Christchurch Production Momentum

The summer season has been super kind to productions in the region. Lovely and warm and most of all, consistent weather. No ‘smurfy' skies here thank you very much.

The crime thriller Dark City: The Cleaner TV series is well underway with a fantastic crew, and a fantastic script. Welcome to the out-of-towners that have come in for the job. A production of its scale is a pretty big step for the region, but one it has been building towards for the last three years or so. If it continues as smoothly as it started, then it may be a great long-term fixture in the region.

Alongside this, two more features are spinning up: Ant Timpson's Bookworm, basing itself in the alpine town of Methven, and keeping in the thriller vibe, a NZ/AUS co-pro Went Up the Hill. To speak frankly, the long-form scene has taken leaps and bounds in this last year, which is wonderful for the local crew to get onto larger projects and for incoming crew to see how great the region is to live and work.

The commercial production space has a slightly different story, with financial journalists writing self-fulfilling prophecies about a cooling market, companies reading these and beginning to tighten their purse strings. Inflation doesn’t help anything either. But this industry is a sea of peaks and troughs, and we all adapt when needed. I hope you all are staying afloat.

Catch you on set,

Zac