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ABSTRACT
This paper aims to apply the three-tier feature film structure to the contemporary New Zealand filmmaking context in order to add clarity to existing distinctions between the different types of film production occurring in Twenty-first Century New Zealand. Those are subject to, and emerge from, sometimes very different institutional and financing arrangements, and thus entail different expectations. The paper takes an institutional political economy perspective and is organised as follows. First, it provides an overview of how the feature film industry can be portrayed as segmented by various overlapping (three) tiers of production, which may differ between Hollywood and smaller film industries in countries around the world. Second, the paper applies the three-tier structure within the contemporary New Zealand filmmaking context. Third, the paper explains the characteristics of every feature film tier by acknowledging their distinctiveness and highlighting the benefits they deliver to the New Zealand filmmaking industry. Finally, it concludes that all three-tier of feature film production have been crucial for generating and sustaining a feature film industry in a small English-speaking country such as New Zealand.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Dr. Trisha Dunleavy and Dr. Peter Thompson for their support and guidance.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes on contributor
Natàlia Ferrer-Roca is an Adjunct Professor at the Department of Communication and Business Management at University of Girona, Catalonia. She has a strong international background with a PhD in Media Studies from Victoria University of Wellington (New Zealand), MA in Communications Policy (Distinction) from Westminster University (London), and a degree in Journalism and Business from the Autonomous University of Barcelona. Her research focuses on the intersection between media and communication studies, business, and place branding, with special focus on political economy. She is also Director of The Place Brand Observer (http://placebrandobserver.com). She has published in the Journal of Media Business Studies, Place Branding and Public Diplomacy, and Media Industries.
Notes
1 See Ferrer-Roca (Citation2014, 18) for an example of how ‘new technologies are transforming conventional market boundaries and business models and, at the same time, are changing the value chain relations of established industry structures’ in New Zealand.
2 For an overview of the public subsidy schemes available for both domestic and international feature films in New Zealand, see Ferrer-Roca (Citation2017a forthcoming).
3 For an overview of the economic dynamics of the distribution of feature films in New Zealand, see Ferrer-Roca (Citation2017b forthcoming).
4 There is also a perception that this imagining of NZ as Middle-earth works against the campaign’s central objective when the country is not pursuing its green credentials. See recently published PhD at Waikato University (Kaefer Citation2014).
5 The NZ government anticipates that the tourism spin-offs from The Hobbit will exceed those of LOTR (Edwards Citation2012) in terms of the marketing of NZ. However, as Minister Joyce declares, it is ‘a very hard thing to finally substantiate in terms of the actual [tourism] numbers’ (Hubbard Citation2013).
6 The marketing strategy ‘100% Middle-earth, 100% Pure New Zealand’ aims ‘to take advantage of that global profile by showing how easily the fantasy of The Hobbit movies can become reality in the form of a New Zealand holiday’ (Tourism, NZ Citation2013b, para. 2).
7 I acknowledge that both Gisella Carr and John Key have vested political interests in this context.