Back to results Right Royal Barney At the Small Country, Big Picture conference in November, South Pacific Pictures head John Barnett was announced as this year's SPADA/Onfilm Industry Champion, in acknowledgment of the myriad roles he has played as an "indefatigable member of the industry, its culture and its politics" since he first became an independent producer in 1974. Our interview focuses on the long process of bringing Whale Rider to the screen, and includes some typically pugnacious comments about certain funding bodies. It took 10 years to get Whale Rider to the screen...? Actually I think it was a bit longer. When I was doing film and video distribution through a company called Endeavour Entertainment [in the mid to late '80s] I suggested to Murray Newey - an independent producer who I'd worked with on a number of projects - that we set up a business together to develop some projects. Around that time Liddy Holloway said, "Have you read this book?" So we read Whale Rider and I was immediately in love with it because, to me, it was absolutely an international story - I never had a moment's doubt. It was absolutely specifically set here, it was absolutely a part of NZ, of Maori, of Ngati Porou, of Whangara, but I could think of 50 societies where the same issues were being debated and fought over. And so we began the process of finding a director and getting the script... But I don't think the time was right then at all, you know - there wasn't necessarily the belief that an NZ film could break out beyond NZ or that we could do the special effects, there were issues about who could act in it; all those kinds of things. But right from the outset Witi [Ihimaera, the book's author] was very much part of it and we went to Whangara early on. And I remember at the very first meeting, people said, "Are the key characters going to be played by Ngati Porou, is the director going to be Maori, who's going to write it?" My view at the time was that if you didn't go in as you intended to go on, then this thing wasn't going to happen, and I said "We're going to find the best people to do it." Then it was Jack Haapu, who was the rangitira there, who said, "Where the people come from isn't as important as making the best film, because we're going to be seen by people all around the world..." So we had that kind of blessing - though even now it's finished, people say, you know, you should have had a Maori director and you should have done this and that. Well, I don't believe that people can only tell stories about themselves, because if you took that view then Maori couldn't make any other stories either. And the people of Whangara didn't think so... I find it interesting that the main proponents of the idea that one can only tell stories about one's own culture tend to be Pakeha academics... Well I don't think that idea has any validity in the whole history of world culture, because I think if you look at any movement in literature and the arts in general, what you see is things that are evolved by one group of people and then built on by others. And at each iteration, the definitive form is a reflection of things that have gone before. You can't be proud of Che Fu and Nesian Mystik doing Polynesian hip hop if you don't accept the fact that the hip hop came from somewhere else. That music is very much of this place as it is today, but what are the roots it's built on? You know, I get really frustrated by this apartheid view of culture. It's entirely wrong and will diminish our ability to move forward if we don't accept that there are things that we owe to each other and borrow from each other and build on. Okay, getting back to how Whale Rider came together... Right. When I came to work for South Pacific, the property stayed with Murray but he didn't advance it, so when the rights came up for renewal I bought them to South Pacific – that was about ’94. There were a lot of international directors who wanted to direct it, and a lot of them who wanted to rewrite the script, but it didn’t ever quite feel right. Then Niki [Caro] made Memory and Desire, and I thought it had a lot of promise – there was something about the way she told a story that interested me. So I – well, she tells it differently and [laughs] I’ve said to her, “You know, we’ve got to get our stories together.” [laughs] My view of it is, I asked her to do an adaptation; her story is, she read some of the scripts and said, “I’ll do it but I’ll need to do my own adaptation.” And I think she’s right actually. So we said, “Why don’t you write your vision of it and we’ll see what happens.” And she wrote her vision of it, which was like a first draft, and it was just terrific, so we’d found our writer and director. Even then, it wasn’t easy to put it together... South Pacific was financing all this, we didn’t bring any of the funding bodies in. The Film Commission had given a lot of money to Murray Newey’s company, Tucker, but not to South Pacific and that became problematic. So we put our own money up, really, to cover the development, and Bill Gavin, who was here, secured an Italian sale and a French pre-sale and brought in Pandora as a sales agent, who did estimates that Apollo Media backed and suddenly we had most of the money. Then the Film Fund was set up – without the Fund it wouldn’t have happened either; they’re all building blocks and without any one of them the whole thing would have fallen over. So we were kind of ready to go. Tim