Draft 2 PhD Introduction - ResearchSpace@Auckland

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to the detriment of his relationships with the crew. 654 Ward however, sees this as a
necessary evil and believes he has to be tough to make a film “that stands apart”. In an
interview for The Guardian, he was quoted as saying: “I want the most singular result.
Sven Nykvist [the famous Swedish cameraman] once said: ‘A cameraman is judged by
whether he can produce the result that the director wants’. That applies to any member
of the crew”. 655 Ikin’s experience was compounded by the difficulties of not having
worked as a production manager before. She had got involved with the film partially
because of her association with Maynard, who had asked her to do the job, but during
the shoot, she felt she was being criticised for “feeling her way” into the role and felt
demoralised at the end of the film. Although for Ikin the experience of working on
Vigil was not one she wished to repeat, she realises, looking back on the experience,
that: “To do good work you have to work very hard […]. Everything comes at a price
and if you want to do exceptional work, then you put in one hundred and ten percent of
your energy and time and sometimes that can be at the expense of people around you.
In Vincent’s case, the personal search to do the best work with the crew from that story
was his. His drive was inspiring, [as was] his single vision […]. When I look back on
it, and think how obsessed he was […], that’s what you have to be and do, to do the
quality of the work that came out”. 656 Fortunately Ikin did not abandon a film career,
and subsequently produced Jane Campion’s award-winning An Angel at My Table
(based on Janet Frame’s autobiography), among other films.
Timothy White was the first assistant director on the film and believes that Ward
wanted him to work on the project because “we were a team that had worked well
together [on A State of Siege] and while he mistrusted some aspects of the way I
operated, he also respected some of what I brought to him”. 657 Unfortunately the
project heightened the differences of approach between the two filmmakers. White
became involved after the script had been developed and while “it was of such an
idiosyncratic nature, someone with my [sense of] logic was not really the [right] person
[…]. In terms of helping realise it, I did what I could. I wasn’t a first assistant by
nature, although Vincent had respect at least for my sort of organisational instincts, if
not procedural experience”. White describes the production as being a “modest” one,
654 Lynette Read, interview with Bridget Ikin, 27 September 1999.
655 Vincent Ward quoted in Lewis, "Kiwi Fruit Springs from a Hard Terrain."
656 Lynette Read, interview with Bridget Ikin, 27 September 1999.
657 Lynette Read, interview with Timothy White, 29 September 1999.