Yes! It’s time to break down all the ways New Zealand incentivises big US film companies like Time Warner and Amazon and Disney to make their movies in a little archipelago at the bottom of the world. Let’s start with the simplest strategy of all: bribery. Now of course we don’t actually bribe anyone to do anything. It’s just giving people a grant to incentivise them to do something. So! How long have we been not bribing the film industry to work here? It all started when Peter Jackson made some movies about wizards and stuff and everyone lost their mind. The centre-left Helen Clark-led Labour Government decided to offer something called the ‘Large Budget Screen Production Grant’ for future productions. Basically, if you met certain criteria, and you made your film in New Zealand, we’d give you 12.5 per cent of any money you spent here. If you spent $100 million making a movie in New Zealand, the New Zealand government would give you $12.5 million in a big sack wit
Mountain Scene
December 29, 2020
By MATTHEW MCKEW
When a letter was handed to a Wakatipu High schooler in the pouring rain at Branches Camp he had no idea what it was about.
A moment later and Kane Viggers was elated winning New Zealand On Screen’s ScreenTest schools’ comp after his teacher secretly entered him.
Jennifer Smart had encouraged the budding filmmaker to enter the national competition, but he’d shied away having not come up with any movies to match this year’s theme of ‘justice’.
Kane, 15, still had no intention of entering the comp when he was later struck with a moment of inspiration, exaggerating his own misery to formulate the plot of a short film called
Tuesday, 15 December 2020, 8:23 am | Weta Workshop Weta Workshop’s fantastical new experience Weta Workshop Unleashed will be revealed
in Auckland today, promising visitors of all ages a journey through the creative
process with surprises around every corner. The new, immersive visitor attraction . More
Tuesday, 12 February 2019, 4:28 pm | Weta Workshop
One of the world’s leading visual effects studios, Weta Digital, and Wellington
ICT Graduate School have launched a new scholarship. Designed to encourage New Zealand’s
best animation and visual effects talent into the School’s Master of Design Technology . More
Wednesday, 21 September 2016, 1:45 pm | Weta Workshop
The Wellington-based Weta Group of Companies will sponsor the Cinematographer of