Draft 2 PhD Introduction - ResearchSpace@Auckland

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those rare film shoots where rain was actually welcomed.) As in the case of Ward’s
previous films, the project demanded an unusual level of commitment.
The crew reacted in various ways. For Bridget Ikin, who worked as production
manager on the film, the experience of working on the film “was horrid, the most
miserable production I’ve ever been on and I hope not to experience it again”. 650 Part
of the reason for the cast and crew’s discomfort was that the film was shot in midwinter,
and there was no sun in the valley for most of the day. Ikin describes the location as “a
cold, bleak, frosty gully” and comments on the difficulties of working conditions caused
by the fact that “we were working in very primitive little workers’ huts that had been
carted onto the site as the Production Office”. Most of the crew stayed in caravans that
were cold and bleak in the middle of winter, and they watched the day’s rushes in an old
community hall with little heating. She feels that Ward had chosen the location “for his
own needs, and he’d really chosen something that had a particularly fierce and
unfriendly feeling to it”. 651 Maynard, on the other hand, was quite philosophical about
the difficulties of working on such a location. He was present every day of the shoot,
and concedes that working on the film was “hard work”, and the conditions were “wet
and cold and muddy, but that’s making films […]. You just put on your gumboots and
a swanni and a rain hat and forget about it”. Despite the conditions, “there was a lot of
joy in the results of it”. 652 Ikin concurs that it was exciting to see the rushes each day
and that the cast and crew were aware that “[they] were working on something which
was distinctive and that Vincent was a special filmmaker”, but for her, “it just wasn’t
much fun”. Both Maynard and Ikin were highly dedicated (and have since had
distinguished careers in the film business) so their acknowledgement that this was a
difficult location should probably be seen as an understatement of the actual conditions.
Ikin was concerned for other crew members: “Vincent just pushes people so hard. Even
if people felt like they started in good spirits, and they were a fantastically talented
group of people, by the end of it, they just all couldn’t wait to leave”. 653 Ikin found
Ward to be so “single-focused on the task at hand as if that was all that mattered to him”
650
Lynette Read, interview with Bridget Ikin, 27 September 1999.
651
Lynette Read, interview with Bridget Ikin, 27 September 1999.
652
Lynette Read, interview with John Maynard, 27 September 1999.
653
The New Zealand film industry is not unionised (although some years after Vigil, it did develop codes
of practice.