Sanders had been brought in as producer because he’d made some big budget pictures and knew about special effects and so on. Then about three weeks before we started shooting the French pre-sale fell over, and so South Pacific took that risk on... You know, to watch the film being shot was amazing, because it had such an atmosphere and you could sense this thing coming together... And looking at the rushes – particularly because this 11 year-old girl, Keisha Castle-Hughes, was the centre of everything and she was just magic. She just breaks your heart... And Niki is very disciplined and very focused on what she wants to do. But she’s not obstinate – she listens to people and she’s fantastic to work with in that regard, because there’s no tantrums, there’s no ego, but there is an absolute surety about what she wants the thing to be in the end and she’ll stand up for that all of the way through. I suppose during post production the thing that really changed things significantly was when [composer] Lisa Gerrard came on board, because that was affirmation from someone who knew nothing about the story or Maori – she just fell in love with the picture. And I think we were all bowled over because here was someone with huge credits [including Gladiator and Ali] who said, “I think your picture is fantastic, I want to do the music and I’ll do it for your budget.” That made us feel good. And then Pandora, who was our sales agent, decided they didn’t want to be in the business any more – this was also about the time we finished shooting – so we had to find another sales agent. But I didn’t want to go out and find one until we actually had a picture to sell them, so it was only five weeks before Toronto that I did the deal with The Works. As a result of the timing, we had no publicity, no website, nothing, prior to Toronto – we had fantastic images and a picture, that was all. So when we went to Toronto it wasn’t even a consideration for us. We didn’t think we were in competition or had a shot. I gather you’d all left town when the award was announced? Nobody was in town. [laughs] We knew they’d had to put on an extra press screening, we knew all the screenings had sold out, that the Ruby Rich review had sold every seat available and people were just busting to get into the show. But after we sold to [North American distributor] Newmarket, who were in love with the picture, we all left town. And suddenly we’d won, you know. [laughs] And I think that changed it for this picture – now people were watching out for it. So as we speak today, the only significant territories that aren’t sold – and they’re under discussion – are Germany, Spain and Scandinavia.. So the German investors will have all their money back by December this year. And the picture hasn’t even been released. I guess you’re feeling pretty relaxed then? No, no, no, we had all sorts of problems delivering the picture because we did a lot of the post work in Germany and it wasn’t to a standard that we were particularly comfortable with, so we’ve been pushing to get everything done. So no, you can’t ever relax, and the test is what happens when it comes out here. I’ve written a number on a piece of paper and put it in an envelope and I’m sending it to [Australasian distributors] Buena Vista the week before it opens, but I think the media and education previews that have been held have been very important. Yeah, the film has obviously got a lot of supporters in the media now... But it’s not an easy sell is it? Because it’s not a kid’s film, and it’s a tough family pic in terms of being quite emotionally bruising... So doing a smaller release and building on word of mouth seems sensible... Well, we’re now at 40 prints. Really? Oh yeah, there’s a huge demand. So we want to see what it does here, which will influence what it does in Australia, because it’s great to go in with a success story. But Buena Vista are just being terrific and the commitment they’re making in NZ and Australia is great. And if it works here, then a lot of the territories we’ve sold will feel more comfortable about how they promote it too. I think with a picture like Warriors, and I guess Footrot Flats and Goodbye Pork Pie in their time – there are pictures like that that hang around for five and six years, and people say, “Aw isn’t the NZ film industry in good shape, we just made so and so...” It just has an enormously positive impact on the way the public thinks about the film industry and the way the Government feels about funding – it’s a wave that rides for a long, long time. And I think this picture will do the same, I really do – for a few years people will talk about this picture being an important point. More than Rings, because I think Rings is a very different kind of thing. There’s enormous pride in Rings and it’s quite appropriate, but I think that people reserve a special place for stories about themselves. But there’s a risk in opening wide, in that if it doesn’t do the business in the first weekend, prints start getting yanked...? Ah yeah, but that’s also one of the reasons I only talked to a handful of the major distributors, because if you’re with someone who doesn’t have muscle in the market, then yes, your exhibitor will dictate the terms, but when you’re with someone like BVI your picture will get terms that guarantee your picture stays in there if it doesn’t take off on day one. But I think it will. Today, the number of people who are talking about Whale Rider