Box Ticking

Back again in New Zealand after a highly successful trip. It was the perfect timing to catch up with key players and sketch out the map of our journey toward filming in November. Perhaps the most important part of the whole trip was the sense of urgency and commitment from all parties, with a renewal of that steely determination that we're going to make this film.

Gillies Mackinnon has a theory that contemporary filmmaking has degenerated into what he calls 'box ticking'. Faced with uncertainty about what will succeed with audiences, film financiers have tried to manufacture security by measuring projects against a series of templates drawn from what has worked in the past. This, of course is a recipe for extinguishing originality - and often one which perversely diminishes returns as well in many cases.

I thought of this today as I began working my way through checklists for documents required for various applications, and found myself literally ticking boxes. Whichever way we get this film made, I do hope it retains something of the freshness, passion and originality which is what has kept us all going in the long quest. Now, back to the paperwork...