Draft 2 PhD Introduction - ResearchSpace@Auckland

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much better, and secondly, I had filmed two scenes”. 504 The film was sent to Atlab in
Sydney (after Ward’s disastrous experience with the National Film Unit’s processing)
and he got back “nine hundred feet of beautifully processed film”. He and David
Coulson spent several days editing some film excerpts to show to the Education
Department, and the Department was sufficiently pleased with it to agree to a further
request for finance.
During this period, Ward, who was not drawing any wage for the film, took time out
from his own project to work as art director on Sons for the Return Home. He
comments: “[I was] curious to see if my attitude to the value of the subject matter in In
Spring One Plants Alone would alter, after my encounter with a much more primitive
way of life in Samoa” He came to the conclusion that: “If anything, [the subject] now
seemed even more important”. 505 Ward’s use of the term “primitive” would today be
considered inappropriate, but it must be remembered that in those days it was still a
standard term used in art schools to describe tribal forms of art and culture.
By June, Ward was ready to start work on the project again, and scheduled a shoot for
June 6-12. The shoot appeared to go well and they had three and a half days of filming
before Puhi got a call from her daughter to attend a Maori Presbyterian synod in Ohope.
Ward took her there, calling a temporary halt to the shoot. When the film was
processed, Ward was disappointed with the results. He felt he had made the wrong
decision to force the processing of the interior footage as the colour was poor. Other
sequences had technical problems or had been poorly filmed due to the crew’s
nervousness. Ward comments: “It is a lesson for us all. It is not the amount of footage
you shoot but its quality that counts”. 506
The next shoot (July 13-19) was much more successful since “Alun is more relaxed and
his camera operating is far superior to any of the earlier filming”, and the colours were
not forced. Ward felt that they had “the heart of the film”, and by this stage, there were
now only a few moments left to be filmed. The final shoot was on August 13-29, 1979,
and there were a number of technical problems, but they managed to record “some
504
Ward, “A Documented Account of the Making of In Spring One Plants Alone,” Section on
Production: 24 November 1978-3 February 1979.
505
Ward, “A Documented Account of the Making of In Spring One Plants Alone,” Section on
Production: 24 November 1978-3 February 1979.
506
Ward, “A Documented Account of the Making of In Spring One Plants Alone,” Section on Production
6-12 June 1979.