leads me to believe that we don’t have a problem positioning the picture – whether it be Toronto, or seeing photos of Keisha, or reading Peter Calder [in the NZ Herald] saying this is a fabulous picture, all these things have created an air of expectancy. You’ve always been willing to put your head above the parapet and give your POV on industry issues, which is quite unusual. What’s your view of the current state of play as a long time participant and observer? Well I find it depressing that there is no debate and that in some cases any attempt to question or criticise is met with such antagonism. The fact is there are a few thousand people who are working every day in this business and they see how it affects them at different levels. And there are certainly very good producers who have built businesses that employ lots of people and who have a pretty good understanding of why things work or why they don’t. And yet there are some organisations that absolutely resist finding out the truth. They live in a world that is sheltered because they can afford for it to be and they treat criticism with punitive responses. You know, recently some of the industry bodies, in seeking support from an agency, have been told that any support is tied to their acquiescence, and I think that’s a terrible thing. You want a healthy society where people can talk openly, but to be told by a public funding body that we will only give you money if you do not criticise is denigrating to both the giver and receiver. I think that the organisations – whether they be state funders or broadcasters, or institutions of any kind – are bigger than the individuals working there, they’ve been going longer than any of the individuals working there and they will hopefully continue to go a lot longer. You cannot say “I don’t believe these people”, put your head in the sand and hope it [criticism] will go away. And I find that the dismissal of it because it’s “a personal attack” is very shallow and is really an attempt to defuse it without really dealing with it. I guess it only becomes a personal attack because the personnel in some of the places refuse to encourage an atmosphere of open conversation. I’ve never known anything bad to come out of people being able to sit around a room and say, “You know, there’s a better way of doing this.” We’ve seen instances from several bodies this year of a response to industry criticism (in one case) and general disquiet (in another case) being “Shut up or you don’t get any funding from us.” Often very covert, not overt at all, because they’d be subject to all sorts of government stricture if they did that – but a very covert policy of ensuring those people never get funding. And tying the ministers in, so the ministers are parroting this belief that these are personal criticisms that are happening because people got turned down [for funding]. Well, no, people don’t only criticise because they get turned down... As an individual I believe that public funding should be made public. The only way to make these things transparent is for organisations like the Film Commission in particular to tell everybody how much money they’ve put into a project. NZ on Air does it – not an issue at all. There is no commercial sensitivity to it. If you’re taking public funding then you’ve got a responsibility for people to know how much you got and why. And that way, not only is the funder accountable, because you put $2.8 million into a project that never went anywhere, but so is the recipient. And the recipient has no accountability if no one knows how much money they got. You should be able to stand up and say, “Didn’t they do well on half a million dollars” or “Are you really going to give those people more money after they spent $10 million and never got anything off the ground?” Why is that a personal attack on the staff? Why is saying that the head of development should come from NZ so they’ll remain here a personal attack? I thought the response was a personal attack but I didn’t think the suggestion was. Speaking of the free exchange of views, how did you find being a member of the Screen Production Taskforce? Well, it’s a very lively group of people and no one holds back from climbing into each other about ideas. When I think about some of the really rugged discussions we’ve had about education – the gloves are off inside the room. But it’s been great. Julie Christie has done a fabulous job – she’s been a true politician. She’s made sure everyone’s view has been canvassed and she’s resigned at the start of each meeting, only to be persuaded not to. [laughs] You know, it’s been terrific and, given its head, it could have quite an impact. But there’s a very reactionary view in this country that if it’s about change it must be bad... How do you think the recommendations will fare? We think there’s a good chance the Government will pick up on them – they haven’t gone to all this trouble to bypass us. Anything else you’d like to add at this point? Not at this point. This isn’t my valedictory interview I hope? [laughs] Surely not. Oh good. © Copyright Onfilm magazine December 2002 All material appearing is copyright and cannot be reproduced without prior permission of the publisher. Please contact the copyright officer: Ph 0-9-845 5114, Email copyright@mediaweb.co.nz.	Username Password Keep me logged in on this computer Forgotten your password? Enter your email address and we will email your password to you:

