Logger Rhythms
In the 20th Century forests of fast-growing exotic pines were established in the North Island, making one of the world’s largest timber plantations. This short explores timber work in Kinleith and Kawerau: from planting to felling to finished product. Directed by NFU veteran Hugh Macdonald, Logger Rhythms is notable as the first Kiwi film to record sound using Dolby Stereo. Sound men Kit Rolling and Tony Johnson’s efforts capturing chainsaw and machine ambience, along with Steve Robinson’s score, compelled Dolby in London to use the film as a demonstration reel.
Stroke
Christine Jeffs made her directing debut with this lush, high end (35mm film, Dolby sound) short film. Dorothy (Fiona Samuel), a lone swimmer, luxuriates in tranquil bliss at a deserted pool — only to have her solitude rudely interrupted by a squad of swimmers. A wordless, strikingly choreographed conflict ensues as Dorothy attempts to assert herself against the dehumanised aggression of the swimmers. Stroke was invited to international festivals including Cannes and Sundance; and Jeffs went on to direct feature films Rain and Sunshine Cleaning.
Valley of the Stereos
Valley of the Stereos is a comic face-off that starts tinny, but gleefully escalates to bass heavy, as a not-so-zen hippy (Danny Mulheron) gets caught up in a vale-blasting battle with the noisy bogan next door (Murray Keane). Made by many key Peter Jackson collaborators, the near-wordless pump up the volume tale was directed by George Port, shortly before he became founding member of Jackson's famed effects-house Weta Digital. Ironically Weta's computer-generated miracles would help render the stop motion imagery seen in the finale largely a thing of the past.
War Stories
In Gaylene Preston's documentary, seven elderly women recall their personal experiences of World War II. Their intimate, unadorned stories are filmed talking heads style, interspersed with personal photographs and period newsreel clips. From tragic love stories to long-suppressed revelations of sex and death, War Stories is a revealing touchstone of New Zealand history. It received international acclaim. LA Times writer Kevin Thomas enthused that Preston takes "a simple idea and turns it into a rich, universal experience".
Hugh Macdonald
Hugh Macdonald began his long, award-studded career at the National Film Unit, where at 25 he directed ambitious three-screen spectacular This is New Zealand (1970), which was seen by 400,000 New Zealanders. In the 80s he produced Oscar-nominated short The Frog, the Dog, and the Devil and established his own company, continuing a busy diet of commercial films, train documentaries and animation.
Mike Westgate
Mike Westgate began working in sound in his native England. Since moving to New Zealand in the 1970s, he has contributed his skills to documentaries, drama series, and more than 20 features, and passed them on to a new generation, both on film sets and as a guest tutor at South Seas Film & Television School.
Grant Morris
After cutting his teeth on South Pacific Television soap Radio Waves, Christchurch-born Grant Morris went on to write comedy (The Billy T James Show) and children’s classic Count Homogenized — plus help create drama series Heroes and Inside Straight. Morris has continued to write since relocating to the United States in 1985, and is now a DJ on radio station It's New Orleans.
Ron Skelley
Ron Skelley spent 36 years with the National Film Unit’s sound department, contributing to the soundtracks of Weekly Review, Pictorial Parade, and many other NFU and independent films. He started at the NFU in 1949, and was in charge of the sound department from 1977 until his retirement in 1985. Skelley died in March 1992. Image Credit: Photo from The Evening Post, courtesy of Fairfax Media
Andrew Hagen
Andrew Hagen began composing for film while in band Schtung. Hagen and fellow bandmember Morton Wilson provided music for a quartet of Kiwi movies, including Kingpin and The Scarecrow, then moved to Hong Kong and set up studios in Asia. In 1992 Hagen headed to LA, establishing himself as an award-winning composer, sound designer and sound supervisor. In 2011 he launched a branch of Schtung back in Wellington.
Doug Eckhoff
As the final manager of the National Film Unit, Doug Eckhoff had the unenviable task of presiding over its demise as the government’s film production agency, and the sale of its assets. Earlier he was a key figure in television news, from the days of the NZ Broadcasting Corporation through to the birth of Television New Zealand. He was also a long-serving trustee of the New Zealand Film Archive (now Ngā Taonga).