Draft 2 PhD Introduction - ResearchSpace@Auckland

239
nineteenth-century mining music, with squeezeboxes and single male voices, but
with a different content – without the strong union feelings and that nineteenth-
century sense of the world – and finally a slight Eastern feel, because people
came back from the Crusades with influences from the Middle East. 786
Ward suggested limitations on the type of instruments that were to be used. He banned
strings because he in his view they “represented regal music, the lute, and had a sense of
refinement which I didn’t want. I wanted percussive music, and music of the air, the
flute, vocals, yells, screams, whoops, whistles, anything like that, anything you could
blow, bagpipes […]. I also wanted a lot of Celtic voice, if I could. I often think that
what dictates style are the limitations - not the things you use, but the things you don’t
use”. 787 Tabrizzi followed Ward’s brief fairly closely but did utilise cellos for the bass
line on occasion, as well as trumpets and the organ to provide a foundation for the other
instruments. He and Ward worked together very closely: “We went through every
piece, the timing and what it was aiming to do”. 788 The music on the soundtrack is
successful in combining diverse musical traditions to create a vivid sense of period as
well as contributing to the creation of the mood of each scene and underlining the
emotions of the characters.
The scale of production of The Navigator was much larger than that of Vigil, which
effectively involved only one location and a small cast. Ward compared it to “a military
exercise” and commented that: “It’s a real jigsaw of a film […]. Every other shot is
filmed on a different location, although you’d never know it”. The location shots were
then matched up with studio locations and visual effects. 789 A number of complex
special effects were required, utilising technology that was not readily available in New
Zealand at that time. Ward believes it was particularly in the area of special effects,
where an Australian designer was employed, that the film benefited from becoming a
New Zealand/Australian co-production. 790 An example of a scene that was shot on
786 Ward quoted in Campbell and Bilbrough, "A Dialogue with Discrepancy: Vincent Ward Discusses the
Navigator," 14. These sources were an interesting and thoughtful choice generally in line with recent
research on the music of the period.
787 A copy of Ward’s notes to the composer indicating his ideas for the film’s soundtrack is included in
Peter Hughes, The Navigator: A Medieval Odyssey Study Guide (Canberra: Ronin Films, 1989) 9-10.
788 Campbell and Bilbrough, "A Dialogue with Discrepancy: Vincent Ward Discusses the Navigator," 14.
789 Kerry Jimson, "Vincent Ward," Agenda.50 (1989): 9.
790 Campbell and Bilbrough, "A Dialogue with Discrepancy: Vincent Ward Discusses the Navigator," 12.