'Doing things together makes our family strong' 40sec. 2005.

2005 TVNZ Summer Season short film comp entry, produced to celebrate what makes the Christmas season special for your family. I was placed as one of three winning finalists. We received air play of our 30 sec ad to show before TVNZ 1 news for two weeks prior to Christmas day, and the week that followed. They replaced the music (licensed) and added a frilly outro TVNZ logo card.
An assortment of prizes where awarded by delivery of beach chairs, cooler bags, cups, sun visors, balls and beach equipment's for our kids. It was a fun time for the family. I never received an official copy back from TVNZ so what you see here is what I recorded from the TV prior to the 6.00pm prime time news slot. I was thrilled to see my one chosen to play on Christmas eve, the kids where equally excited to see them selves on TV as yo can imagine.
This small yet delightful production was may first attempt at storyboarding, filming, editing and sound edit for a 'film' project of any kind. I used a Sony DCR-HC32 Mini DV, transferred from tape to digital using a gifted DVD early version of Adobe Premiere from a work mate in Australia. I spent many hours teaching myself the software and used this project to upskill my self in all areas of film making.
I had worked at the Readers Digest in Sydney Australia as a graphic Designer for 10 years prior to moving back to NZ to start a family. I was trained weekly on the Adobe suite Illustrator, Photoshop, Quark Express on MacOS by a MAC trainer wizard 'Colin'. I also had further after hours training at AFTRS (Australian film, television and radio school; in Ryde NSW) in advanced Photoshop, After Affects and an early basic Avid training. I attended IT computer conferences as a graphic design team and kept up with the play. I was kind off growing out of page design work but it was my income so I stuck with it. My interest in computer design moving image work began to blossom so, at one of the conferences I purchased a small learner version of editing software called: TBA . This is what my embryo post production film editing begun on. It was later replaced by a version of Adobe Premiere 4.2 from 'Colin' trainer on DVD, which I had taken back to NZ when I farewelled Oz in 1998.
At the time I was inspired by Peter Jackson's 'Lord of the Rings' trilogy; 2001, 2002, and 2003 respectively. I was engrossed in the process of how a movie was made, that led me to do a lot of reading and try my hand at it.
At the time I had created a small business of Marionette Puppet theatre (Brightspark Puppet Theatre), with Art work shops attached. I loved working with miniatures, the sets and the storylines were based on classic known fairytales. I applied for my first Creative Communities funding and to my joy received $500 to make 'Little Grey rabbits Christmas'.
I was greatly supported by CCNZ for many years, which grew into the idea of making a TV show with puppets of which I received a 5k NZCC grant for.
So going to Film from theatre seemed a natural progression in 2005. Sandwiched in-between the stage and screen was where this 'Family 2005', or 'Doing things together makes our family strong' has emerged, as you can see from the use of filming puppets and people. It was a great boost to my self and young family when we won as a finalist.
This accolade led to me buying my first Sony HDV cam. I wanted to enter a short film competition, and had my eyes on the Australian 'Tropfest' comp.
This was the birth of my short film career, and 'Starcatcher' was my first 7 min with TPI attempt. See next entry.