Back to results INTERVIEW : Telling it straight Graeme Tetley, one of New Zealand’s most experienced screenwriters, discusses shaping the tragic events at Aramoana on 13 November 1990 into feature film Out Of The Blue. Is there any subject you can think of that you wouldn’t be willing to take on in a screenplay and/or that no one should make a movie about? I’m a writer of film scripts. I have been for 25 years. I write about what it may mean to live in these mad, beautiful – sometimes cruel – islands. I spent the first half of my working life as a teacher. I still believe that knowledge and understanding are worthwhile ends: that human affairs are interesting, sometimes heroic, though not always edifying. And I believe that ultimately the truth does set us free. I would not write about something that I had not used all my being to try to understand. And I would not write about something that, on balance, I considered to be only hurtful, destructive, untruthful or exploitative. Or boring. I presume you thought long and hard about it before agreeing to take part in the retelling of the Aramoana tragedy – what were the things you considered in coming to your decision? I was first attracted to the project because I’d worked with [producer] Tim White way back when Vigil was being made and when I was a consultant on No 2. I also had dealings with [director] Robert [Sarkies] with Scarfies. (I like what I call a ‘subterranean growl’ in his film). Caterina de Nave from TV3 was either interested or on board at the time. (I didn’t know [producer] Steve O’Meagher at this time.) Tim, Rob, Caterina seemed like a combination that could get a film made. My memory of the events was patchy – waking up on the morning of November 14 1990 and finding – how many dead! The TV reports left me with two images – a bits-and-pieces little settlement at the end of nowhere hunkered down in the grass and lupins and rusted corrugated iron: and sheets on a clothes-line on an early summer morning – twisting and flapping near the road and not a soul in sight. Forlorn. I read Bill O’Brien’s book [Aramoana – 22 Hours of Terror]. What I found interesting was a cop’s eye view of the case. It has a proprietary air and a defensiveness (maybe protectiveness) about it all. I still find that very interesting. At that stage and for quite a long time I did not find the cops’ story itself all that interesting. That happened when I met Nick Harvey. As I understand it, the way you worked with Robert on the script involved jointly researching and structuring the story, then you doing the vast majority of the writing, while Robert edited and threw in ideas – is that about right? Yes. Pretty well. We did not always agree, which is a sign of a good working relationship. Sometimes we violently disagreed which may be a sign of an even better one. I’m older than he. And we have different sensibilities. How long did the research phase take, and what did that involve? It took about two years – right up to the shoot. Initially Robert and I went down and stayed for about 10 days in a crib owned by Mrs Dickson. The crib is less than 100 metres from where David Gray’s crib had been. After dinner we went for a walk with a torch. Night there is darker than you’d believe. When the council tried to put in streetlights, they were shot out. Several times. Or perhaps smashed by stones. We went towards the beach through the lupins and suddenly the memorial to the people that David Gray had killed was in the torchlight. They were listed down a long black shiny pipe with their ages beside their name. Four children dead. David Gray’s name had been placed on the memorial but it had been removed. Several times. Back in the crib we were pretty quiet after that. There was a knock on the door. Brian Wilson came in and introduced himself. He’s a farmer. Shorts, swannee and boots. The Wilson’s have been in Aramoana forever. Different branches of the family own different cribs. Brian was the uncle of one of the children who had been killed. He didn’t say much but clearly he was sussing us out. He came back a couple more times while we were there. We also met Lena Davis, Brian’s aunt. She kept a history of the battle against the aluminium smelter and the massacre. She lent us her scrapbooks. There was a photo of Mrs Dickson with her son Jimmy on the mantelpiece in the crib. Jimmy was shot dead on the night of the massacre. Rob stood looking at the photo for some time. He tapped it and said “I think she is our main character.” We met people when we went for a walk. Some wished us luck and were interested. Some were reticent. Two people (that we know of) did not want to speak to us. People knocked on the door and came to talk to us. Rob tended to do the talking. I tended to listen. Bill O’Brien took us to meet people. Police officers (one police officer declined to speak with us) and people like Julie Anne Bryson. Her daughter, her lover and his daughter had been killed. And we met Nick Harvey. He was to become the second main character of the film. Chiquita Holden came to us late on a wet Sunday afternoon, full of anger and fire. That we should want to make the film! Why? And what right? Making money out of! My undertaking was that I would use nothing of her story without her permission. She was still fuming when she left. Her mother sat with her throughout. Chiquita later became a firm and helpful supporter. I’d like to be able to say everyone brought stories to us. It wasn’t that easy. Many did. Sometimes they were just fragments that they thought might be useful. Sometimes they wanted to only tell part of the story. “Some things are sacred,” one person said. There were stories we were told and asked not to use. (We didn’t use them.) There were police interviews and police radio broadcasts. Some stories were explanations constructed after the event perhaps to explain the monstrousness of the event. David seen regularly in a silent, secret bay along the coast in commando gear firing off his automatic at tins and bottles. David up every night learning by heart the tracks through the lupins. We couldn’t verify some stories. There was anger. “He shot my best