Right Royal Barney

At the Small Country, Big Picture conference in November, South Pacific Pictures head John Barnett was announced as this year's SPADA/Onfilm Industry Champion, in acknowledgment of the myriad roles he has played as an "indefatigable member of the industry, its culture and its politics" since he first became an independent producer in 1974.
Our interview focuses on the long process of bringing Whale Rider to the screen, and includes some typically pugnacious comments about certain funding bodies.

It took 10 years to get Whale Rider to the screen...?
Actually I think it was a bit longer. When I was doing film and video distribution through a company called Endeavour Entertainment [in the mid to late '80s] I suggested to Murray Newey - an independent producer who I'd worked with on a number of projects - that we set up a business together to develop some projects.

Around that time Liddy Holloway said, "Have you read this book?" So we read Whale Rider and I was immediately in love with it because, to me, it was absolutely an international story - I never had a moment's doubt. It was absolutely specifically set here, it was absolutely a part of NZ, of Maori, of Ngati Porou, of Whangara, but I could think of 50 societies where the same issues were being debated and fought over. And so we began the process of finding a director and getting the script...

But I don't think the time was right then at all, you know - there wasn't necessarily the belief that an NZ film could break out beyond NZ or that we could do the special effects, there were issues about who could act in it; all those kinds of things.

But right from the outset Witi [Ihimaera, the book's author] was very much part of it and we went to Whangara early on. And I remember at the very first meeting, people said, "Are the key characters going to be played by Ngati Porou, is the director going to be Maori, who's going to write it?" My view at the time was that if you didn't go in as you intended to go on, then this thing wasn't going to happen, and I said "We're going to find the best people to do it."

Then it was Jack Haapu, who was the rangitira there, who said, "Where the people come from isn't as important as making the best film, because we're going to be seen by people all around the world..."

So we had that kind of blessing - though even now it's finished, people say, you know, you should have had a Maori director and you should have done this and that. Well, I don't believe that people can only tell stories about themselves, because if you took that view then Maori couldn't make any other stories either. And the people of Whangara didn't think so...

I find it interesting that the main proponents of the idea that one can only tell stories about one's own culture tend to be Pakeha academics...

Well I don't think that idea has any validity in the whole history of world culture, because I think if you look at any movement in literature and the arts in general, what you see is things that are evolved by one group of people and then built on by others. And at each iteration, the definitive form is a reflection of things that have gone before. You can't be proud of Che Fu and Nesian Mystik doing Polynesian hip hop if you don't accept the fact that the hip hop came from somewhere else. That music is very much of this place as it is today, but what are the roots it's built on? You know, I get really frustrated by this apartheid view of culture. It's entirely wrong and will diminish our ability to move forward if we don't accept that there are things that we owe to each other and borrow from each other and build on.

Okay, getting back to how Whale Rider came together...
Right. When I came to work for South Pacific, the property stayed with Murray but he didn't advance it, so when the rights came up for renewal I bought them to South Pacific – that was about ’94.

There were a lot of international directors who wanted to direct it, and a lot of them who wanted to rewrite the script, but it didn’t ever quite feel right.

Then Niki [Caro] made Memory and Desire, and I thought it had a lot of promise – there was something about the way she told a story that interested me. So I – well, she tells it differently and [laughs] I’ve said to her, “You know, we’ve got to get our stories together.” [laughs] My view of it is, I asked her to do an adaptation; her story is, she read some of the scripts and said, “I’ll do it but I’ll need to do my own adaptation.” And I think she’s right actually. So we said, “Why don’t you write your vision of it and we’ll see what happens.” And she wrote her vision of it, which was like a first draft, and it was just terrific, so we’d found our writer and director. Even then, it wasn’t easy to put it together...

South Pacific was financing all this, we didn’t bring any of the funding bodies in. The Film Commission had given a lot of money to Murray Newey’s company, Tucker, but not to South Pacific and that became problematic. So we put our own money up, really, to cover the development, and Bill Gavin, who was here, secured an Italian sale and a French pre-sale and brought in Pandora as a sales agent, who did estimates that Apollo Media backed and suddenly we had most of the money. Then the Film Fund was set up – without the Fund it wouldn’t have happened either; they’re all building blocks and without any one of them the whole thing would have fallen over.

