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Hero image for Artists Prepare: Sam Hunt and Gary McCormick - Poets

Artists Prepare: Sam Hunt and Gary McCormick - Poets

Short Film (Full Length) – 1980

G
Anyone

Artists Prepare was a 1980 TV series from the National Film Unit, which featured prominent performance-based artists. This edition follows poets Sam Hunt and Gary McCormick (the "John Travolta of New Zealand poetry") on a tour of the Nelson region. They give poetry readings, talk to high school girls, drink whiskey, and muse about poetry and life — while Minstrel, Hunt's dog, lies patiently under bar tables. Ultratight stovepipe jeans, rock star scarves, and scenes in a milk bar and out on the open road in a Valiant evoke a time when 'poetry' and 'heartthrob' could comfortably sit in the same sentence.

Sam Hunt, why have you got your sunglasses upside down?
– A Nelson radio DJ opens his interview with poet Sam Hunt

Key Cast & Crew

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Steve Gibb

Cinematographer

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Sam Hunt

Subject

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David Keene

Sound Recordist

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Hugh Macdonald

Producer

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Gary McCormick

Subject

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Chris Dillon

Director

See all 8 credits

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