DEVELOPMENT: Opening space for New Zealand women‘s participation in scriptwriting for feature films? by Marian Evans A thesis submitted to the Victoria University of Wellington in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Creative Writing Victoria University of Wellington 2010 Abstract This thesis explores whether an analytical practice, combining creative writing with activism and based in academia, can help open space for more women scriptwriters within New Zealand feature filmmaking. It links autoethnography with activist and experience-based methodologies within a creative writing framework that includes a memoir, an essay, a report, diaries and emails, an essay screenplay and weblogging, to present multiple views of an investigation into state investment in women‘s feature filmmaking and the researcher‘s own experience as an activist researcher and apprentice scriptwriter. It concludes that, within an analytical creative writing practice, autoethnography‘s accommodation of a single researcher participant‘s shifting roles may help to open space for women scriptwriters to contribute to New Zealand feature films. 2 Acknowledgements I thank all those, named and anonymous, who generated the experience and writing that follows, including but not only members of the communities formally acknowledged.1 I thank Professor Brad Jackson for his early support and here, again, thank the family of Di Oliver-Zahl and the Victoria Foundation for my Women in Leadership Scholarship; my original supervisor at the Victoria Management School (VMS) Associate Professor Deborah Jones, whose continuing engagement I appreciate; and my Gender & Women‘s Studies co-supervisor Dr Lesley Hall for her rigour, generosity and patience. At the International Institute of Modern Letters (IIML) I thank my supervisor, Michael Hirschfeld Director of Scriptwriting Ken Duncum, and my administrative supervisor, IIML director Professor Bill Manhire. I‘ve experienced IIML‘s graceful, generous, culture as being both rigorous and tender, characterised by hard work, open-ended questions, close listening and careful responses; I‘ve learned so much as Ken‘s apprentice, and through participation in the PhD group Bill convenes. I also thank the women who are at IIML every day, for their help, friendliness and laughter—Katie Hardwick- Smith, Clare Moleta and Chris Price. I thank Linda Voorhees for her teaching about taglines and master scenes during her visit to IIML, for her mentorship of Red Dinghy and for her analysis of the Development script. I thank ‗Number 7‘, a representative from an invisible generation of New Zealand women feature filmmakers, who generously talked at length with me, on tape, before I started the research. Her voice and her grief accompanied my work. And, finally, I thank the academic who encouraged me to think of a PhD project as just ‗an exercise‘ rather than a life‘s work. 1 See below 88ff, 105ff, 111. 3 Research for this thesis has been published in other forms, in Junctures;2 in TAKE: The SDGNZ Film and Television Quarterly;3 and in n. paradoxa;4 on the Women in Film & Television NSW website;5 and in my weblog, Wellywood Woman.6 Chapter 4 has been widely circulated and is available on the IIML website.7 At the end of July 2009, drafts of Chapters 4 to 8 were submitted to the Minister for Culture & Heritage‘s Review of the Film Commission Act. 2 Evans 2008[b]. 3 Evans 2009[b]. 4 Evans 2009[c]. 5 Evans 2008[a]. 6 Evans 2009[d]. 7 Evans 2008[c]. 4 Abbreviations Each term is written in full when it first appears in the text. ATL Alexander Turnbull Library BEV Birds Eye View Film Festival CAP Creative Analytical Practices CNZ Creative NZ Arts Council of New Zealand Toi Aotearoa Film Fund New Zealand Film Production Fund Trust FWI First Writers Initiative IFF Independent Filmmakers Fund IIML International Institute of Modern Letters, Victoria University of Wellington Kidsarus 2 Inc Kidsarus NZFC New Zealand Film Commission Te Tumu Whakaata Taonga NZOA New Zealand On Air NZWG New Zealand Writers Guild QEII Queen Elizabeth II Arts Council of New Zealand SFF Short Film Fund SIPF Screen Innovation Production Fund SPADA Screen Production and Development Association Waka Papaho SPIF Screen Production Incentive Fund Te Papa Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa VMS Victoria Management School 5 Weltec Wellington Institute of Technology WIFT Women in Film & Television Women’s Gallery Inc Women‘s Gallery Notes I use an individual‘s (not author) full name at first reference and first name in subsequent references. In footnotes, a reference includes a date only the first time a publication is mentioned, except where it is necessary to distinguish between multiple works by a single author. Chapter 6 has its own internal page numbering. The Film References include only films completed before October 2009. 6 Table of Contents Table of Figures .............................................................................. 9 1 Introduction ............................................................................. 10 Transition 1: To Methodology .......................................................17 2 Memoir: A Methodology-from-experience ................................ 22 Each thing is important ............................................................................................. 22 A Season‟s Diaries ...................................................................................................... 30 Difference ................................................................................................................... 35 Separatism & ‗writing back while also writing to ourselves‘ ................................... 36 The loss of separatism & my ‗home culture‘? ........................................................... 40 Who benefits? & how to harness benefits to open space for stories ....................... 45 Welcoming the unexpected ........................................................................................ 51 Moving forward; & the Karpman and Choy triangles.............................................. 53 Getting Free ................................................................................................................ 55 3 Essay: A Methodology for Academia ........................................ 60 Montage and an autoethnography framework......................................................... 66 Transition 2: To Report .............................................................. 102 4 PhD Report For People Who‘ve Helped Me ............................ 105 Introduction ............................................................................................................. 105 Part 1: Statistics ........................................................................................................ 108 Part 2: Discussion .................................................................................................... 120 7 Transition 3: To Diary & Emails .................................................. 161 Chapter 5 Diary & Emails ........................................................... 166 Counselling ............................................................................................................... 166 Ruth Harley‘s departure ........................................................................................... 167 The NZFC development statistics for the year ending 30 June 2008 .................. 182 FWI again .................................................................................................................. 191 More deferment of hope? ........................................................................................ 196 Transition 4: To Screenplay........................................................ 204 Chapter 6 Development .............................................................. 209 Transition 5: To Weblog & Diary ................................................ 210 Chapter 7 Development‘s development: Weblog & Diary .......... 214 Chapter 8 Conclusions ................................................................ 248 Appendix—Ethics documents ..................................................... 255 Bibliography ............................................................................... 262 Film References .......................................................................... 285 8 Table of Figures Figure 1 Allie Eagle May 2003 Mt Taranaki After Joanna‟s Funeral ........... 24 Figure 2 Joanna Paul [1979] letter .................................................................... 25 Figure 3 Bill MacKay [1970s Self Portrait As Wine Steward] ........................ 26 Figure 4 Bill MacKay [1977-79] Poster Shop 2 oil on canvas 140x140cm (Note the ‗little leather skirt‘ right foreground.) ......................................................... 30 Figure 5 Bill MacKay [1977-79] Poster Shop 1 oil on canvas 126x169cm ....... 30 Figure 6 Women‘s Gallery collective, 26 Harris Street Wellington 1981.........41 Figure 7 Women‘s Gallery collective, 26 Harris Street Wellington January 1980. ..................................................................................................................... 48 Figure 8 Percentages of NZFC feature development applications from and approvals for projects with women writers and directors 2005-2008, by decisionmaker. .................................................................................................. 183 Figure 9 Off The Beaten Path: Violence,