So we were kind of ready to go. Tim Sanders had been brought in as producer because he’d made some big budget pictures and knew about special effects and so on. Then about three weeks before we started shooting the French pre-sale fell over, and so South Pacific took that risk on...

You know, to watch the film being shot was amazing, because it had such an atmosphere and you could sense this thing coming together... And looking at the rushes – particularly because this 11 year-old girl, Keisha Castle-Hughes, was the centre of everything and she was just magic. She just breaks your heart...

And Niki is very disciplined and very focused on what she wants to do. But she’s not obstinate – she listens to people and she’s fantastic to work with in that regard, because there’s no tantrums, there’s no ego, but there is an absolute surety about what she wants the thing to be in the end and she’ll stand up for that all of the way through.

I suppose during post production the thing that really changed things significantly was when [composer] Lisa Gerrard came on board, because that was affirmation from someone who knew nothing about the story or Maori – she just fell in love with the picture. And I think we were all bowled over because here was someone with huge credits [including Gladiator and Ali] who said, “I think your picture is fantastic, I want to do the music and I’ll do it for your budget.” That made us feel good.

And then Pandora, who was our sales agent, decided they didn’t want to be in the business any more – this was also about the time we finished shooting – so we had to find another sales agent. But I didn’t want to go out and find one until we actually had a picture to sell them, so it was only five weeks before Toronto that I did the deal with The Works.

As a result of the timing, we had no publicity, no website, nothing, prior to Toronto – we had fantastic images and a picture, that was all. So when we went to Toronto it wasn’t even a consideration for us. We didn’t think we were in competition or had a shot.

I gather you’d all left town when the award was announced?
Nobody was in town. [laughs] We knew they’d had to put on an extra press screening, we knew all the screenings had sold out, that the Ruby Rich review had sold every seat available and people were just busting to get into the show. But after we sold to [North American distributor] Newmarket, who were in love with the picture, we all left town. And suddenly we’d won, you know. [laughs]

And I think that changed it for this picture – now people were watching out for it. So as we speak today, the only significant territories that aren’t sold – and they’re under discussion – are Germany, Spain and Scandinavia.. So the German investors will have all their money back by December this year. And the picture hasn’t even been released.

I guess you’re feeling pretty relaxed then?
No, no, no, we had all sorts of problems delivering the picture because we did a lot of the post work in Germany and it wasn’t to a standard that we were particularly comfortable with, so we’ve been pushing to get everything done. So no, you can’t ever relax, and the test is what happens when it comes out here. I’ve written a number on a piece of paper and put it in an envelope and I’m sending it to [Australasian distributors] Buena Vista the week before it opens, but I think the media and education previews that have been held have been very important.

Yeah, the film has obviously got a lot of supporters in the media now... But it’s not an easy sell is it? Because it’s not a kid’s film, and it’s a tough family pic in terms of being quite emotionally bruising... So doing a smaller release and building on word of mouth seems sensible...

Well, we’re now at 40 prints.

Really?
Oh yeah, there’s a huge demand. So we want to see what it does here, which will influence what it does in Australia, because it’s great to go in with a success story. But Buena Vista are just being terrific and the commitment they’re making in NZ and Australia is great. And if it works here, then a lot of the territories we’ve sold will feel more comfortable about how they promote it too.

I think with a picture like Warriors, and I guess Footrot Flats and Goodbye Pork Pie in their time – there are pictures like that that hang around for five and six years, and people say, “Aw isn’t the NZ film industry in good shape, we just made so and so...” It just has an enormously positive impact on the way the public thinks about the film industry and the way the Government feels about funding – it’s a wave that rides for a long, long time. And I think this picture will do the same, I really do – for a few years people will talk about this picture being an important point. More than Rings, because I think Rings is a very different kind of thing. There’s enormous pride in Rings and it’s quite appropriate, but I think that people reserve a special place for stories about themselves.

