Filming of a scene from the Power Rangers in Mills Lane, near Queen St Auckland. Plans for a big screen industry studio in Hobsonville have been abandoned. File photo / NZ Herald.
Filming of a scene from the Power Rangers in Mills Lane, near Queen St Auckland. Plans for a big screen industry studio in Hobsonville have been abandoned. File photo / NZ Herald.
Opinion by John Drinnan
John Drinnan is the Media writer for the New Zealand Herald.
Hobsonville plan is off, but council agency is still in the hunt for a site.
The housing crisis played a big part in the Auckland Council's decision to abandon development of a $90 million screen industry studio in Hobsonville, says a film industry player familiar with negotiations.
An update to the council's Auckland Development Committee last week highlighted the inability of the project's backers to meet deadlines as the main reason the venture did not go ahead. But a source familiar with the process said the value of the Hobsonville land to alleviate Auckland's housing problems was a major factor.
Last week the Herald revealed that two un-named private sector parties - a local property development company and an overseas studio operator - could not finalise a $90 million deal for the precinct by the October 30 deadline.
Abandonment of the Hobsonville screen industry precinct is a disappointment for Auckland's film and TV production industry, which fiercely supported moves by the council's business development arm, Ateed, to improve industry infrastructure.
Any such development would make Auckland more attractive to overseas production companies, boosting work and jobs. Around 20 firms were interested in being involved.
The Ateed proposal was backed by the Film Commission.
The good news for the screen production industry is that Ateed will keep searching for an alternative site.
Auckland is short of facilities and it won't be easy to find a replacement for Hobsonville, which ticked all the boxes, including having access to ultra-fast broadband.
Ateed's general manager for external relations, Steve Armitage, said: "Ideally [the new location] would be one flat site of at least 10 hectares but preferably more to allow for future growth."
A screen precinct needed to be located near infrastructure such as transport links and main roads and should not be isolated, he said.
"It needs to be near Auckland's key external filming locations such as west coast beaches and Woodhill Forest," Armitage said.
"Practical issues such as train vibration, overhead power lines and competing land uses are also factors which determine the suitability of sites."
"That says there is a big market out there," said IAB chief executive Adrian Pickstock.
Advertising commentator Martin Gillman said the big issue was demand, and the small size of screens, which limited mobile advertising's appeal.
That is changing, but in the meantime it was not an appealing option for many advertisers and agencies, he said.
Ride the wave
A panel at the ad:tech event had some interesting insights on the breakneck pace of technological change.
Hamish Mitchell is general manager of customer loyalty at Loyalty NZ, best known for Fly Buys, which has cardholders in 74 per cent of NZ homes and partners with 50 big brands.
Mitchell pointed to the danger of getting caught up in ideas and prevaricating amid rapid change. "We don't know what we don't know and we have to be sure that we have our fingers in a lot of pies and that we actually have a crack at things," Mitchell said.
"Forget digital, forget mobile, forget Facebook. We have to keep focused and expert on what the customer wants.
"Sometimes we forget that we are just trying to make it easier for customers to do what they have always done in the past."
At a recent US conference he learned that some organisations had moved from a model that was very digital and very mobile, back to what they had done in the past.
They are sending coupons out to people. They had gone through the cycle and found that old methods still worked, he said.
Mitchell said the reality was that there was an ageing population that desperately loved to phone a call centre and desperately loved to get coupons in the mail.
"As marketers, people get hung up on technology," he observed.
Gavin Becker, Colenso BBDO's head of digital, technology and innovation gave an ad agency view.
He said, "every half year it seems like there are new technologies or new combinations of technologies." There was a danger of sticking with the way things had been done in the past and being afraid to take a risk, even a controlled risk.
Series a binge viewer's delight
Christian Slate (L) and Rami Malek star in the Lightbox series Mr Robot. Picture / Supplied
I am intrigued by the premium material that turns up on subscription video on demand. Lightbox is a case in point, offering the complex, dystopian US series Mr Robot, which has become binge viewing in our house.
Rights to the first-run series would not have been cheap.
Lightbox chief executive Kym Niblock said, "Lightbox operates on a strategy which means we acquire high quality, premium, first-run, sometimes exclusive US and UK drama and comedy content - hero content - which we promote to wider New Zealand to demonstrate our commitment to bringing first rate quality shows to this market.
"Mr Robot, Better Call Saul, Suits and Wolf Hall fall into this category.
"Sometimes we 'express' this content into New Zealand, which means we deliver it to NZ audiences within 24 hours of its US broadcast.
"We know from our research that some customers buy Lightbox for the hero content," Niblock said.
Mr Robot is a dark tale that follows a young New Yorker who works in cybersecurity and struggles with anxiety and depression. There's just one problem with such premium content: binge viewers like me become impatient for the arrival of the next season.