friend.” Disbelief. “Why didn’t he shoot me?” But many people closely involved with the events, referred to David Gray by his first name without any sense of hatred or anger or rancour. No one, at this stage, told us to go away. This complex process continued right through to the shoot. When it came to a time that the film was likely to be made, we talked with the community. It was volatile and difficult. Unhappy memories of the event and people still grieving: the film would have negative effects on land values: it would be an invitation to rubber-neckers – these were the main reasons for opposition to the film. We agreed that two representatives of the community who lived there at the time should read the script. They would report back to the community and we would listen to their responses. In response to that we agreed not to have the settlement’s name in the title and we would not shoot the film in the settlement. There were some details that they wanted deleted and we agreed. Could we have done more? Of course. Of course. But on balance I think we did well. What were the key decisions you and Robert took in how you shaped the material, and what led to this decision? We wanted to look at the settlement (an ‘end of the golden weather’ holiday beach) and the heroism of ordinary people. We chose Nick Harvey and Mrs Dickson as the two focal characters. We wanted to tell the story over the night and day of the massacre and siege. (It was a complex story. It needed focus. We did not want it to unravel. But it meant the back-story could not be easily told.) We didn’t want to have the story dominated by David Gray but we couldn’t ignore him. I wanted to understand him. Can you talk about how you sought to balance condemnation for Gray’s actions with an empathy for his particular circumstances? I never felt I had to condemn David Gray. I did feel I had to be as accurate (truthful?) as I could be. The process of ‘finding’ him was no different from that of finding any other character. There are questions that can be asked, answers found, conclusions drawn. There are those who knew him. Some knew him quite well. Some say he went mad. Others say – firmly – that he was an outsider amongst outsiders and that he was “tested past endurance” and took revenge. I read extensively. The psychology of a recluse is not unknown. The state of mind of someone at breaking point (paranoia, episodes of hearing voices, delusion, anger) is well charted. And there are facts. David went to Dunedin on the day of the shootings. There was an angry outburst in the bank (recorded on video) and another in a tea rooms (not used in the film). He went into a gunsmith’s shop, bought a rifle but did not take it home with him. He bought a copy of a New Zealand gun magazine and wrote an almost coherent letter to the magazine’s editor. You examine the evidence and weigh it and make choices in light of it all. Were there any other films dealing with similar events that you referenced in terms of how one should and shouldn’t handle this type of material? I watched Gus Van Sant’s Elephant. I read what Jimmy McGovern had to say about writing Sunday. (A script written with the families after the slayings in the Bogside, Derry.) Paintings and poems are also my reference points. There is a painting of Colin McCahon’s – “tomorrow will be the same but not like this”; WH Auden’s Musee des beaux art that begins “About suffering they were never wrong the old masters”; Gustav Mahler’s Kindertotenlieder. What was the hardest aspect of writing the screenplay for you? The deaths of the children. I often thought of Macduff speaking of Macbeth who killed Macduff’s wife and children. “He [Macbeth/David Gray] hath no children. All my pretty ones? What, all my pretty chickens at one fell swoop?” The death of David. What was the most rewarding aspect of being involved in the project? The people that I met: the process of trying to get their experiences as individuals and as a community onto paper and onto film: and being trusted with their stories that were personal, deep, extraordinary, complex and beautiful. Now, the inevitable question about the ethics of making a dramatic film based on a real life tragedy like this: what’s your response to those who say no-one has a right to tell this story, and making a film of it is intrinsically exploitative? I can’t give you a definitive or coherent answer to this. The debate is crisper in 2006 than it was when we set out on the story. We have had Capote (Bennett Miller), Elephant (Gus Van Sant), Bloody Sunday (Paul Greengrass) and Sunday (Jimmy McGovern); the films of September 11 by Greengrass (United 93) and Oliver Stone (World Trade Centre); and Michael Winterbottom has Road to Guantanamo, where Muslim prisoners play themselves. TV news and docos can and do intrude into the affairs of the dying, the traumatised, the bereft, the mourning, the wounded, the grieving – and justify it by “giving us the facts” – in bite sized pieces. TV and film drama may fictionally kill, maim, taunt, screw, titillate, horrify, betray so that we may be entertained and sometimes informed. The facts and entertainment are not enough. There is a responsibility for filmmakers to find meaning in ‘real’ life. There is also an implication here that those whom the film is about are helpless and motiveless and so they are ripped off. Far from it. There were many complex reasons people agreed to help. “I want my child to know what [his relative] did on that night.” “People need to know about …” “People need to understand.” “It is part of our process of grieving.” A police officer thought the film should be made “because there are still a lot of guns and violence out there”. Maybe even a few minutes of fame. Whatever their reasons, they are to be respected. What’s your pitch to potential punters regarding why they should go and see Out Of The Blue? If you believe that film may look into the dark places where innocence, brutality and bravery meet and in doing so may widen our experience and understanding of the human condition – then see it. © Copyright Onfilm magazine October 2006 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:

