Shooting Deer to Shooting Films

**Hawkes Bay Guild member DAWSON BLISS describes how to become a Movie-Maker … **

the Hard Way!

I guess optimism is something you need plenty of, too much in my case! But when I started work on what was to become known as Wildnewzealand Films, I possessed bucket loads. In fact, there was only one outcome that could evolve from carrying video cameras on hunting trips, both from the air in choppers and on the ground, throughout New Zealand. I aimed to become a movie-maker, and that’s all there was to it. I had spent the best years of my life making a living in the mountains of NZ. Over the years, I had shot some footage that would not be possible to attain in the future - and then five years ago the venture into the world of post–production began… Had I known how difficult that was going to be, maybe the outcome would have been different? But as Benjamin Disraeli once said, ‘Nurture your mind with great thoughts: to believe in the heroic makes heroes’.

So there I was five years ago; a little bored with the business that I had developed over 15 years - the Farmhouse Group, which had evolved after the venison and live deer recovery industry had all but seen its day. I then set out to spend as much time as possible in the bush, logging timber which then had to be turned into the finished product to make enough money. As the business grew, up to 12 employees at one point, I ventured out into the house-building side so that we could not only manufacture the joinery and all the finishing timbers, etc, but also put our unique style of house on the market. That was around the time that Don Brash made speeches saying that house prices would soon fall… They kept going up for years and I did well, but I got out while there was still some upside.

It was about then that I decided making movies was where I wanted to be, and made the right choice and bought a fully spec’d Mac Pro. I figured that it would not be too difficult to learn the art of post-production and would have a movie out in a few months. Wow… How wrong I was! Not being a computer buff, but with a little knowledge, the hard frustrating times began. A year later I was halfway through what I thought would be my first movie… That was until it vanished into cyberspace, never to be seen again.

I managed to hold onto hope, vain hope it seemed at times, but there was little else to hold onto at that stage. I guess my optimism had caused it, because all I was armed with was a great computer and Final Cut Pro - and all the manuals that, on reflection, I think I could have done better without. We rarely refer to them these days when we need to know something; at the level we are at now, Creative Cow is the best source of information.

So two years go by and success at last - the first training DVD comes out of the studio. Titled How To Butcher, it was a great effort, and one that I am totally proud of. At the end of the day, all that matters are sales figures and what the critics say. The first reviewer wrote that the DVD should be used as a training aid in any course on butchery. In my book, the ultimate accolade. Sales were great, and the quality of what I filmed, directed, produced, and marketed is still, even when I look back 3 years later, superb.

I read a press report a couple of weeks ago where a film that the Film Commission funded and cost in the vicinity of $6 million to get to market sold 1200 copies. Hell, I could do that on a budget of next to nothing, so I must be on the right track. I have never sought funding - can’t be bothered by all the bullshit they want from us. I just want to make movies the way I want, the way the market wants, and that’s what we do… Successful, I might add, with no handouts.

Maybe at the end of the day, the Film Commission should be coming to the likes of us, and asking what help we want… Not for us to have to go to them begging, filling out endless forms telling them what they want to hear, and wasting countless hours when we could be producing…

Ten movies later, the last one out of the studio, Take A Kid Hunting - Part Two, is selling well.

That one fell into place after the long-time dream of taking kids hunting and making a movie of it. Part One was selling well, so I had the pleasure of continuing with the theme, perhaps one of the most satisfying adventures I have been on; and none could say the cause wasn’t the noblest.

Now we have the latest Mac Pro and iMac in the studio. I cannot praise the Macs enough - to me there is no other way. A studio that has the equipment to do as I have always done - to produce all that is needed to put a quality DVD movie on the market that sells well.

A couple of years ago, my nephew Dylan had an accident down at Franz Josef and ended up in hospital, where I caught up with him and left him some of the movies I had made to watch. From that, he gained the inspiration to do what I should have done - go to a training establishment and learn the art of post-production.

Then he rings me one day and says, “Uncle, would you have any work in the studio that I could do?” Any work - hell, I had enough to keep us both going forever! The rest is history; but rarely would you come across two people who work so well together, and that makes my life the way it is. I live the greatest life of adventure that I could ever dream of.

I guess I have the ability to get footage that others can’t. I was a professional hunter for 20 years; and I have the theory that a hunter can become a cameraman, but a cameraman can’t become a hunter. It intrigues me watching all the stuff we see on the Discovery Channel that so much of the footage is shot by guys sitting in their vehicles. New Zealand’s wild animals aren’t like that - the crack of a stick or a man’s scent in the breeze and our wild animals are long gone.

The latest project we are working on, and I guess this one started 35 years ago, will be titled The Moa Hunters. This would have to be the most incredible project I have ever been involved with. It evolved from a glimpse of what was an unidentified huge bird when I was 18 years old, trapping fur in the Ureweras. It’s at a stage where we are getting close to the finished product - a product where I have blown the budget a dozen times on chopper time, time in the bush, and time in the studio - but this is the big one… Exciting stuff, but all will have to wait and see the end result.

I would hazard a guess and say that our little two-man studio produces more movies than any other, because of the way we are - determined, resourceful, and motivated. Would write more but am about to leave for the wild west coast off Taranaki on a filming mission, diving for the huge crayfish that haunt what is described as some of the roughest coastline on Earth… And then up to the north of Taranaki hunting wild boar, and hopefully getting some footage. It’s a tough life - but one I would not swap for any other that I know.