Lindsay Shelton - Dancing with Hollywood: The inside story of how New Zealand movies became world-famous

Lindsay Shelton began a lifetime fascination with the movies as a child watching Hollywood musicals in his small home town in rural New Zealand. After working as a journalist in Sydney and London, he returned home to join New Zealands first television news service. In his spare time he was elected president of the Wellington Film Society. Soon afterwards he established the Wellington Film Festival which he ran for nine years until becoming marketing director of the newly established New Zealand Film Commission. For the next 22 years he introduced New Zealand movies and movie-makers at the worlds biggest film festivals and markets including 21 Cannes Film Festivals and handled international sales of more than 60 New Zealand feature films by aspiring, and later famous, directors such as Peter Jackson, Jane Campion, Roger Donaldson, Gaylene Preston, Geoff Murphy, Vincent Ward and Lee Tamahori.

I owe this book to my good friend Mike Nicolaidi, who suggested it and whose enthusiasm and confidence made it happen. Without his involvement and support, I could never have started it, or completed it.

The idea of a book on New Zealand films was first suggested to me more than 40 years ago by Roger Horrocks, who has done so much for New Zealands film culture. Hundreds of films later, its a very different book from the one he was envisaging.

There are many people who are not in the narrative but whose support and friendship were a part of my years at the Film Commission. In particular I acknowledge the late Carol Davidson, my valued and longest-serving assistant, and Jack Ingram, Phil Langridge and Owen Lewer, who worked with me for many years in the never-ending roles of ensuring that films and tapes were delivered on time to addresses all over the world, and that thousands of pages of correspondence and contracts were stored where they could always be found. I also acknowledge the unfailing generosity of Chris Prowse and Mladen Ivancic, who were always willing to explain financial realities that would otherwise have remained a mystery.

My thanks are also due to the 1972 committee of the Wellington Film Society for their willingness to support my idea of starting a film festival. Special thanks go to David Lindsay, then editor of the societys magazine Sequence, and now the societys longest-serving president. (He retired at the end of 2014). Like everyone involved with New Zealand films, I am also grateful to Sue May, David Gapes and Nick Grant, whose editorship of Onfilm magazine recorded good and bad times.

I thank Ruth Harley, the former chief executive of the Film Commission, for permission to use photographs and to access files from the commissions collection at the New Zealand Film Archive (now Ng Taonga), and for permission to use (and revise) the commissions timeline of feature films, which is the basis of the filmography in this book, and which has been considerably extended for this second edition. Diane Pivac from the Film Archive provided authoritative input into revising, expanding and correcting the filmography. Ian Conrich ensured we added titles which might otherwise have been overlooked. I thank them both. Some information in the filmography has come from the timeline created by Jonathan Dennis in the indispensable Film in Aotearoa New Zealand. Another valuable resource was the landmark New Zealand Film 19121996 by Helen Martin and Sam Edwards.

Frank Stark, Kristen Wineera and Lisa Mitchell all provided generous assistance when I needed to find files and information at the Film Archive. I am grateful to many other people who answered questions when I called to check on facts which I couldnt otherwise confirm. The late Paul Melody in Marton and Michelle Seawell in Paris were impressively quick to provide information when I most needed it.

At the Wellington offices of Awa Press, its been a pleasure to know that Sarah Bennett would always prove her impeccable technical knowledge and her calm, cheerful efficiency. And for this new edition, I am grateful for the production work of Emma Wolff. Most of all, I thank publisher Mary Varnham for her encouragement, commitment and confidence, and for being at all times unrelentingly demanding and stimulatingly constructive.

100 Essential New Zealand Films, Hamish McDouall: Awa Press, 2009

Aotearoa: El Cine de Nueva Zelanda: 42 Semana Internacional de Cine deValladolid, 1997

Bad Taste, Jim Barratt: Wallflower Press, 2008

The Celluloid Circus, Wayne Brittenden: Godwit, 2008

A Coming of Age, Duncan Petrie and Duncan Stuart: Random House, 2008

A Decade of New Zealand Film: Sleeping Dogs to Came A Hot Friday, Nicholas Reid: John McIndoe, 1986

Dont Let It Get You: MemoriesDocuments, John OShea, edited by Jonathan Dennis and Jan Bieringa: Victoria University Press, 1999

Edge of the Earth: Stories and Images from the Antipodes, Vincent Ward: Heinemann Reed, 1990

Eighty Turbulent Years, David Lascelles: Millwood Press, 1997

Film in Aotearoa New Zealand, edited by Jonathan Dennis and Jan Bieringa: Victoria University Press, second edition, 1996; first edition, 1992

In the Public Good? Censorship in New Zealand, Chris Watson and Roy Shuker: Dunmore Press, 1998

Jane Campion: Authorship and Personal Cinema, Alistair Fox: Indiana University Press, 2011

Jane Campion, Dana Polan: BFI Publishing, 2008

Jane Campion, Deb Verhoeven: Routledge, 2009

Jane Campion, Ellen Cheshire: Pocket Essentials, 2000

Jane Campion, Kathleen McHugh: University of Illinois Press, 2007

Jane Campion: Cinema, Nation, Identity, edited by Hilary Radner, Alistair Fox and Irne Bessire: Wayne State University Press, 2009

Jane Campion: Interviews, edited by Virginia Wright Wexman: University Press of Mississippi, 1999

Jane Campions The Piano, edited by Harriet Margolis: Cambridge University Press, 1999

Jane Campions The Piano: An Analysis of Gender Roles, Relationships and Communication, Karoline Gruber: GRIN Verlag, 2009

John OShea Remembered in Illusions, edited by Lawrence McDonald, number 33, Autumn 2002

A Journey Through New Zealand Film, Ian Brodie: HarperCollins, 2006

Len Lye: A biography, Roger Horrocks: Auckland University Press, 2001

The Lord of the Rings Location Guidebook, Ian Brodie: HarperCollins 2003; revised 2011

The Lord of the Rings Location Guidebook: Extended Edition, Ian Brodie: HarperCollins, 2005

The Lord of the Rings: The Making of the Movie Trilogy, Brian Sibley: HarperCollins, 2002

The Lord of the Rings Location Guidebook: Travel Diary, Ian Brodie: HarperCollins 2004

The Navigator: A Medieval Odyssey, Vincent Ward: Faber and Faber, 1989

New Zealand Film 19121996, Helen Martin and Sam Edwards: Oxford University Press, 1997

New Zealand Film: An Illustrated History, edited by Diane Pivac, with Frank Stark and Lawrence McDonald: Te Papa Press, 2011

New Zealand Filmmakers, edited by Ian Conrich and Stuart Murray: Wayne State University Press, 2007

New Zealand Film Makers at the Auckland City Art Gallery, Roger Horrocks: Auckland City Art Gallery, 1985

New Zealands First Talkies: Early Film-making in Otago and Southland 1896-1939, Simon Price: Otago Heritage Books, 1996

On Film, Roger Horrocks and Philip Tremewan: Heinemann, 1980; second edition, 1986