INTERVIEW : Telling it straight

Graeme Tetley, one of New Zealand’s most experienced screenwriters, discusses shaping the tragic events at Aramoana on 13 November 1990 into feature film Out Of The Blue.

Is there any subject you can think of that you wouldn’t be willing to take on in a screenplay and/or that no one should make a movie about?
I’m a writer of film scripts. I have been for 25 years. I write about what it may mean to live in these mad, beautiful – sometimes cruel – islands.
I spent the first half of my working life as a teacher. I still believe that knowledge and understanding are worthwhile ends: that human affairs are interesting, sometimes heroic, though not always edifying. And I believe that ultimately the truth does set us free.
I would not write about something that I had not used all my being to try to understand. And I would not write about something that, on balance, I considered to be only hurtful, destructive, untruthful or exploitative. Or boring.

I presume you thought long and hard about it before agreeing to take part in the retelling of the Aramoana tragedy – what were the things you considered in coming to your decision?
I was first attracted to the project because I’d worked with [producer] Tim White way back when Vigil was being made and when I was a consultant on No 2. I also had dealings with [director] Robert [Sarkies] with Scarfies. (I like what I call a ‘subterranean growl’ in his film). Caterina de Nave from TV3 was either interested or on board at the time. (I didn’t know [producer] Steve O’Meagher at this time.) Tim, Rob, Caterina seemed like a combination that could get a film made.
My memory of the events was patchy – waking up on the morning of November 14 1990 and finding – how many dead! The TV reports left me with two images – a bits-and-pieces little settlement at the end of nowhere hunkered down in the grass and lupins and rusted corrugated iron: and sheets on a clothes-line on an early summer morning – twisting and flapping near the road and not a soul in sight. Forlorn.
I read Bill O’Brien’s book [Aramoana – 22 Hours of Terror]. What I found interesting was a cop’s eye view of the case. It has a proprietary air and a defensiveness (maybe protectiveness) about it all. I still find that very interesting. At that stage and for quite a long time I did not find the cops’ story itself all that interesting. That happened when I met Nick Harvey.

