Queer Selfies has been an opportunity for Robyn to return to GLTB content, having begun her career as a presenter and director on Queer Nation and garnering several audience awards for her short comedy Straight Hike for the Butch Dyke. She also occasionally dabbles in books, publishing two with Longacre Press/Random House NZ, Tips from Your Nana and sequel Tips from Your Grandad.
Producer Bio: Paula Boock
Paula Boock is a noted New Zealand writer and producer, and co-owner of Lippy Pictures. Her credits include television features Field Punishment No 1, Tangiwai, Until Proven Innocent and the forthcoming Pirates of the Airwaves, as well as popular drama series including Insiders Guide to Happiness and The Strip. She is also an award-winning author of titles such as Out Walked Mel, and Home Run. Her lesbian novel Dare Truth or Promise won the New Zealand Children's Book Award in 1997, prompting controversy when the Christian Heritage Party protested.
"I was excited by this opportunity to work with short form documentary, something I have been interested in for some time. In the Loading Docs theme of 'home' and the concept of a crowd funding initiative, Paula and I also saw the opportunity to offer queer content - something which is difficult to do currently in New Zealand via mainstream channels and funding bodies.
"In this piece we really wanted to experiment with the idea of an unguided interview - allowing people the opportunity to speak directly to an unmanned camera, at their own pace and in their own words. I'm interested in how candid and how diverse the responses are when people get to control their own interviews like this, in a 'selfie' type setting. The term selfie can sometimes attract negative associations of 'narcissistic youth' etc, but for many of us in minority communities there's an important sense of empowerment in being able to control our own image.
"In the GLTB community particularly, we're used to our image being manipulated or misused by media - so this was a chance to hand the power back, in a sense.
The idea was in part inspired by the opening titles of Orange is the New Black, which features a close up series of faces. The character and diversity in those faces tells a story in itself. Visually, the set up was based on wedding-style video booths - which can be remarkably engaging to watch even when you don't necessarily know the bride and groom (or bride & bride, or groom & groom...!)
"We're really pleased we were able to film at Big Gay Out, because it is the biggest national gathering of the "rainbow community" and attracts such a diverse range of people from all around the country. We were overwhelmed with the response to the booth - we had over 130 people speak to the camera during the day."
Click here to visit the Queer Selfies website.