But there’s a risk in opening wide, in that if it doesn’t do the business in the first weekend, prints start getting yanked...?
Ah yeah, but that’s also one of the reasons I only talked to a handful of the major distributors, because if you’re with someone who doesn’t have muscle in the market, then yes, your exhibitor will dictate the terms, but when you’re with someone like BVI your picture will get terms that guarantee your picture stays in there if it doesn’t take off on day one. But I think it will. Today, the number of people who are talking about Whale Rider leads me to believe that we don’t have a problem positioning the picture – whether it be Toronto, or seeing photos of Keisha, or reading Peter Calder [in the NZ Herald] saying this is a fabulous picture, all these things have created an air of expectancy.

You’ve always been willing to put your head above the parapet and give your POV on industry issues, which is quite unusual. What’s your view of the current state of play as a long time participant and observer?
Well I find it depressing that there is no debate and that in some cases any attempt to question or criticise is met with such antagonism.

The fact is there are a few thousand people who are working every day in this business and they see how it affects them at different levels. And there are certainly very good producers who have built businesses that employ lots of people and who have a pretty good understanding of why things work or why they don’t. And yet there are some organisations that absolutely resist finding out the truth. They live in a world that is sheltered because they can afford for it to be and they treat criticism with punitive responses.

You know, recently some of the industry bodies, in seeking support from an agency, have been told that any support is tied to their acquiescence, and I think that’s a terrible thing. You want a healthy society where people can talk openly, but to be told by a public funding body that we will only give you money if you do not criticise is denigrating to both the giver and receiver.

I think that the organisations – whether they be state funders or broadcasters, or institutions of any kind – are bigger than the individuals working there, they’ve been going longer than any of the individuals working there and they will hopefully continue to go a lot longer. You cannot say “I don’t believe these people”, put your head in the sand and hope it [criticism] will go away. And I find that the dismissal of it because it’s “a personal attack” is very shallow and is really an attempt to defuse it without really dealing with it.

I guess it only becomes a personal attack because the personnel in some of the places refuse to encourage an atmosphere of open conversation. I’ve never known anything bad to come out of people being able to sit around a room and say, “You know, there’s a better way of doing this.”

We’ve seen instances from several bodies this year of a response to industry criticism (in one case) and general disquiet (in another case) being “Shut up or you don’t get any funding from us.” Often very covert, not overt at all, because they’d be subject to all sorts of government stricture if they did that – but a very covert policy of ensuring those people never get funding. And tying the ministers in, so the ministers are parroting this belief that these are personal criticisms that are happening because people got turned down [for funding]. Well, no, people don’t only criticise because they get turned down...

As an individual I believe that public funding should be made public. The only way to make these things transparent is for organisations like the Film Commission in particular to tell everybody how much money they’ve put into a project. NZ on Air does it – not an issue at all. There is no commercial sensitivity to it. If you’re taking public funding then you’ve got a responsibility for people to know how much you got and why. And that way, not only is the funder accountable, because you put $2.8 million into a project that never went anywhere, but so is the recipient. And the recipient has no accountability if no one knows how much money they got. You should be able to stand up and say, “Didn’t they do well on half a million dollars” or “Are you really going to give those people more money after they spent $10 million and never got anything off the ground?”

Why is that a personal attack on the staff? Why is saying that the head of development should come from NZ so they’ll remain here a personal attack? I thought the response was a personal attack but I didn’t think the suggestion was.

Speaking of the free exchange of views, how did you find being a member of the Screen Production Taskforce?
Well, it’s a very lively group of people and no one holds back from climbing into each other about ideas. When I think about some of the really rugged discussions we’ve had about education – the gloves are off inside the room. But it’s been great. Julie Christie has done a fabulous job – she’s been a true politician. She’s made sure everyone’s view has been canvassed and she’s resigned at the start of each meeting, only to be persuaded not to. [laughs] You know, it’s been terrific and, given its head, it could have quite an impact. But there’s a very reactionary view in this country that if it’s about change it must be bad...

How do you think the recommendations will fare?
We think there’s a good chance the Government will pick up on them – they haven’t gone to all this trouble to bypass us.

Anything else you’d like to add at this point?
Not at this point. This isn’t my valedictory interview I hope? [laughs]

Surely not.
Oh good.

© Copyright Onfilm magazine December 2002

All material appearing is copyright and cannot be reproduced without prior permission of the publisher.

Please contact the copyright officer: Ph 0-9-845 5114, Email copyright@mediaweb.co.nz.

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Right Royal Barney