As I understand it, the way you worked with Robert on the script involved jointly researching and structuring the story, then you doing the vast majority of the writing, while Robert edited and threw in ideas – is that about right?
Yes. Pretty well. We did not always agree, which is a sign of a good working relationship. Sometimes we violently disagreed which may be a sign of an even better one. I’m older than he. And we have different sensibilities.

How long did the research phase take, and what did that involve?
It took about two years – right up to the shoot.
Initially Robert and I went down and stayed for about 10 days in a crib owned by Mrs Dickson. The crib is less than 100 metres from where David Gray’s crib had been. After dinner we went for a walk with a torch. Night there is darker than you’d believe. When the council tried to put in streetlights, they were shot out. Several times. Or perhaps smashed by stones. We went towards the beach through the lupins and suddenly the memorial to the people that David Gray had killed was in the torchlight. They were listed down a long black shiny pipe with their ages beside their name. Four children dead. David Gray’s name had been placed on the memorial but it had been removed. Several times.
Back in the crib we were pretty quiet after that. There was a knock on the door. Brian Wilson came in and introduced himself. He’s a farmer. Shorts, swannee and boots. The Wilson’s have been in Aramoana forever. Different branches of the family own different cribs. Brian was the uncle of one of the children who had been killed. He didn’t say much but clearly he was sussing us out. He came back a couple more times while we were there. We also met Lena Davis, Brian’s aunt. She kept a history of the battle against the aluminium smelter and the massacre. She lent us her scrapbooks.
There was a photo of Mrs Dickson with her son Jimmy on the mantelpiece in the crib. Jimmy was shot dead on the night of the massacre. Rob stood looking at the photo for some time. He tapped it and said “I think she is our main character.”
We met people when we went for a walk. Some wished us luck and were interested. Some were reticent. Two people (that we know of) did not want to speak to us. People knocked on the door and came to talk to us. Rob tended to do the talking. I tended to listen.
Bill O’Brien took us to meet people. Police officers (one police officer declined to speak with us) and people like Julie Anne Bryson. Her daughter, her lover and his daughter had been killed. And we met Nick Harvey. He was to become the second main character of the film.
Chiquita Holden came to us late on a wet Sunday afternoon, full of anger and fire. That we should want to make the film! Why? And what right? Making money out of! My undertaking was that I would use nothing of her story without her permission. She was still fuming when she left. Her mother sat with her throughout. Chiquita later became a firm and helpful supporter.
I’d like to be able to say everyone brought stories to us. It wasn’t that easy. Many did. Sometimes they were just fragments that they thought might be useful. Sometimes they wanted to only tell part of the story. “Some things are sacred,” one person said. There were stories we were told and asked not to use. (We didn’t use them.) There were police interviews and police radio broadcasts. Some stories were explanations constructed after the event perhaps to explain the monstrousness of the event. David seen regularly in a silent, secret bay along the coast in commando gear firing off his automatic at tins and bottles. David up every night learning by heart the tracks through the lupins. We couldn’t verify some stories.
There was anger. “He shot my best friend.” Disbelief. “Why didn’t he shoot me?” But many people closely involved with the events, referred to David Gray by his first name without any sense of hatred or anger or rancour.
No one, at this stage, told us to go away.
This complex process continued right through to the shoot. When it came to a time that the film was likely to be made, we talked with the community. It was volatile and difficult. Unhappy memories of the event and people still grieving: the film would have negative effects on land values: it would be an invitation to rubber-neckers – these were the main reasons for opposition to the film.
We agreed that two representatives of the community who lived there at the time should read the script. They would report back to the community and we would listen to their responses.
In response to that we agreed not to have the settlement’s name in the title and we would not shoot the film in the settlement. There were some details that they wanted deleted and we agreed.
Could we have done more? Of course. Of course. But on balance I think we did well.

What were the key decisions you and Robert took in how you shaped the material, and what led to this decision?
We wanted to look at the settlement (an ‘end of the golden weather’ holiday beach) and the heroism of ordinary people. We chose Nick Harvey and Mrs Dickson as the two focal characters.
We wanted to tell the story over the night and day of the massacre and siege. (It was a complex story. It needed focus. We did not want it to unravel. But it meant the back-story could not be easily told.)
We didn’t want to have the story dominated by David Gray but we couldn’t ignore him. I wanted to understand him.

