Comments on: Get That Camera Out of Here, We’re Making a Film

By: Howard Taylor

Howard Taylor — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 01:31:56 +0000

Errata: John O’Shea’s production company was, of course, Pacific Films – not South Pacific Pictures (a beast of a very different hue).

By: Robert Boyd-Bell

Robert Boyd-Bell — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 04:13:20 +0000

Hi Stepehn Knight
TVNZ Archives should have masters of the eTV version – I will try to find out the potential for releasing them

By: frisky

frisky — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 10:07:21 +0000

i think the following sentiment is just silly (will try to explain below)

In his book Our Own Image, Barclay focuses on how to bring a camera onto a marae, or as Tuckett puts it : “[How to] introduce the camera to an indigenous community who is mistrustful of anything that will take away your image, where an image means an awful lot more than a temporary facsimile. It was very much ‘how do you teach the camera manners’. The European camera is extremely unmannered, it’s very rude. It breaks down the door, steals what it wants, and then runs away again.”

so an image (of a Maori) is worth, even means, “an awful lot more” because the camera had to ‘learn manners’? But why do these precious Maori even wish for a minute to have images of them put out there, IF such image-stealing ’tis but a subtraction of sorts from their ‘cultural integrity’ already? Just how far is the religion of White Guilt practised by folks like Tuckett prepared to go in this sort of protracted pretense?

By: Stephen Knight

Stephen Knight — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 11:07:28 +0000

Thank you Robert. So is it possible to get a copy of your 1990s package through TVNZ or possibly schools?

By: Robert Boyd-Bell

Robert Boyd-Bell — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 09:22:12 +0000

It is a pity that no reference is made to the re-broadcast of Tangata Whenua in the 1990′s that I negotiated over many, many months and long disputes with John O’Shea then commissioned for TVNZ’s eTV.
We re-screened the entire series on TV One with studio openings and closings by Barry Barclay and Michael King interviewed by Tainui Stephens – and then distributed it to schools throughout the country. In my not so humble opinion that version which resides in the hard-to-access TVNZ Archive is far more relevant to a full understanding of the work than the original series as broadcast in 1974 that only people as old as me can remember and set in some sort of context.
The contextual discussions Tainui led with Barry and Michael are almost as relevant as the films themselves and remain relevant today.
Robert Boyd-Bell
Once GM of eTV