A series of Happy Hīkoi short films about Tauranga Moana are being enhanced with AI technology.
A series of Happy Hīkoi short films about Tauranga Moana are being enhanced with AI technology.
Artificial Intelligence and clever animation feature in a unique film project that uses 18th-century influential Māori chiefs, settlers and Pākehā colonists to tell the history of Tauranga Moana.
Hopes are high that futuristic technology could also transform traditional forms of storytelling for Māori and allow tribes to bring their own journeys to life through their ancestors.
Te Tuinga Support Services Trust has a ten-part mini-series Happy Hikoi in the making, which it anticipated would resonate with the younger generation and visitors to the region.
Executive director Tommy Wilson said it was “exciting” to chronicle Tauranga’s early days in a modern-day format that had unlimited potential when it came to telling indigenous stories from Aotearoa and around the world.
AI technology, used in the Happy Hikoi film series, is expected to change the face of the movie industry.
The 10 two-minute film clips were under production but had the potential to be made into spinoff segments of half an hour that could delve deeper into the historical events and people behind them.
Wilson acknowledged Tauranga’s history was marred by tragedies and bitter bloodshed in the Māori Land Wars and the Battle of Gate Pā, which could never be forgotten. While the film’s narratives were designed to be informative and factual they would, however, lean on the positive side to encourage people to engage with the kaupapa.
“We want them to be engaging and not boring.”
Stories covered included Hēni Te Kiri Karamū, Taiaho Hōri Ngātai, Hēnare Wiremu Taratoa, the journey of the canoes such as Tākitimu, the importance of Matariki, missionary Alfred Nesbit Brown and navy commander Captain John Fane Charles Hamilton, who commanded a colonial regiment and died in the Battle of Gate Pā.
Wilson, an accomplished author with 33 books under his belt, was passionate about the films and future opportunities.
“I’ve been a storyteller for a long time. The format is pretty much still inside our heads and it’s coming out like a balm. The more we massage it the right way it comes out. The process is very organic.”
Working in partnership from day one with local Māori historian Reon Tuanau ensured “the voice of tanga te whenua is captured in its true essence”, Wilson said.
Film director Robert Morgenstern is working on the Happy Hikoi film series. Photo / Alex Cairns
Tauranga-based German film director Robert Morgenstern — who previously worked for the BBC on various documentaries and had been in the industry for 20 years — said AI technology was changing the face of film at a “phenomenal pace”.
“It allows you to work at speed and use new creative angles that we haven’t seen before and do animation which you could have only done with big Hollywood budgets. Rather than spending billions and billions, you can work with a limited budget. It is quite mind-blowing and frightening at the same time as it will cull quite a lot of jobs in the creative industry
“Every week there is a new development”.
The Happy Hikoi stories fascinated him and he said it was an amazing project to work on and research.
“I think we can offer quite a surprisingly fresh look into local history. You don’t always have to tell a grim, blame-game story. You can see who were the strong characters and how did they look into the future and what did they strive for.”
Morgenstern said the production process was interesting and it had taken grainy images as a reference, which were animated alongside speeches and dialogues from the past.
“AI is a new paintbrush ... you can toss stories up on the wall and while they’re not picture-perfect in the finest details you can move on quite quickly. It allows you to do new creative angles that we haven’t seen before.
Some descendants of the characters were involved with voiceovers, while Kiwi musicians had also lent their skills to it.
The project, which Te Tuinga had funded to date, was presented to a teachers’ conference in Te Puke last week and to Tourism Bay of Plenty this week and Wilson said the feedback had been positive.
Tourism Bay of Plenty general manager Oscar Nathan said the short films were a brilliant way to bring the stories to life.
“They will enable people to understand the history of Tauranga Moana, the sites of significance that are right under our noses that everyone passes all the time.”
Nathan said it was also a way to future-proof history by using technology, “so we are very excited with what we have been shown”.
Nathan said he was sure it could find a way of incorporating the stories with some of its initiatives.
“It makes it really easy and connects really well when you have got vested interests within the community wanting to proactively bring the stories to life.”
St Mary’s Catholic School’s deputy principal Lisa Broadmore said the ability for schools to tell their local stories using AI tied in with the focus on local history in the school curriculum.
”It’s a way of bringing it to life for students that’s really engaging,” she said.“It’s about being able to tell our stories in an exciting, visual way that’s engaging, using apps that are actually free”. That’s important for schools because money is tight.”
She said it would be a tool to re-engage students from disconnection.
”There is a lot of disconnection for young people, for whatever reason ... and it’s about being able to bring them back through technology students are familiar with.”
The message from Wilson’s presentation tied in with the key messages of the day-long conference of being able to respond to the complex needs of young people, she said.