Can you talk about how you sought to balance condemnation for Gray’s actions with an empathy for his particular circumstances?
I never felt I had to condemn David Gray. I did feel I had to be as accurate (truthful?) as I could be.
The process of ‘finding’ him was no different from that of finding any other character. There are questions that can be asked, answers found, conclusions drawn. There are those who knew him. Some knew him quite well. Some say he went mad. Others say – firmly – that he was an outsider amongst outsiders and that he was “tested past endurance” and took revenge. I read extensively. The psychology of a recluse is not unknown. The state of mind of someone at breaking point (paranoia, episodes of hearing voices, delusion, anger) is well charted.
And there are facts. David went to Dunedin on the day of the shootings. There was an angry outburst in the bank (recorded on video) and another in a tea rooms (not used in the film). He went into a gunsmith’s shop, bought a rifle but did not take it home with him. He bought a copy of a New Zealand gun magazine and wrote an almost coherent letter to the magazine’s editor.
You examine the evidence and weigh it and make choices in light of it all.

Were there any other films dealing with similar events that you referenced in terms of how one should and shouldn’t handle this type of material?
I watched Gus Van Sant’s Elephant. I read what Jimmy McGovern had to say about writing Sunday. (A script written with the families after the slayings in the Bogside, Derry.) Paintings and poems are also my reference points. There is a painting of Colin McCahon’s – “tomorrow will be the same but not like this”; WH Auden’s Musee des beaux art that begins “About suffering they were never wrong the old masters”; Gustav Mahler’s Kindertotenlieder.

What was the hardest aspect of writing the screenplay for you?
The deaths of the children. I often thought of Macduff speaking of Macbeth who killed Macduff’s wife and children. “He [Macbeth/David Gray] hath no children. All my pretty ones? What, all my pretty chickens at one fell swoop?”
The death of David.

What was the most rewarding aspect of being involved in the project?
The people that I met: the process of trying to get their experiences as individuals and as a community onto paper and onto film: and being trusted with their stories that were personal, deep, extraordinary, complex and beautiful.

Now, the inevitable question about the ethics of making a dramatic film based on a real life tragedy like this: what’s your response to those who say no-one has a right to tell this story, and making a film of it is intrinsically exploitative?
I can’t give you a definitive or coherent answer to this.
The debate is crisper in 2006 than it was when we set out on the story. We have had Capote (Bennett Miller), Elephant (Gus Van Sant), Bloody Sunday (Paul Greengrass) and Sunday (Jimmy McGovern); the films of September 11 by Greengrass (United 93) and Oliver Stone (World Trade Centre); and Michael Winterbottom has Road to Guantanamo, where Muslim prisoners play themselves.
TV news and docos can and do intrude into the affairs of the dying, the traumatised, the bereft, the mourning, the wounded, the grieving – and justify it by “giving us the facts” – in bite sized pieces. TV and film drama may fictionally kill, maim, taunt, screw, titillate, horrify, betray so that we may be entertained and sometimes informed.
The facts and entertainment are not enough. There is a responsibility for filmmakers to find meaning in ‘real’ life.
There is also an implication here that those whom the film is about are helpless and motiveless and so they are ripped off. Far from it. There were many complex reasons people agreed to help. “I want my child to know what [his relative] did on that night.” “People need to know about …” “People need to understand.” “It is part of our process of grieving.” A police officer thought the film should be made “because there are still a lot of guns and violence out there”. Maybe even a few minutes of fame. Whatever their reasons, they are to be respected.

What’s your pitch to potential punters regarding why they should go and see Out Of The Blue?
If you believe that film may look into the dark places where innocence, brutality and bravery meet and in doing so may widen our experience and understanding of the human condition – then see it.

© Copyright Onfilm magazine October 2006

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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INTERVIEW : Telling it straight

Graeme Tetley, one of New Zealand’s most experienced screenwriters, discusses shaping the tragic events at Aramoana on 13 November 1990 into feature film Out Of The Blue.