Kevin Chisnall

After Kevin 'Chiz' Chisnall died early in 2022, many stories were told: the day army helicopters suddenly appeared over the horizon following some gunplay on the set of Letter to Blanchy; the day he snuck some fake limbs into the staff cafeteria for a laugh; the time he ignited dozens of drums of petrol in Blenheim for Shaker Run. There were probably tales told about this sociable, beloved character in other tongues; over 50 years, Chisnall worked everywhere from Christchurch to Thailand to Hong Kong and India.

Born in Geraldine, Chisnall grew up near the Canterbury town of Hinds. He began blowing up milk churns as a child on the family farm. From small booms, careers can bloom. Chisnall went on to handle physical effects — including "pyrotechnics, explosions, bullet hits, atmospheric special effects, wind, rain, fog and movie guns" — for dozens of television shows and movies, primarily in New Zealand and Asia.

Early on, Chisnall did a brief stint writing adverts for Timaru's Radio Caroline. In the early 70s he joined Christchurch TV channel CHTV-3, as an assistant floor manager. Floor managers would often warm up the audience before filming began. "Always a performer", Chisnall did magic tricks and even donned a clown suit. He'd begun performing magic early, at around age nine.

One of his CHTV-3 colleagues was Johnny Morris, who had created fake explosions for live theatre. Chisnall told Morris about his interest in special effects, and Morris lent him a book on the topic. The way Morris tells it, Chisnall's response was "I'll go out to Waimak and give it a go". Chisnall slightly overegged his first explosion, badly denting the metal pot that he set it up in.

In the 1970s the idea of a Kiwi effects company needing hundreds of staff was as loony as the idea of a New Zealand director taking on The Lord of the Rings. Special effects — which at that point was more likely to mean physical effects like gunshots or fake rain captured during filming, rather than combining images later using labs or computers — was not a viable profession. Certainly not in New Zealand anyway.

So Chisnall continued working as a floor manager, a role that liaises between the TV studio and the director. But he also did the occasional special effects gig, creating explosions for hit comedy A Week of It and Children of Fire Mountain. In 1978 state television paid him to spend eight months in London, studying special effects at the BBC, home of one of the biggest effects operations in television. Then he moved to Auckland, where he worked on sci-fi classic Under the Mountain.

Big budget chase movie Race for the Yankee Zephyr (1981) was a major turning point. Chisnall was told that if he worked on an outside production he'd lose his job in television, but he took the leap.

Feature film production was ramping up. Over a two year period in the early 1980s, he juggled effects work on around a dozen productions. Many featured men making mayhem. The weapons included quadruple-barrelled shotguns (Utu), helicopters (Yankee Zephyr) and futuristic death machines (Battletruck — which Chisnall got to destroy). Chisnall can be glimpsed 12 minutes into this documentary on the making of Utu, arranging some explosive charges for an elaborate battle scene. 

In 1981 Chisnall launched company Action Associates, with engineer/armourer Ralph Gardiner and ex-army major Selwyn Anderson. Kiwi effects veteran Steve Ingram, who would join them for Roger Donaldson's remake of The Bounty, argues that Action Associates was New Zealand's first special effects company.

Chisnall also supplied mutant monsters and explosions for Aotearoa's first horror film, Death Warmed Up. As was often the case on local projects, the budget was not large, which only added to the pressure of ensuring cast and crew made it through each day unharmed. "Kevin was great," said director David Blyth. "We would say to him 'This is what we want, and this is how much time and money we have', and he would go away and come up with the goods."

Later he was nominated for an NZ Film and Television Award for his work on Heroes, after recreating a rescue involving a burning tanker. Chas Toogood probably spoke for many directors when he recalled another Heroes episode, which required a helicopter to crash and explode. "I'd only ever exploded a cracker at Guy Fawkes. Enter Kevin Chisnall! "Piece of cake!", he said. And it was. He made it that way." 

Asked in 2014 about the best film he'd worked on in terms of special effects, Chisnall replied: "Willow, without a doubt." The big budget George Lucas fantasy was partly shot in the South Island, and Chisnall found himself on the same credits list as visual effects giants ILM.

In 1982 Chisnall helped out when Hong Kong action movie Aces Go Places 2 shot some stunts in New Zealand. In 1985 he was invited to Hong Kong to work on the next film in the series; before returning home, he'd managed to snare another Asian gig.  

Although he was based mostly in New Zealand for at least another decade, Chisnall's career reflected the influence of American money on the screen industry  — and how one gig can lead to another. Vietnam War drama A Bright Shining Lie was directed by an American in New Zealand. Award-winner Double Vision was helmed in Taiwan by a Taiwanese director, and funded by Columbia Pictures. 

Around 2004, Chisnall set up shop in Bangkok; he later said that he "wouldn't want to be anywhere else", partly because it was a good hopping off point for various Asia-Pacific destinations. The movies ranged widely, from award-winning English language dramas (Colin Firth POW tale The Railway Man), to direct-to-video sequels (The Scorpion King 3, featuring fellow Kiwi Temuera Morrison) to Thai directors working with American funding (Elephant White).

Over the years Chisnall wrote a number of scripts, including a movie about an English policeman in Shanghai in the 1920s, but it was never made.

Chisnall died back in New Zealand, late in December 2021. His friend Steve Ingram described him as "funny, generous and larger than life ... a true entertainer, a real magician and master of illusion. He was the classic country boy who moved to the big smoke and loved it."

Profile written by Ian Pryor; updated on 19 January 2022

Sources include
Ian Goldingham
Steve Ingram
Johnny Morris
Brian Walden
Jason Gagliardi, 'The Bangkok boys' club' (Interview) - The South China Morning Post, 4 May 2014
Philip Nutman,'Video Preview: Death Warmed Up' - Fangoria 54, June 1986, page 58
'Kevin Chisnall' LinkedIn website. Accessed 12 January 2022
'Memories of working at TVNZ and NZBC, Auckland' Facebook page. Accessed 12 January 2022