Local documentary Ironmaori: Movement of the People plays on Maori Television at 8.30pm tonight. Co-producer Grant Harding relives "the making of".
Tonight our "baby" goes out into the big, bad world.
To some people Ironmaori: Movement of the People will be just another 52 minutes of television when it plays on Maori Television, but for myself and co-producer Shelly Te Uki this documentary means much more. It is the culmination of a year-long journey.
About this time last year, while enjoying a glass of wine, we began talking about a television project. We had made three documentaries together previously, one which had won the 2000 Qantas Award for Best Sports Programme. But that was a decade ago and we had suffered many frustrations since.
I can't remember which one of us suggested Ironmaori, but it made sense immediately.
My former Ironman coach Jeanette Cooper was involved as race director, and I will always owe her a debt.
And while completing swimming and running relay legs in the inaugural half-ironman event in 2009 I had sensed something special in the wind.
We knew that among the nearly 600 competitors who had entered the 2010 event based at Pandora Pond in Napier's Ahuriri, there would be nearly 600 stories.
On approaching Ironmaori founder Heather Skipworth we got a positive response.
At that early stage we determined that making this documentary was not about making money. I had read once that Phil Smith, a successful independent New Zealand television producer, believed in "charity" projects as a way of moving forward. So we started with the view that we would make this documentary come what may, and good things would come from it.
That was the correct mindset because Maori Television turned down our proposal, and we didn't waste our time with TVNZ or TV3. Experience told us that Ironmaori would be way over the heads of their commissioners.
In October the process began in earnest. Over coffee we explained our vision to Heather, her business partner Missy Mackey, and their husbands, Wayne and George. The documentary would be character-driven, not event-based, and Heather was charged with putting up the candidates. Her recommendations proved to be spot-on.
Over six weeks we filmed in lunch hours, after work and at weekends - interviews, action sequences, meetings, anything we could get - culminating in Ironmaori on the first weekend in December. By the time we had finished we had a box filled with 30 DV Cam tapes - and had made our share of mistakes.
As we approached the last week of filming and our first real cost - another cameraman for race day, Hastings district councillor and TV3 shooter Simon Nixon - I feared for the project. Without funding, how could we afford the high cost of going to Auckland to edit the material, much of which we had now branded as "gold", to go with the "glue" provided by an extensive interview with Heather on the cemetery hill above Pakipaki?
But then a "good thing" happened. Pharmac's One Heart Many Lives campaign expressed an interest and once we provided a budget, they signed off on it. They believed in Heather, and she believed in us. I was grateful that I would not have to hide from "Iron Maori" for the next 20 years.
In February I took two weeks' leave and headed to Auckland to edit the documentary. I was not at my most confident - cutting down more than 20 hours of vision to 52 minutes over two weeks was a huge challenge, when three to four weeks was the norm.
But some superb preparation by Shelly, who had transcribed two key interviews word-for-word, got me off on the right foot.
Prior to day one I hatched my plan. I was going to start the edit on part five of six - race day. I knew how that part was constructed. It would keep my editor busy while I got in the groove.
As I drove to work that first Monday - and it took 40 minutes to travel 9km (65 minutes was the worst day) to the sweatbox we worked in above Auckland's notorious K Road - the golden moments that would make up the programme began to circulate in my head.
When I got there I was greeted with the smell of urine in the stairwell, thanks to some of the local clientele - yes, it's a glamorous world, is television.
Upon meeting offline-editor Moira Powell for the first time I ran through my vision for the project, she listened intently, and then we got on with it. It was the most draining day of work I have had in recent memory.
She was questioning me, pushing forward, and I was straining to keep up. I hated it. I like to be in control.
So I worked and worked and worked, headphones on watching vision.
The pattern developed. Each morning I would get up at 6am and write the next part's script, then go to work and find the vision. By the end of day two I was half a day ahead and that is how it stayed.
After that first day I was never exhausted at work: It was too demanding and exciting to see this documentary evolve.
Shelly was rung to do some emergency shooting, and was busy in the Bay collecting photos and on other tasks.
In Auckland, Facebook and the IronMaori website were searched, newspaper headlines were gathered and the pace was frenetic.
Every day was the same - hard-out until eventually Moira would hit the wall, and I'd be glad about it. And the thinking would go on through the night in Meadowbank on the city side, and on the North Shore where Moira, an absolute gem, designed our titles and our graphics, and did other jobs at home.
At the end of the second Tuesday we had a programme of 61 minutes - seven days in the making. And then the tough calls began.
On Thursday both our sponsor Pharmac, and our hoped-for broadcaster, Maori Television, were coming. Simon Coldrick, who had managed the facilities and gathered our Auckland team, finally got on top of the urine smell. A good omen, perhaps.
The Pharmac representative loved it, then Manutai Schuster, the buyer for Maori Television came in.
In the first few minutes she was writing notes, and then she stopped, started laughing and that was it. She watched and ran through a gamut of emotions. She called our programme "the documentary" and that was enough for me. Our baby had a home.
The following day we finished our 10 days in that K Road prison cell - and I had pulled Moira's hair only once. Early on she had joked "I'm never wrong" when making a point, and I had replied, "unfortunately for you, you're working with another person who is never wrong". The rules of engagement were established.
Ten days of hard work, 10 days I wouldn't trade.
What followed was sedate in comparison - Simon grading the pictures and further tidying the product, then Flaxmere-based William Winitana's rich voice replacing my voiceover with the finalised script as Greg Junovich mixed the sound.
It was a "good thing" that we had been pointed in Simon's direction by a friend - the Aucklanders did us proud.
By the end of February it was all over.
In mid-August we had the red carpet premiere at Te Taiwhenua o Heretaunga. It was marvellous. Good things have happened.
As I told some people recently, "we haven't got rich off this project but we have been enriched".
We have worked with great people, and a great event which changes lives for the better.
Tonight we are privileged to share our experience with you. Hope you can make it.
Ironmaori: Movement of the PeopleMaori Television - tonight, 8.30pm
*Grant Harding is the deputy editor of Hawke's Bay Today.
Red Carpet
Comments from the red carpet premiere of Ironmaori: Movement of the People in Hastings earlier this month:
* ``It captured the essence and spirit of an event that has changed many lives in a positive way including my own. A wonderful documentary that I'm sure will reach and inspire many more.'' - Kevin Nicholson, four-time NZ representative to the World Ironman championships in Kona, Hawaii and current Ironmaori champion.
* ``Truly amazing documentary ... the honesty, the funny parts, the sad parts and the triumphs ... it shows the positives of people believing in and achieving their goals.'' - Celia McIlroy
* ``Thank you for making me cry, laugh, cry and laugh some more ... can't wait to watch it again.'' - Brenda Ferguson
* ``The film-makers used humility and respect just as all of those involved do the same. Ironmaori is the most motivating event I have participated in ... it is about people, whanaungatanga and te hauora.'' - Ann Bondy, two-time NZ representative to the World Ironman championships and current Ironmaori Vet 2 champion.