Draft 2 PhD Introduction - ResearchSpace@Auckland

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this despite the fact that it caused problems during the first shoot, with some day and
night shooting running back to back”. 396
An important part of White’s role was to make sure that people co-operated with each
other on the film. He believes that: “Whatever inter-personal and management skills I
had were increased tenfold in the space of just the shoot on that movie, and the whole
process of just trying to get it completed”. He cites as an example, Geoff Murphy, who
“was determined to make sure we wouldn’t have too easy a time of it”. Murphy was
“just the complete opposite of someone like Vincent. He’s slapdash and […] has a real
sense of urgency that’s all about spontaneity and improvisation and just grab it while
you can, whereas [with] Vincent [it] was a much more deliberate, calculated process of
manipulating everything right down to the last detail”. 397 This is an important contrast
between Ward’s art-oriented approach and that of a director primarily concerned with
narrative energy whose style was more typical of the New Zealand film industry at this
time.
Although in many respects, White and Ward’s skills complemented each other, they
were also, as King puts it, “complete opposites. Tim was tall and neat […] and
presented himself really well, and Vince was disheveled […], disorganized at times, sort
of shambly, quite intense”. 398 Their differences sometimes caused conflict and White
describes their relationship as being “tempestuous”. However, he recognized when he
decided to work on the project with Ward that their interests dovetailed. “I wanted to
produce, feeling that I had greater skills in that area, and saw in someone like Vincent,
an exceptional talent of a dimension that truly hadn’t been tested […], because
obviously, I’d seen his other work too, the odd sort of experimental pieces that he’d
done at art school”. 399 Although they were both equally involved in the post-production
process, particularly in the sound-mixing and colour-grading, White saw himself as
having “a stronger kind of editorial sense that caused some conflict in the postproduction
phase, because I had to, under the terms of the course, obviously brand it in
some way as my own work too. And film schools always have a bit of a dilemma over
the role of the producer. They’re so auteur-driven. I think that did cause Vincent a
little bit of grief in the post-production phase […] and probably stood him in good
396 White, "Production of a Film Drama," 13.
397 Lynette Read, interview with Timothy White, 29 September 1999.
398 Lynette Read, interview with Chris King, 2 February 1999.
399 Lynette Read, interview with Timothy White, 29 September 1999.