Strife In Middle Earth - 2010

This behemoth of a track (six minutes!) was for Media7's SPADA (Screen Production And Development Association) special, filmed each year at the organisation's annual conference.

A big part of the show was dedicated to the labour dispute over The Hobbit (now being filmed) and this track was designed to setup a discussion about the fracas.

Watching the track now it seems a little hard on the actors. If I did it again i'd probably couch that a little bit, but their local representatives did seem a bit clueless. However, in that climate of hysteria I wonder how collected I would have been?

And what to make of the little reported email from Peter Jackson to Gerry Brownlee in which he states Warner Bros were more concerned with "grey areas" of NZ's employment law, than they were with the union action?

In the end there's still uncertainty over the motivations of the FIA, the MEAA and the studios behind The Hobbit. It's difficult to avoid the suspicion that the local union members and to some extent the country got played by international interests.

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• 2011
• media7
• the
• hobbit