us, and the sign is a mechanism for that.”

The idea is that planes landing at the airport will give those on the left side a view of the sign as they arrive in the city. On days when the wind dictates an approach from the south (over the water), the sign would not be visible.

I personally think the sign would be a good idea. My own memory of that ridge is going through the gap in it by taxi numerous times and being greeted by signs warning dog owners that poison had been put down to reduce the local possum population. “Wellywood” would be a considerable improvement on that!

Maybe there’s not much news leaking out about the Hobbit filming, but the news from Wellington is picking up. Stuff.co.nz reports on the re-opening of the renovated Roxy Theatre, a 1930s movie house in Wellington that was given its makeover thanks to a group including Jamie Selkirk and Tania Rodger.

Three Dwarves–Steven Hunter, Adam Brown, and Graham McTavish–and a Hobbit, Martin Freeman, flank PJ (Photo by Keven Stent)

Among the 300 invited guests were Martin Freeman, Andy Serkis, the mayor of Wellington, and two cabinet ministers. Ian McKellen cut the ceremonial ribbon and pointed out that he was the only guest present actually born in the same decade when the theatre was originally built. (Ian is vintage 1939.) A mysterious guest costumed in a vintage Rocketeer outfit  turned out to be none other than Peter Jackson. (I would guess that the costume is from his own extensive collection.)

Stuff.co.nz offers a short article on the latest annual screen industry survey from Statistics New Zealand:

Wellington’s film industry is increasingly reliant on big-budget productions such as Avatar and The Hobbit as the New Zealand industry becomes more dependent on post-production work.

Basically although filming in New Zealand fluctuates over time, the special effects and other post-production services are growing. The article doesn’t name names, but surely Weta Digital and Park Road Post are leading the expansion. The trend will no doubt continue, especially if James Cameron decides definitely to make his two Avatar sequels in Wellington, as he is inclining to do. Those plus The Hobbit and the Tintin series should keep the facilities humming with business.

The article, originally from the Dominion Post (Wellington’s daily paper) concludes:

The industry recorded revenue of $2.8 billion last year, up 2 per cent from 2009.

New Zealand had established itself as a post-production hub. Big projects would always affect the figures, but it was pleasing to see the bottom line holding strong.

Tom Cardy has begun blogging for the Dominion Post under the title “Wellywood Confidential.” The first post is a meditation on the notion of the country’s capital also being the center of the film industry. He traces the first use of the term Wellywood back to August, 1998. That makes sense, given that that was the month when New Line announced that it would be producing the film. Of course, it had been in pre-production about 18 months by then, but then-producer Miramax had kept the whole thing a secret. Relatively few people knew about it, and there probably wasn’t any talk of “Wellywood” any earlier.

Naturally Cardy credits LOTR with having transformed Wellington into the thriving production center it has become.

Stuff.co.nz reveals that a major Indian production will probably be shooting in Wellington next month:

Wellington City Council is considering applications to close parts of the city centre for two weeks from mid-January for filming of an Indian remake of the Michael Caine classic The Italian Job.

A shooting schedule for the film, titled Players, has been obtained by The Dominion Post. It reveals many parts of Wellington would feature in the movie. […]

Wellington will be “playing itself” in the film, allowing the city to be showcased to a vast Indian audience. Two of Bollywood’s biggest actors, Abhishek Bachchan and Sonam Kapoor, will star in the movie, which is expected to create massive interest in tourism to Wellington.

Wellington film manager Delia Shanly said local extras and crew might be used in the film, but the financial payoff for Wellington would come once Players was released in India.

“The silver screen is where people often see their dream locations. They [film producers] want Wellington to look great and gorgeous. We look forward to people seeing that and going, ‘Oh my God, I have to go there’.”

The plan seems likely to be carried out, since the story says that retailers in the areas where streets are to be shut down are being notified.

Although the highest-profile films shooting in Wellington and using the post-production facilities at Weta, Ltd. and Park Road Post have mainly been from Hollywood, the local film industry has worked hard to attract film projects from China, South Korea, and India.Work on Asian films could help create a stable industry, with steady work for employees of the production companies in Wellington and the rest of the country.

The state-of-the-art post-production facilities built by Peter Jackson and his colleagues for The Lord of the Rings continue to win awards. This time it’s the Hollywood Post Alliance awards (whose eligibility period runs from September to September). Here are the films and people who won:

Sound – Feature Film
“District 9”
Michael Hedges, Gilbert Lake, Brent Burge and Chris Ward – Park Road Post Production

Compositing – Feature Film
“Avatar”
Erik Winquist, Robin Hollander, Erich Eder and Giuseppe Tagliavini – Weta Digital

These days, “compositing” refers to the digital combination of different visual elements into a single image. (Think green-screen work or those long shots of Rivendell combining real waterfalls, a miniature building, background paintings, and so on.)

Of course, these same companies and probably these same people will be working on The Hobbit. Congratulations to them all!

(From Variety.)

Yesterday the New Zealand Herald posted a video reporting on a meeting of SPADA (Screen Producers and Directors Association) in Auckland. There was a discussion of factors in the recent actors’ boycott of The Hobbit; the onstage speakers were Phillipa Boyens, Richard Fletcher (a producer and the former CEO of SPADA), and Penelope Borland (current CEO of SPADA). It’s quite interesting, and at the end there was some give and take with an actor in the audience, Graham Dunster, of Auckaland Actors. Afterward the reporter interviewed Dunster and Robyn Malcolm, an actress who was prominent in speaking out in favor of the boycott. The video lasts just under 18 minutes, out of a 45 minute discussion. (“Stoush” in the title of the video, is an Australian and Kiwi term meaning a fight.)

Malcolm acted in the LOTR trilogy, playing Morwen, the mother who puts her children and sends them to safety in Edoras when their village is attacked by orcs.

For those who want a written summary, see here.

Although there is still some dispute about facts, the meeting apparently represents some progress toward the actors and production people being willing to sit down together and work out solutions without the results being tied to a specific film production. Indeed, Stuff.co.nz reported yesterday that the actors and SPADA have agreed to meet at a hui (a Maori word for a social gathering):

SPADA board member Richard Fletcher said communication was the key to healing the wounds created by the conflict.

“We can only move forward if we’re going to talk.”

Actor representative Peter Elliott agreed.

“It’s time to put our big boys’ pants on and get in the room and start talking.”

The date hasn’t been set yet.

There have been quite a few negative responses to the New Zealand government’s concessions to Warner Bros. in order to keep The Hobbit production in the country. I’ve linked some of them in my entries. But here’s a common-sense editorial on the New Zealand Herald‘s website that points out the obvious: this move will benefit New Zealand. The author, Fran O’Sullivan, points out the brain-drain of talent that went on before The Lord of the Rings (across the boards, not just in the film industry). She concludes:

New Zealand could also have co-hosted the 2003 Rugby World Cup with Australia. But the previous Government stuffed that opportunity.

We can get all prissy about the fact that the Hollywood studios found Key’s inflexion point. Get over it. No one will remember any prime ministerial egg-on-face when the Hobbit omelette is finally cooked.

It’s quite possible that many New Zealanders have already forgotten how much LOTR did for the international image of their country and the various benefits that followed on. Would many of them really want to go back to before it was made?

[Added October 30:]

Somehow I missed another editorial posted on 3news on the 28th. It lays the blame for the extra financial incentives give to Warner Bros. by the government squarely on the heads of the unions. As the author rightly points out, Warner Bros. was set to make the two Hobbit films in New Zealand without the added NZ$34 million–until the unions announced their boycott.