Getting more brown faces on screen is the mission for Miki Magasiva and Mario Gaoa.
Director Miki Magasiva tells of the recurring nightmare he used to face when trying to have brown people cast in commercials.
"I'd have the meeting room in laughter. Everybody would love it. And I would think I would have sold them through, then all of a sudden somebody would say, 'That's not our target market. He/she's great, but that's just not our target market.' Or sometimes they wouldn't even justify it. They'd just go, 'Okay, who else do you have?'"
Today, he says, every second person in a comedy commercial in New Zealand is brown. Partly, he says, this is because it's fashionable — that it's increasingly cool to be a minority — and partly it's because there's often a brief requiring diversity.
"It's a shame," he says, "because it would have been nice to have led the world in accepting ethnic minorities but I do feel like it's just trendy now to be diverse in the commercial sector."
But if that diversity is increasingly apparent on screen in commercials, it's far from reflected throughout the industry, especially in its upper reaches, and Magasiva — along with his friend Mario Gaoa, founding member of The Naked Samoans and co-creator of bro'Town — wants to do something about that. They were among the vanguard of Pacific Islanders in the industry in the early part of the century: rare brown faces at a time of overwhelming whiteness, although the Magasiva name was making waves even earlier than that: Miki's older brother Robbie got his big break on highly regarded local police drama Shark in the Park in 1990. Miki, following in his brother's footsteps, built his reputation as a big deal in the world of commercials, but is making a move into the world of drama, having recently directed the first two episodes of the brilliant TVNZ miniseries The Panthers.
"Mario and I have been in the industry for a long time now," Magasiva says, "and it only just feels like in the last year, last two years, have we felt like we're genuinely being taken seriously about our story."
Gaoa says that if Pasifika representation in the New Zealand screen industry was a school student its grade would be an X, maybe even a Y.
Their plan to change that is called The Brown Factory. Asked what The Brown Factory is offering, Gaoa laughs and says "Love! Aroha!" Magasiva says it's about making a pathway for Pacific Islanders to come through and be creative and make it easier to get into the screen industry than it was when he and Gaoa came through. They say it's important for people to be able to see other people like them are succeeding.
"It's just like you go to a pub and you find groups and you just find your little group that you find more comfortable," Magasiva says. "What we're trying to do is create an environment where it's comfortable for them to flourish."
Initially, people will be able to come to The Brown Factory and work through their ideas.
"It is actually about providing as much love and getting the word out there to people that we're there trying to champion the cause. Sometimes that's all it takes for young people to notice."
It's not just about opening doors to the glamour of directing or producing, they say, but about getting brown faces into any of the many roles available in the screen industry: camera operators, directors of photography, makeup artists, wardrobe.
"The creative process filters way down," Magasiva says. "Even if you're in wardrobe or as an art director or as a location manager or the art department, you still have a creative outlet in those departments. And if you get into those departments, that's a viable career option."
They've already set up a series of workshops for creatives to discuss ideas. They hope The Brown Factory will grow into a place where Pacific stories can be developed, produced and seen on screens. But to get to that point, they need support, partnerships and money, which they don't yet have.
"So, yeah, starting off now, we don't have much to offer other than a place to come to and jam ideas," Magasiva says.
They've met like-minded people, had discussions with the Film Commission and others, but now they need to take action. "Plain and simple, we need help," Magasiva says. "We need help to do this.
"It's just about convincing other people to come on board and back us as well, 'cause we, I certainly know I can, f***ing do it and do it well, and I know Mario can do it.
"It's a sales task," he says, "which we're crap at."
They see vast untapped potential in the ability of Pasifika peoples to bring their view of the world and their stories to film-making.
"I always use this analogy," Magasiva says, "but it doesn't always go down well. When you grow up as a Pacific Islander, it's not rare to get a hiding. And I think probably a lot of my Palagi friends got hidings as well, in that generation. And when you talk about getting a hiding, it can actually sound like a serious drama, but if you talk to any Pacific Islander about getting a hiding, it's always through comedy. It's always through laughter. I think there is something that can, and often does, see life through comedy.
"So I think there is something intrinsic about islanders that is able to marry drama, the seriousness, the harshness that we go through in life and make it more funny. See it through kind of a funny lens or a more upbeat lens. I think that's probably just come through our storytelling, and we want our film-making to come through that as well."
Gaoa says: "It's really important you're able to write the stories you want. A lot of times it's easy to get steered towards an outcome that is not necessarily the one you started off with. We want Pacific scriptwriters to feel comfortable with what they're writing and have a place to come to where they know you want to make that. Let's try to make that happen. Because there's knowing how to make films and there's knowing how to make films. The traditional path of, 'We can't do this, we can get away with that, don't know if these people are gonna like it'. That all goes out the window for us."
The name Magasiva is one of the most well-known in New Zealand film and television, made most famous by Miki's hot actor brothers Robbie and Pua, who starred on Shortland Street and in Sione's Wedding, among many other high-profile roles. But, as a director, Miki has been at least equally successful.
He says his parents were always encouraging of whatever their children wanted to do. They too had a natural performing streak: "You can see storytellers in them," he says. "My dad is a great orator. He's a great storyteller. That's just part of what it is to be who he is in the community. And my mum was a hilarious storyteller when she got pissed."
Older brother Robbie was the first to make it in the industry, falling in love with acting at high school, to the extent that he gave up a promising rugby career to pursue it.
"It was the thing he chased," Magasiva says, "that he wanted to chase, so I think that comes down to pure passion for it. And, let's face it: The guy is handsome as! Far out! That makes it heaps easier, eh? And then he had a younger brother [Pua] who was handsome and cut to s***, so that was their path, and then I just had to work hard."
Two years ago everything changed for the family when Pua died in a suspected suicide. Magasiva says he's been through a whole bunch of emotions since then.
"Your life is just different. That's just what happens when you have such a massive part of your life go out that way. It just absolutely changes how you define yourself, how you see the world, how you approach the world, and then just how you live, because you have this grieving thing that never goes away."
In addition to starting The Brown Factory, Magasiva and Gaoa are developing a script for a feature film. It's set after the Christchurch earthquakes and focuses on a Polynesian woman who has lost her daughter and granddaughter and goes to work in a rich, white, private school where the kids are supposed to have it all together but where she finds they need just as much help as the kids in her own neighbourhood.
The pair describe it as reverse-engineering the "white saviour" story, where a white person goes into a non-white neighbourhood and saves the kids there from themselves and the dangers surrounding them.
Magasiva says: "We're trying to create a story about hope. And we feel like it's a New Zealand story, because we have found shelter in this country and, in many ways, we are grateful for the opportunity that we've been given in this country. We've had all our Palagi mates, that we continue to have. And we know that the future is not just about screaming injustice, but how we get along as a community — a new community."
