Tiki Taane and his family. L-R: Charlie, Tiki, Rachel and Karcia. Photo / Alex Cairns
The inviting smell of a pie baking in the oven gently wafts in from the kitchen, past the dining table and full-size arcade machine and into the comfy lounge where I’m sitting with Tiki Taane and his whānau.
Taane has plonked himself down into a beanbag. His wife Rachel, a social worker, has curled up into the corner seat of the sectional couch, which allows her to keep an eye on the oven, and their two young teenage children, Karcia and Charlie, are lazing on the lounge floor alternating between tapping away on their phones or picking up their books. The family’s two dogs have been banished to the garage on account of their tendency to go straight for the crotch of visitors.
It’s a very homely scene and, on this grey afternoon in the beachside town of Pāpāmoa, Bay of Plenty, a very cosy place to be. But this serenity is something Taane has had to work at. For the past two years he’s been juggling his family duties with his job as an album producer, his touring schedule as a solo artist and the live sound engineer for drum n’ bass festival favourites Shapeshifter, and a passion project that’s been taking up every spare minute of his time and many dollars from his bank.
Tiki Taane in Session with the CSO is this all-consuming project. An award-winning feature-length, genre-mashing concert/documentary movie that has received 37 laurels from independent film festivals around the world, which he conceived and almost singlehandedly put together. It took him out of his musical comfort zone and thrust him into the world of independent filmmaking.
The movie documents his 2021 concert with the 50-piece Christchurch Symphony Orchestra. The gig took place in his hometown of Ōtautahi/Christchurch in the newly refurbished Town Hall. The concert performance is broken up with behind-the-scenes footage from the rehearsals where the CSO and Taane figured out how to blend the classical orchestral instruments with his electronic music which utilises samplers, loops, traditional Māori instruments and huge thumping waves of bass.
The result is an audio-visual experience that puts you right there with the audience for the songs before transforming you into a fly on the wall to see how the musicians made that magic happen.
Subsequently, this is not just another release for Taane. Having single-mindedly worked on the movie for “thousands of hours” it’s a project that has made him “aware of the next phase of my life”.
“I was the director, producer, musician, composer, sometimes editor, audio mixer plus project manager,” he says when asked how involved in the production he was. Then with a grin he adds, “And I funded the whole thing.”
“The fact that he could do all that and this project at the same time without getting overwhelmed is really awesome,” Rachel says. “Nothing fell off while he was doing the passion project. But because Tiki is such a high achiever and such a creative person, he finds it hard to switch off. I worry about him burning out.”
There were no such worries at the beginning of the project back in 2021 because Taane’s original plan was very low-key.
“The whole idea was just to throw cameras on it and record it,” he says of the movie’s genesis. “I was really just looking at making something to upload on YouTube.”
But his humble idea quickly began to scale up to match the grandeur of the concert. His plans began to integrate high-level production ideals and his simple YouTube video idea suddenly had 22 cameras, half a dozen camera operators and a camera rigged on a wire above the audience’s head to swoop down towards the stage and capture those big sweeping shots like you see during televised sports games.
To add to the specialness of the event Taane invited his old friend - and the couple’s marriage celebrant - award-winning drum n’ bass artist MC Tali to cameo on a song and was also joined on stage by Karcia on vocals and Charlie on bass to perform Serendipity, the Top 10 hit he wrote as a proposal to Rachel in 2019.
“Having these guys up was sick,” he beams, every inch the proud father. “I put them on the payroll so it was a proper job. They got to experience what it’s like to be a paid musician performer.”
When the curtains fell he went backstage and quickly realised he’d captured something much bigger than what he’d originally envisioned. The idea of ditching YouTube and shooting for the big screen quickly formulated in his mind.
“There was no mucking around. Straight after the gig, I was back here sorting through it,” he laughs. “I knew it was a big job.”
But there was also a lot he didn’t know. He had no idea how to use the industry standard, movie production software Final Cut Pro or for that matter how to actually make a movie. To get the basics he did a crash course at YouTube University, following tutorials then learning from his mistakes. The biggest lesson he learned was how to manage his time.
“I’m a real list person. I write lists every day of things to achieve. I write them down and try to smash them out. If I don’t finish all of them, it’s okay.”
“Tiki is one of the most committed, determined, creative people I’ve ever met,” Rachel says. “He smashes every task that he put his mind to.”
“It’s like a drive to produce and make stuff to the best of my ability,” Taane continues. “Because we don’t really have much time. You know, I’m 46 now. It’s gone like this,” he says clicking his fingers. “Holy sh*t! What the heck? That drives me as well. Feeling like we don’t really have much time is a big driving element.”
The other motivator is that his company, TikiDub Productions, is a whānau business.
“I’m independently run, I do everything myself. My sister’s a manager, my other sister is involved. So I’m also worried that if I take my foot off the accelerator, then things would just sort of fall apart.”
Not that he wants to slow down. Or perhaps even could. He acknowledges his productivity levels are well above normal but says that he’s aware of the line between managing his workload and burning himself out.
“This is what I do. I can’t not do this, you know?” he offers as way of explanation.
It’s been a helluva journey getting Tiki Taane in Session with the CSO made, but it’s now out in the world. When we chat it’s already been accepted into 16 film festivals across the globe, including the Berlin Indie Film Festival, the Roma Prisma Film Awards and the Buenos Aires Music Film Festival.
“It was just going to be some videos on YouTube and to get to this point as a music documentary feature film that’s being played around the world and that people are enjoying… that’s really, really sick. I love it,” he smiles. “And knowing it’s translating to foreign audiences and with people who don’t know how to speak Māori or don’t even know my music. They watch this and learn not just about me, but also Māori culture and take away something that’s fresh and exciting and new. That’s really cool and pretty exciting.”
Taane went all in on the project, devoting not just a lot of time, but also a lot of money. He backed himself to create something much bigger than he’d ever attempted before in an art form he knew very little about it. As he puts it, he shot for the moon.
It appears the gamble is paying off. The movie is a great watch, putting you at the heart of a concert that is at turns exhilarating, wondrous and emotional, as well as giving you a rare peek behind the curtain.
He spent years piecing it together and knew exactly what he was working on. Rachel, however, was on the other side of his closed home studio door, with only her memory of the night and his word that this project was going to be something special.
I ask how she felt as Taane relentlessly beavered away in his studio for over two years, funnelling their mutual funds into a project that for most of that time had no light at the end of its very long tunnel.
Did she also believe in the dream?
Without a second of hesitation, she smiles and answers.
“I believe in everything he does.”
And then the oven timer beeps and she gets up and takes the pie out of the oven.
Tiki Taane in Session with the CSO is playing as part of the New Zealand International Film Festival and at special screenings around the county. For more information visit www.tikidub.com
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